NASA Tests Heaviest Chute Drop Ever

Iddo Genuth writes "NASA and the US Air Force have successfully tested a new super-chute system aimed at reclaiming reusable Ares booster rockets. On February 28, 2009 a 50,000-pound dummy rocket booster was dropped in the Arizona desert and slowed by a system of five parachutes before it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly without any damage. This was possibly the heaviest parachute drop ever, and NASA is planning to perform even heavier drops of up to 90,000 pounds in the next few months."

Comments

A good start

[Anonymous Coward]

Now lets see if they can parachute the first stage of a Sea Dragon rocket. Then they'll be in business!

Re:A good start

[khallow]

How much would that stage weigh empty? I know it was supposed to launch 500 tons to orbit (about the equivalent payload of 4 Saturn V rockets).

Re:A good start

[d3ac0n]

More importantly, how can the submitted article say the rocket "crashed" yet then immediately afterward say it landed softly. Are those two terms not mutually exclusive?

On February 28, 2009 a 50,000-pound dummy rocket booster was dropped in the Arizona desert and slowed by a system of five parachutes before it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly without any damage.

I suppose one could have a soft "crash landing" in an airplane, with the definition of a "crash landing" being: An unscheduled landing due to mechanical problems. But in this case, the parachute system apparently worked flawless ly, exactly as it was designed. So even the loosest definition of "crash" would not fit.

Can someone please fix the article?

Perhaps to this:

On February 28, 2009 a 50,000-pound dummy rocket booster was dropped in the Arizona desert and slowed by a system of five parachutes before it landed softly without any damage.

Thanks.

Re:A good start

[jascallaw]

Thank you so much. It bugged the hell out of me when I read the article. Those terms are mutually exclusive and nonsensical in the article.

Astroid Net?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if a similar system can be used to slowdown certain large asteroids thus avoiding our extinction.

Re:Astroid Net?

[khallow]

Afraid not. Parachutes work by increasing air drag. An incoming asteroid would be moving at something like 30 miles per second. The parachute would only have at most a couple of seconds to work. Having said that, if you had a boundary case of an asteroid that would lose a considerable portion of its energy to the atmosphere, but still have enough to cause significant property damage, then you could attach an inflatable balloon (I believe they call it a "ballute") to the front to increase the cross-sectional area of the asteroid, so it would lose more energy to the upper atmosphere. Those asteroids are probably too infrequent to bother planning for.

Re:Astroid Net?

[phantomfive]

Those asteroids are probably too infrequent to bother planning for.

That's it. You've just chosen our doom.

Re:Astroid Net?

[khallow]

There'd have to be a lot of them. After the first thousand or so, I'd be like "Ok, I'm tired of this. Let's break out the parachutes."

Re:Astroid Net?

[heironymous]

Respectfully disagree. The damage done by an incoming asteroid is primarily from all that potential energy arriving at the Earth. Even if you could attach a parachute to "lose more energy to the upper atmosphere" our planet still loses.

This is the same reason why nuking the asteroid into dust won't help, if all those tiny particles still hit us.

Re:Astroid Net?

[d3ac0n]

This is the same reason why nuking the asteroid into dust won't help, if all those tiny particles still hit us.

I've never understood this argument. Let's take a look at this: Every day, THOUSANDS of tiny meteorites impact the atmosphere. Of that, only a tiny fraction ever reach the ground. The vast majority of them burn up in the atmosphere. Of the ones that reach the ground, a tiny fraction of the original tiny fraction actually impact on land. A tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction land somewhere in a populated area. A tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of the tiny fraction do property damage. and the amount that actually injure or kill someone? Well, the chance is so minuscule as to be laughable.

Yet somehow, utilizing one of our Weapons of Mass Destruction to actually SAVE lives by obliterating a "Chicxulub" sized asteroid into "burn up in atmosphere" sized chunks is somehow supposed to be more dangerous? What?

While I realize that it's impossible to predict precisely how a given asteroid would respond to being blasted with a nuke, Knowing that a large asteroid is about to strike, I would much rather take my chances with a bunch of smaller pieces striking earth. The math says we would be MUCH more likely to survive a bunch of "Meteor Crater Arizona" sized meteors landing randomly around the earth than one "Chicxulub" strike.

Somehow I think that the scientists predicting this are just putting "anti-nuke" politics ahead of protecting the planet.

Re:Astroid Net?

[troll8901]

I have had it with these xxxing asteroids in this xxxing upper atmosphere!

Re:Astroid Net?

[chaim79]

Personally I'm with the 'nuke it out of the sky' school of thought, but you have to understand that a large portion of the energy will still hit the earth.

A single solid asteroid hitting the earth will release the kinetic energy, mostly into the ground, creating a big shockwave, earthquakes, etc.

