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NASA Building Giant Roller Coaster For Science
Jamie found a story of NASAs Giant "Science" Roller Coaster. It will be used as an escape chute on rocket launchpads, and will be the 3rd highest drop in the world. More like the Cedar Point Demon Drop than a roller coaster, but still, I'd ride it.
For website testing... yeah, that's the ticket.
Just be sure you pack the adult diapers for that ride.
Somewhere, Noah Webster and Samuel Johnson weep.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
I guess that needs to be corrected....
It will be used as an escape shoot on rocket launchpads, and will be the 3rd highest drop in the world.
I think the word you're groping for there is 'chute'. ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
not only do they get to go to space, but free rollercoaster rides aswell.
Dying in a giant fireball? Yeah, I'd ride it too.
More music, fewer hits
Has NASA ever had an accident where 4 minutes to escape is good enough? Most of the accidents that I've read about went "Boom" and was over, long before any escape system like this could work.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
You can read more about it here.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Charge tourists for rides when the launch pad isn't being used.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dddm5bQeKvg
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Sounds like Taco has taken a ride or two...For those of you that don't know what that is here you go. http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/park/rides/thrill/demon_drop/index.cfm
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
I read the headline as NASCAR building giant roller coaster for science for some reason, which would have been pretty fucking awesome too.
That is an awesome free fall ride that everyone pretty much rides when entering the park. Old, but still great.
I was at Cape Canaveral this past spring, just as a tourist. (Missed
Buzz Aldrin signing his book by half an hour, dernit!) We took the better
tour that let you see more of the launch pads and the construction sites.
Anyway, the escape system they have right now is a zip line. If something
bad is about to happen, the astronauts grab onto the harness and slide down
a metal cable. There's a sorta-fire-proof vehicle at the end of the zip line
ready to haul ass at a moments notice. Their instructions were to get in the
vehicle and take off. Fast. I assume praying would also be involved. The
guide said that MIGHT be enough to keep them from becoming BBQ, but not blowing
up the craft is still the best strategy.
Getting blown into space on top of a barely controlled explosion is still a
pretty dangerous profession. I admire those with the guts to do it.
My physics class in high school went to Great Adventure. That, I suppose, helped advance science too.
Diet Coke and Mentos experiments advance science as well.
While we're at it, let's put random stuff in the microwave and see what happens. You know, for the advancement of science. Third star from the left and straight on til morning.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Well, that's not difficult at all! So, as long as you have "healthy workers," the problem is mitigated. There's no chance that they will all be incapacitated simultaneously. And all they have to do is pull the wounded to the escape seats, buckle them in, light up their last cigarette, then smash the big red button to begin the speedy 4 minute decent back to the bunker
Are they serious? I believe the article's author did a poor job of construing some facts, but it still sounds like this thing is a death trap.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
Maybe in addition to the Depends, you need a pellet gun to ride the thing, which would make the device a shoot and make you Psycho Astronaut to even want to go down it.
But it takes 4 minutes to evacuate these people. Does any disaster involving space travel and rockets have a 4 minute window for people to escape? Normally if a life threatening disaster occurs, it's so fast the people involved don't even know what hit them.
That said, it still looks like it'll be fun to train on.
adventure-today.com
Putting aside for the moment that the people this is intended for will only be using it in emergency situations, they are also the group of people least likely to appreciate such a "ride" even if it were in casual circumstances. These folks already ride a massive controlled explosion into orbit where they are weightless for a week or more at a time. Compared to that ride this "third highest drop in the world" probably sounds like a day off for their stomachs. ;)
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I thought I read a while back that NASA was planning a low-friction rails system akin to Final Fantasy 8's Ragnarok launch. Although I would guess the pitch of the climb would be a bit less dramatic.
The idea of which of course is building energy instead of a massive short blast. You build up speed over a long distance, and slowly climb to virtical, where the rails end.
You can have your flying car, I'll take the spaceship with giant claw hands.
You have been eaten by a Hurd of GNU.
It looks like this track goes straight down along the launch tower, while the old system had wires going from the top of the tower at a shallow angle. It seems to me that the old solution gets you out of the blast radius quicker. It certainly stays farther away from the noisy end of the rocket.
What they should design is a small engine-less glider that sits on top of a conventional rocket and in an emergency a small solid fuel rocket would propel it and the occupants to safety.
davecb5620@gmail.com
The thing to do when you were a kid riding the Demon Drop was to put pennies on your knees. During the initial acceleration you'll fall faster than gravity and the pennies will lift off of your knees. Then - during free fall they'll hover in front of your chest as you fall. It's a brief moment of weightlessness.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Waoouw. A 1-year old dupe.
So, if the 'new' story link is slashdotted, try this one from the 'old' news: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4888.
Now all they need to do is put some electromagnets on it and run it in reverse. Voila, a booster with 100% reusable parts :)
"F***, there's a bomb in the ship!"
*Fastens seatbelt for the chute*
"OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII...."
(Insert giant explosion in the background)
> More like the Cedar Point Demon Drop than a roller coaster, but still, I'd ride it.
No doubt it would be highly exciting as the shuttle or rocket it was attached to is probably in the process of exploding.
Lemme know how it goes.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No matter where it is, no matter how exclusive the theme park: when those atronauts get to the 'coaster... there will be a queue.
Sounds like something from the Bill Nye (the Science Guy) show.
(BTW, anyone know if that's available on DVD? My younger kids were just asking about it and the tapes I made off the air years ago are getting pretty worn.)
-- Alastair
This system only addresses the scenario of a fire on the launch pad. If anything happens after ignition of the solid rocket booster, the escape scenario is to blow the bolts holding the Orion crew module to the rest of the stack and light off the launch escape booster, which pulls the entire capsule away at an angle at something like 10 g's and deploys the parachutes.
If there's a fire on the pad, especially after fueling when there's a hundred thousand pounds or so of oxygen and hydrogen in the second stage, you don't want to waste time on an elevator going up and down 25 stories, and then running away from the pad on foot, unprotected. Instead, you hop into the coaster car, push the big red button, and it pretty much freefalls, not just to the ground, but coasting into an actual bunker. I imagine most of the time is spent blowing the capsule hatch, getting the astronauts out of their buckles, and helping them through the door.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
wow cmdr taco just dropped some vague great lakes theme park reference to a twenty year old park ride.
to be a test pilot for that there roller-coaster. You can even set my pants on fire with a Nano before sending me down.
Hope is the currency of fools
Anyone tried it so far?.....
did you use KY Jelly during your childhood?