The remains of an asteroid that has been nuked will still hit the earth with all that kinetic energy (minus a tad from the Nuke), however since it's now small particles it will be unlikely to damage the earth, it will simply add all that energy to the atmosphere. The result will likely be a huge jump in temps around that area, probably for a 500mile radius. Eventually the energy will dissipate and things will get back to normal.

Basically it's the difference between a laser and a heat-lamp, both could put out the same amount of energy, but one is focused on a single spot causing destruction, the other is dissipated over an area causing general warming.

It would be interesting to see someone calculate the amount of energy dumped into the atmosphere and what the effect would be (how high the temps would jump, the potential of weather disruption, the amount of radioactive material from the nuke that would follow the rest of the asteroid back, etc). Just to make a complete comparison between a ground strike by an asteroid and a general dumping of the energy into the atmosphere.

Re:Astroid Net?

[davolfman]

Better than a marshmallow man, right?

Re:Astroid Net?

[d3ac0n]

You make an excellent point, but you also fail to take into consideration how much energy will not be transferred via the asteroid bits that simply miss the earth due to being blasted off into space by the force of the nuclear detonation. It just seems logical that reducing a large single mass strike down to a smaller mass spread out over a wide area is going to be significantly less damaging. Also, any heat transferred to the atmosphere is going to be transferred primarily to the upper atmosphere, where it is much more likely to simply bleed back into space.

Also, if the choice is between being exposed to a laser vs being exposed to the same amount of energy in a heat lamp form over several days (or weeks, or months) then thank you, I'll take the heat lamp.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Talderas]

Why don't we use multiple nukes launched in series, use a few large ones to bust of the asteroid, with a few smaller yield warheads to blast the chunks into outbound trajectories from Earth.

Re:Astroid Net?

[sunking2]

The asteroid loses, the Earth is much more massive than it is. Of course we may lose as a side affect as well.

Honestly I take issue of the whole tiny particle thing. Tiny particles will be deflected by, or burned up in teh atmosphere pretty readily. Oh wow, nice pretty light show for a few hours. I can deal with that. The atmosphere is massive and can easily absorb the extra heat. Not to mention you have a heck of alot more of an affected area to absorb the strike. The whole "its solely about mass, which is essentially the same" is simplistic and used by people whow ant to appear smart to those who aren't. Real life is a bit more complex a system than HS Physics test questions.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Anonymous Coward]

this is why we need rocket motors on the moon to adjust the orbit and make it act as a shield.... movie rights on their way.

Re:Astroid Net?

[berend botje]

There's no air pressure to blast against. Unless you drill the nuke deep into the asteroid first, there will be a hopeful flash of light and a lasting disappointment.

A small part of the asteroid might vaporize and likely there will be cracks and dislodged chunks. They will, however, merrily continue straight on their Earthbound route of doom.

Small consolation is that when a large asteroid hits the Earth it will be so fast and so utterly undetected beforehand that you probably won't notice it. Unless you are on the other side of the planet. Then you might suffer a couple of weeks before you die.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Talderas]

Wasn't dropping bombs in space for propulsion the basic design of the Orion Project?

Re:Astroid Net?

[khallow]

The damage done by an incoming asteroid is primarily from all that potential energy arriving at the Earth.

By the time that asteroid touches measurable atmosphere, most of that potential energy is now kinetic energy. And I speak of asteroids small enough that most of the energy of the asteroid can be transfered to the atmosphere.

Re:Astroid Net?

[khallow]

Past a certain cross-sectional density (mass per unit area), it doesn't matter if the asteroid is solid or dust, most of the energy is going into the ground. Sure the atmosphere has considerable mass, but get a large enough asteroid, then the mass of the intervening atmosphere is insignificant.

Re:Astroid Net?

[berend botje]

Yes, it was. It was supposed to eject the remains of the bomb into a focussed jet of debris. For that purpose it had to have special blast chambers of precise dimensions. And after all that, there had to be quite a few detonations to get the (small) craft moving anywhere at speed. A single blast won't do it.

There are quite a few unsolved issues, not the least the material of the blast chamber which had better last a long time.

Detonating a bomb on the side of an asteroid will at best transfer the momentum of half the original bomb. That's "not very heavy" times "quite fast" at the bomb side, versus "very, very massive" times "quite fast" on the asteroid side.

The asteroid would laugh in your face if you tried.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Stratocastr]

Those asteroids are probably too infrequent to bother planning for.

Famous last words my friend, famous last words

Re:Astroid Net?

[petermgreen]

It partly depends on how far away it is from earth when we discover it.

If we can get it when it's at the same distance as the moon we only need to divert it about one degree. At larger distances even smaller diversions are needed.

If going for a bomb though it seems the best option would be to try and blow a chunk off the side.

Re:Astroid Net?

[don depresor]

there had to be quite a few detonations to get the (small) craft moving anywhere at speed. A single blast won't do it.

now my quote from the wikipedia article on the machine you're talking about

The smallest 4000 ton model planned for ground launch from Jackass Flats, Nevada had each blast add 30 mph (50 km/h) to the craft's velocity.

If you call a 4000 spaceship small, i don't want to know what would be big for you.... As a side note, you're somewhat right, as the nukes had a built in reaction mass that "pushed" the ship. But the part about "blast chambers of precise dimensions" is a bit off too, a huge plain shield of a special material isn't a blast chamber and doesn't have precise dimensions at all (it just has to be huge enough to protect the ship).

Re:Astroid Net?

[Agripa]

As someone once pointed out (Dan Alderson?), when dealing with an incoming asteroid above a certain size, it ceases to matter whether the earth has an atmosphere or not, except to us. It just will not be spending much time there.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Agripa]

Impact energy is roughly proportional to the diameter cubed (volume or mass). All of those tiny asteroids that hit every day just do not add up to all that much. The damage to the earth's biosphere will be roughly proportional to the energy transferred which actually makes a water impact worse than a land impact unless you happen to be under it. For civilization, either can be catastrophic just because of weather effects. An impact like the one in Arizona is small on this scale although no doubt bad for the locals.

Re:Astroid Net?

[Ihmhi]

What about space parachutes?

All jokes aside, giant solar sails that latch onto the asteroid and open up.

Re:Astroid Net?

[fotbr]

Pardon the (very) rough math..

Escape velocity for Earth is roughly 25000 mph. At 30 mph / detonation, that takes > 830 detonations.

Low earth orbit requires a velocity of roughly 17500 mph, or > 580 detonations

Geostationary orbit requires a velocity of about 6800 mph, or > 225 detonations

That is a LOT of kaboom going on, and while I'm sure it'd be a hell of a ride, and a hell of a sight to see, I'll stick to plain old chemical rockets.

Re:Astroid Net?

[khallow]

If you have plenty of time, this should be a good way to move asteroids. I got the impression we were discussing last ditch efforts (parachutes, nukes, hiding in a hole on the other side of the planet, etc).

Re:Astroid Net?

[calidoscope]

A small part of the asteroid might vaporize and likely there will be cracks and dislodged chunks. They will, however, merrily continue straight on their Earthbound route of doom.

A moderately large nuke (say 10MT) placed inside a 1 km diameter asteroid will most assuredly blow it into small pieces - just watch the film of the test of the Spartan missile warhead done in Alaska ca 1970 - or watch the film of the Sedan test (100kT). The detonation only needs to occur a few hours before impact to prevent the majority of the material from hitting earth.

Given a few months warning, all you need is a good shove - and that can be done by a close in detonation vaporizing the nearby surface.

Re:Astroid Net?

[berend botje]

The reason I called the ship small, is because it is a small craft compared to the incoming asteroids we were talking about.

I was wrong about the blast chamber, I stand corrected. I'll look into the huge plain shield material, because (without having done the research) I think that would be a major challenge.

4 out 5 posts are ACs

[Anonymous Coward]

the first 4 of 5 posts are ACs. i guess america is still sleeping.

50,000 pounds slamming onto the ground didn't wake you up? next time, it'll be 90,000.

oh wait...the super-chute worked.

Re:4 out 5 posts are ACs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hiding pedantry behind anonymity :-)

I was amused at the wording in the summary: ...before it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly without any damage

I know continuity sometimes suffers for dramatic effect in movies etc. but surely two consecutive sentences is stretching it a bit!!

Re:4 out 5 posts are ACs

[beav007]

next time, it'll be 90,000.

Your mum is planning to do a test drop now?

Cool - now how much ...

[Nefarious Wheel]

...does that commercial jet weigh?

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well over 350,000 pounds Boeing 767 so don't get any ideas.

Planes would probably break up as well. Great that you attached to the mid section but you'll probably loose either the front 3rd or the rear as the thin cabin torsions apart.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[whong09]

Cool? Try hot. As in dropping it like it's hot.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[tweak13]

Well, some of the larger 747 models have a maximum takeoff weight of over 900,000 pounds. I wouldn't expect ballistic recovery systems for them just yet.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The midsection? Where the wings are attached? The wings. The part that (barring the small portion of the lift that comes from the body of the plane) the entire plane is suspended from in flight already?

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Hal_Porter]

Well over 350,000 pounds Boeing 767 so don't get any ideas.

Planes would probably break up as well. Great that you attached to the mid section but you'll probably loose either the front 3rd or the rear as the thin cabin torsions apart.

If you could guarantee the front third would survive it would help sell business class tickets in these troubled times.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Loose?
I guess it works.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[wisty]

Besides, most accidents are on takeoff, landing, or when the pilot didn't notice the mountain. No time to deploy parachutes.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[HangingChad]

...does that commercial jet weigh?

Even if you had a chute big enough, most airline accidents occur at take off and landing, altitudes well below where a parachute recovery system would be effective.

Remember the old Road Runner cartoons? Whenever the coyote would try a parachute he'd turn into a lawn dart, then the parachute would pop out of the smoking hole in the ground?

Kinda like that.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[camperdave]

You don't need to chute the whole plane, just the passenger cabin (and the cockpit). Even then, you don't need to chute the passenger cabin as a whole unit. You could split it up into sections and chute each section. The problem is that most accidents are on take-off and landing. You're usually too low to deploy a chute effectively.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[msbmsb]

So, we just need easy break-away wings, right? Problem solved. :P

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

dropping it like it's hot?
That's what she said!

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[srussia]

Besides, most accidents are on takeoff, landing, or when the pilot didn't notice the mountain. No time to deploy parachutes.

Indeed. Slamming into mountains is common enough to be given an acronym: CFIT - Controlled Flight into Terrain).

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[berend botje]

So basically you're saying that planes mostly crash when they meet the ground? Well, stop the presses, we've got a scoop right here!

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[berend botje]

Install ejector seats. They can be deployed at any altitude, even on the ground. Problem solved.

Unless the plane is inverted and close to the ground. That might hurt a bit. Not for long, probably.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[TooMuchToDo]

So I can purchase the ability to survive my flight? Sounds like something RyanAir would pioneer.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[TooMuchToDo]

You laugh, but witness the new car/plane combo some company is pioneering on the east coast (the wings fold up when not in flight). And with how sturdy composites are (Boeing 777 Dreamliner) you could have the cabin engineered to seperate from everything else via explosive bolts (similar to how the shuttle is bolted to the launch pad, and the explosive bolts aren't released until thrust from both the solid rockets and the liquid hydrogen engines are verified).

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[idontgno]

"For $79 more we can try EXTRA-HARD not to kill you in-flight."

Thanks, I'll walk.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an idiot for executing your sigline :(
WHY!?!?!

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[petermgreen]

you're saying that planes mostly crash when they meet the ground?
Well all crashes involve the ground (or the water) at some point sure but the question then becomes why they meet the ground (or the water).

Sometimes the pilot is deliberately interacting with the ground (takeoff and landing) but something goes wrong in the interaction

Sometimes the pilot doesn't realise the ground is there (say due to a navigation error or instrument) and therefore hits it even though they still have control over the aircraft.

Sometimes something goes wrong in flight that renders the plane unable to recover sufficiantly to land safely (what is sufficiant recovery to land safely depends to a huge extent on where the incident happened).

A parachute would only help in the last of theese cases (and probablly only a subset of those, a 747 parachuting down in an urban setting would probablly do quite some damage to both itself and what it landed on). The GP is asserting that such cases are a minority of accidents.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[rts008]

Either your reply contradicts itself into uselessness, or you are confused.

You don't need to chute the whole plane, just the passenger cabin (and the cockpit). Even then, you don't need to chute the passenger cabin as a whole unit. You could split it up into sections and chute each section.

Okay, fine and dandy. That's great except for this:

The problem is that most accidents are on take-off and landing. You're usually too low to deploy a chute effectively.

So, eject passenger compartment/individuals, and then splat them onto/into the tarmac?

What's your point?...I don't get it.

Do we mount a robotic arm to the Air Traffic Controller's tower equipped with a Catcher's mitt?

What is your proposal? Does the FAA, FEMA, DHS, DOD, or whom is responsible for oversight/legislation/regulation?..Or some other agency admin this?
Where does the budget/$$ come from? Who admin's the budget for this? Who do they answer to? How culpable are they?
Who do 'they' represent?, and how does this representation arrive...by what means?

It's incredibly easy to shovel the shit on the internet, but increasingly difficult to admin the 'real world' in relation to the online world.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh...let's look at it another way.

300 passengers per plane, at the US largess of 150lbs minimum (emphasis minimum) average per passenger.

So...unless the plane weighed roughly the amount of a large SUV, parachutes wouldn't help all that much.

And...most accidents where there is sufficient space to deploy and have the parachutes take hold aren't accidents--they're terrorist bombings. (No, chutes won't help.) The rest are too low (take-off, landings) for these chutes to be of use. ... just because I like it.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[Hal_Porter]

It's a bit like the Titanic, which only had enough lifeboats for the First Class passengers.

You could actually segment the market like this

* Steerage class. A large cage at the back of the plane. Locked at departure, weighted to sink in the event of a crash landing on water. In the event of a crash landing on land, business class passengers will club the survivors to death.
* Economy class. Small, uncomfortable seats. Life jackets are provided. In flight meal including peanuts to throw at the steerage class cage.
* Business class. In the front section of the plane which is designed to break off and have its descent slowed by parachute. Clubs for self defense against invaders from economy class.
* Overlord class. A luxurious private cabin just off the cockpit with a kingsize bed, equipped with retrorockets to slow descent. Droit de seigneur over the steerage and economy classes, also the option to redirect the plane to a new destination on a whim after takeoff.

Re:Cool - now how much ...

[camperdave]

What's your point?...I don't get it.

My point is that the problem is not that the plane is too big to parachute (that problem can be solved), but that the plane is too close to the ground to parachute.

Nice technology... But for what purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Cowboy Neal joining the air force?

1 Question

[Karganeth]

When will America start using SI units as the standard? Pounds don't mean anything to me.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you have us use in stories about the US?

Kilograms don't mean anything to us.

Re:1 Question

[quenda]

When will America start using SI units as the standard?

In NASA's case, it would take something big to make them see sense. Like, say, loosing a major space probe.

Re:1 Question

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Isn't NASA internally using SI ?

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

when you pry them from our cold dead hands.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that anything over your own body weight in _any unit of measure_ won't mean anything to you. There's no easy way for to reason about 50000lbs or 22679kg. Does 22700kgs mean something to you?

If it does it's only because you could rationalize it against another known measurement... hence we get into the realm of using units of measure like "libraries of congress." e.g this is about 14mid-size cars :) There, now everyone understands.

Re:1 Question

[quenda]

Sorry - unfair. NASA has been using SI units for many years. It was Lockheed Martin that fucked up on the Mars orbiter. Even the English do not use English units any more for anything more important than beer glass sizes. Actually, that is important. I've seen some sneaky Australian bars serve US-sized "pints", which are significantly smaller than Imperial pints.

Re:1 Question

[coaxial]

Sounds like a personal problem.

Re:1 Question

[flydude18]

I'd much rather see the weight in pounds than an abomination like kilogram-force, or, even worse, with the mass given rather than weight (weight being the pinnacle of all parameters in aviation, except in rocketry, but a falling rocket is more like an aircraft).

Sure, SI has the rather lovely Newton, but the kilogram always seems to find its way into any representation of mass/weight.

Re:1 Question

[bakes]

Here we have a situation where a single large country - with too much power and inertia in these matters - is pointedly ignoring what the rest of the world is doing, and forcing the use of an arcane, unwieldy, incompatible standard on the rest of us.

Thank goodness this sort of thing doesn't happen in the IT industry.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, 22 tons means a lot.

Re:1 Question

[Techman83]

Yes, but in WA at least, I don't think they are allowed to call them a Pint, rather a "Large" beer. Between stunts like that and the cost, I prefer to head on around to a mates place for a few beers!

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Never. Seriously. America isn't going to /approach/ that change for at least a couple of generations, if even then.

Which is no excuse for you to be inflexible about learning a foreign unit. It's about 2.2 kg. Or more to the point, 50,000lbs is 25 tons, which in gosh-it's-heavy terms rounds close enough to 25 tonnes if you're feeling too pressed for time to do the math.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shade over 6428 stone. If you have problems visualising that, imagine 918 weaklings or 357 burly rugby players. Which is 17 teams (with substitutes) composed entirely of loosehead props.

Better?

Re:1 Question

[phantomfive]

The ones who care already do. In some cases, it is easier to use the empirical system, for example, I can't imagine having to do construction with millimeters, but 1/8 and 1/16 inch are the perfect tolerances of precision when framing a house. The millimeters are just too hard to see because they're so close together. Try it sometime. I guess in Europe they must use them, so it must be doable (or maybe that's why they use bricks so much in construction instead of wood!)

In other cases it's easier to use the SI units, like if you are a scientist trying to calculate the velocity of things falling. People who need to do this already DO use SI units.

Finally, there are times when it doesn't really matter which one you use, like when you are weighing yourself, does it really matter if you use kilograms or pounds? Not really. The effort to change there just isn't worth it for most people. If we talked to Europeans more often, it might be, but.......

Incidentally, it isn't just Americans. Other countries use a mix of measurements as well. For example, in El Salvador, they use centimeters to measure their height, kilograms to measure their weight, and liters to measure their water, and gallons to measure their gas. I believe Taiwan uses some traditional measurements as well.

Re:1 Question

[phantomfive]

Dang, I messed up there. I meant that in El Salvador they use pounds to measure weight, not kilograms. And for what it's worth from news reports I've seen and from talking to people, UK still seems to use stones to measure human weight.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it 25 Tons.

Re:1 Question

[VocationalZero]

An American pint is actually a copy of a British pint in 1707. The British later changed over to Imperial in 1824. Also, pretty much all of Southern Australia uses a 425 ml pint, and they call the normal 570 ml Australian pint an "Imperial pint", even though its slightly larger than an actual Imperial pint.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yupe... 22tons and 50000lbs both mean "a lot" :)

Re:1 Question

[Cathbard]

But they aren't sold as pints, they are sold in ml. Look on the glass and you'll probably see it written there. It was actually made illegal to sell things in imperial measure. In the early days the government even made everybody to retool so things weren't stupid sizes like still selling a quart of milk and just being labelled 1.14 litres . About the only thing I know of that is off-sized is corrugated iron.

Re:1 Question

[nickgrieve]

Metric, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Re:1 Question

[c6gunner]

Here we have a situation where a single large country - with too much power and inertia in these matters - is pointedly ignoring what the rest of the world is doing, and forcing the use of an arcane, unwieldy, incompatible standard on the rest of us.

Sheesh, you Esperanto guys just never give up ...

Re:1 Question

[quenda]

Also, pretty much all of Southern Australia uses a 425 ml pint,

What!? Thats a schooner, not a pint. Only in Adelaide would that piddling amount be called a pint.

Hmmm... maybe when I thought I was ripped of with a US-pint it was even worse than I realised, and the bastard gave me a schooner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_beer#Beer_glasses

Re:1 Question

[zach_d]

I work construction in canada, and while we use Imperial most of the time, I actually find it a relief when we work a government job, and get to work metric. on a metric tape, you've only got mils, and they're way closer together than 32nds.

most of the time you're only working to the half a cent anyway, and you do way less low level math.

(and the code's written in metric here, so it's a bit easier to get things spot on code)

Re:1 Question

[somersault]

for what it's worth from news reports I've seen and from talking to people, UK still seems to use stones to measure human weight.

Yes we do, in general :) And a stone is 14lbs.

Re:1 Question

[nmg196]

Well here in the UK, a 50,000 pound dummy rocket is regarded as quite expensive. You'd think a dummy would be a lot cheaper than that. I'm sure I saw one on eBay for a half-a-dozen monkeys.

Re:1 Question

[MichaelSmith]

The ones who care already do. In some cases, it is easier to use the empirical system, for example, I can't imagine having to do construction with millimeters, but 1/8 and 1/16 inch are the perfect tolerances of precision when framing a house. The millimeters are just too hard to see because they're so close together. Try it sometime. I guess in Europe they must use them, so it must be doable (or maybe that's why they use bricks so much in construction instead of wood!)

I live in Australia and I do all my house framing in millimetres. I have never had trouble seeing a millimetre.

Re:1 Question

[Hal_Porter]

An American pint is actually a copy of a British pint in 1707. The British later changed over to Imperial in 1824.

We had a choice between Liberty and More Beer. I'm still not sure we chose wrong.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

or even deciding which side of the road you should drive on..

Re:1 Question

[PerlDudeXL]

Feet, miles and knot based units are the de facto standard in aerospace. The scientists
use SI units, the pilots do not. For a software I wrote I had to use SI units internally
and had to convert those values to feet/miles/knot based ones before passing them into a
pilot specific software. I work in germany (at the DLR if it matters).

Re:1 Question

[Uber Banker]

they call the normal 570 ml Australian pint an "Imperial pint"

Isn't a pint 568ml?

Re:1 Question

[Uber Banker]

Well here in the UK, a 50,000 pound dummy rocket is regarded as quite expensive. You'd think a dummy would be a lot cheaper than that. I'm sure I saw one on eBay for a half-a-dozen monkeys.

2^6*10^5 drachm for 120 pony ain't cheap.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Loosing?
I guess it works.

Re:1 Question

[DougWebb]

Yes we do, in general :) And a stone is 14lbs.

I never understood that unit of measurement. Where'd you guys get such regularly-sized rocks? Over here in the colonies, they're all very inconsistent.

Re:1 Question

[Gordonjcp]

Tons would be good. Metric tonnes are approximately the same as imperial tons. I think the US uses "short tons" which are 900kg, so quite a bit less - but you'd still have a reasonable approximation, and when people in the UK and EU see "tons" in an American article we mentally adjust for it not *quite* being as heavy.

Let's try it and see how it works:

"On February 28, 2009 a 25-ton dummy rocket booster was dropped in the Arizona desert and slowed by a system of five parachutes before it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly without any damage. This was possibly the heaviest parachute drop ever, and NASA is planning to perform even heavier drops of up to 45 tons in the next few months."

Easy, isn't it? Now someone here in the UK would look at it and (if they cared enough) would take the weights as being a couple of tons less than the figure given there. They would probably only care that much if they had to load it onto a truck though.

Re:1 Question

[somersault]

I believe the unit was standardised on the weight of Winston Churchill's right testicle.

Re:1 Question

[Gordonjcp]

It is. This leads to an interesting situation in the UK, where nearly everything is metric except beer, milk and road signs. If you buy milk it's in the same size carton it was 30 years ago, but it's labelled "568ml" instead of "1 pint" (or multiples). A pint of beer is a pint of beer, although you get slightly larger glasses in a lot of pubs with 1 pint marked by a line about 4mm from the rim of the glass. Depending on what you drink, a pint of beer might be a bit less than a pint, because some room is left for the head - so by making the glass a little bigger you've got that extra room *and* one pint of beer.

The road signs cause their own special problems. When you read a planning document for a section of road, you see lines like "A 4.8km stretch of 30mph limit" and so on. Crazy.

Re:1 Question

[MichaelTheDrummer]

285ml Glass
- Known as a either a pot or a middy, depending on what state you're in, in all states of Australia except for SA
- SA calls this glass a Schooner

425ml Glass
- Called a Schooner everywhere except for SA
- Called a pint in SA, except for in Irish pubs

570ml Glass
- Called a pint everywhere in Australia, except for SA
- Called an Imperial Pint, or IP in SA, except in Irish pubs where it is just a Pint.

And there you have it.

Re:1 Question

[smoker2]

A metric tonne is 1000kg
An Imperial ton is 2000 lbs(pounds)
1 kg = 2.2 lbs
A metric tonne is therefore 2200 lbs
An Imperial ton is 20 cwt (hundredweight)
A hundredweight is 100 pounds
The US uses pounds because it sounds bigger IMHO

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, 50000 pounds would be ~3571 stone

Re:1 Question

[OolimPhon]

An Imperial ton is 2000 lbs(pounds)
An Imperial ton is 20 cwt (hundredweight)
A hundredweight is 100 pounds
The US uses pounds because it sounds bigger IMHO

In the US, maybe. In the UK:
An Imperial Ton is 2240 lbs
A Hundredweight is 112 lbs

Sounds like the US uses small measures because it seems like things weigh more/are bigger over there.

Same goes for pints/gallons.
US pint = 16 fl. oz. UK pint = 20 fl oz. No wonder your cars get so few miles/gallon. No wonder your petrol (sorry, gas) is so cheap.

Re:1 Question

[NevarMore]

"Even the English do not use English units any more for anything more important than beer glass sizes. "

THERE IS *NOTHING* MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SIZE OF A BEER GLASS.NOTHING!

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

123

Re:1 Question

[argStyopa]

Perhaps when your country manages to accomplish its own space program, you can use whatever units YOU prefer. Then again, if you have trouble dividing lbs by two to get approximate kg, it may be a while.

Then you can have the pleasure of reading constant carping from the cheap seats complaining about the most trivial issues.

Re:1 Question

[Octorian]

Thankfully the Germans have it much simpler... The standard size glass in Bavaria was 500ml, and the larger "Mass" size is 1L :-)

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. We should take the example of, say, England, where I drive at the national speed limit of 60 mph, for 30 minutes, using two gallons of gas (sorry, petrol) that I bought, to take me to the pub, where I order a pint of beer, causing me to gain yet another half a stone in weight.

Oh, never mind.

Re:1 Question

[Amazing Quantum Man]

you've only got mils, and they're way closer together than 32nds.

How is that?

1/32" = 1/32"
1mm = 1/25.4"

Seems to me that mms are further apart than 32nds.

Re:1 Question

[Red Flayer]

A pint of beer is a pint of beer, although you get slightly larger glasses in a lot of pubs with 1 pint marked by a line about 4mm from the rim of the glass. Depending on what you drink, a pint of beer might be a bit less than a pint, because some room is left for the head - so by making the glass a little bigger you've got that extra room *and* one pint of beer.

This is mandated by law. About 5-10 years ago, the courts ruled that pubs selling "pints" of beer could not use a pint glass -- the head reduced the amount of beer the patron was getting to less than the pint they paid for.

This worked out great for me, I picked up 60 or so nice pub pint glasses because so many pubs needed to replace their glasses with ones slightly bigger than a pint.

Re:1 Question

[LWATCDR]

I don't know but when I watch top gear they talk about miles per hour and miles per gallon. When I read Bike Magazine I see 0-60 times and miles per gallon even though they give the tank size in liters!.
When I go to UK car websites they also give miles per gallon.

Seems like the US isn't the only country that uses none SI units in the press.
I am willing to bet that they used SI for the actually engineering.

1 lb = 0.453592 Kg is your conversion formula.
Now get over it and move on.

Re:1 Question

[sanyasi]

When will America start using SI units as the standard? Pounds don't mean anything to me.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=50000+pounds+in+kgs

Re:1 Question

[MrKaos]

And there you have it.

Just give me a beer mate!!!

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The British generally use imperial units for height, weight and distance so you can hardly say that use SI-units for anything non-trivial.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry that's an American meme so...

Imperial, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Re:1 Question

[Experiment 626]

When will America start using SI units as the standard? Pounds don't mean anything to me.

Translation: "I am too stupid to do unit conversions with Google."

But at least I've learned that whining about things not conforming to a more widespread system is a good way to get "insightful" mods. When will China start using the roman alphabet as the standard? Hanzi characters don't mean anything to me. When will Linux start using cmd.exe as the standard? /bin/bash doesn't mean anything to me.

Re:1 Question

[davolfman]

When kilograms start meaning something to us?

Re:1 Question

[profplump]

I wouldn't go around lambasting the US for their small units just because the British Empire went about making up new measures decades after the formation of the US.

England didn't start using the 20 floz pint until 1824. The previous 16 floz unit was defined as 1/8 of the British wine gallon -- about 231 cubic inches -- and had been since 1707. I'm not positive about the force/mass bit, but I'm pretty sure the same 1824 change made a hundredweight 8 stones, making it 112 lbs instead of 100 lbs used in the US or the previous 108 lbs.

Re:1 Question

[jmkaza]

So true. I wish I had mod point right now.

Re:1 Question

[Meumeu]

Feet, miles and knot based units are the de facto standard in aerospace. The scientists use SI units, the pilots do not. For a software I wrote I had to use SI units internally and had to convert those values to feet/miles/knot based ones before passing them into a pilot specific software. I work in germany (at the DLR if it matters).

Pilots don't use metric units but engineers do, I work in France (for Thales Alenia Space) and the most unmetric unit i've seen is the millimetre...

Re:1 Question

[zach_d]

gah, I'm sorry, clearly I should have read my post after I hit preview.

I meant that 32nds are closer than mils.

Re:1 Question

[jaavaaguru]

Additionally, I find it easier to imagine 45 tonnes (equivalent to 45 Ford Fiestas) than 50,000 pounds.

Re:1 Question

[jaavaaguru]

As far as I'm concerned things like the units used in Gas/Petrol, glasses of beer, road signs, and the side of the road we drive on all are a part of a country's culture and there's no huge need to change them. Sure it would make things simpler for people visiting, but it's not a necessity.

Measurements used in scientific experiments on the other hand I feel should be standardized. The scientific community isn't just based in one country, and using a bunch of different measurements isn't only an inconvenience, it's dangerous. People will make conversion errors, things will go wrong. NASA should know this by now.

Re:1 Question

[Amazing Quantum Man]

No prob. Typos happen.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I can attest that there is no problem what so ever with using millimeters in construction. Bricks is probably so common in many countries due to a lack of wood or the fire hazard.

Re:1 Question

[shutdown -p now]

I can't imagine having to do construction with millimeters, but 1/8 and 1/16 inch are the perfect tolerances of precision when framing a house

That would be 3mm and 1.5mm, respectively (yeah, not pricesely, but for that purpose it's obviously just as good). What's hard about it?

Finally, there are times when it doesn't really matter which one you use, like when you are weighing yourself, does it really matter if you use kilograms or pounds? Not really.

It depends on what are you doing it for. In general, it is obviously easier to use a single measurement system because then all measurements are immediately compatible regardless of the origin.

Re:1 Question

[noidentity]

In NASA's case, it would take something big to make them see sense. Like, say, loosing a major space probe.

But would tighting a major space probe be any different? I think not!

Re:1 Question

[petermgreen]

Dunno about the IT industry but in electronics we end up using both metric and imperial, often on the same board. DIL and SOIC are imperial but almost all the smaller stuff is metric. Connectors may be either (or occasionally a pitch that doesn't come out as a round number in either system :( )

Re:1 Question

[phantomfive]

That would be 3mm and 1.5mm, respectively (yeah, not pricesely, but for that purpose it's obviously just as good). What's hard about it?

It's a practical issue. You look at the lines, and you're sitting there asking yourself, is it 3mm or 4 or 2? They are so close together they kind of blur together. Sure, it's fine if you have a micrometer, but if you doing construction, you want to make measurements quickly.

Re:1 Question

[phantomfive]

How big are two-by-fours down there? That is, how big are the boards you use for studs in houses?

Re:1 Question

[shutdown -p now]

It's a practical issue. You look at the lines, and you're sitting there asking yourself, is it 3mm or 4 or 2? They are so close together they kind of blur together.

I never had this problem, and nor did anyone I know (including some carpenters). A millimeter is not that small.

My guess is that you're just used to something larger, which is why you find it troublesome. It's no surprise that such things really come down to experience.

Re:1 Question

[MichaelSmith]

Your two by four would be 90 by 45. Studs are generally done with 90*45 MGP-5 pine. Framing material comes in 90*25, 90*35 and 90*45. You would use 90*35 for a noggin. Big house building companies who shave margins make way too much use of 90*25 and 70*35 where they can get away with it.

Re:1 Question

[fotbr]

Before they let the Aussies have their independence, the ships carrying prisoners to Australia needed ballast for the return trip. Since they had a supply of rocks, and an abundance of prisoners, it was a natural progression to have the prisoners produce rocks suitable for not only for ballast (any old rock will do, really), but also suitable for sale as a reference weight upon the return of said ships to the civilized world.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here we have a situation where a single large country - with too much power and inertia in these matters - is pointedly ignoring what the rest of the world is doing, and forcing the use of an arcane, unwieldy, incompatible standard on the rest of us."

Yeah, France does suck.

Or when you guys adopt the dollar, or at least get the EU coins as official currency out of the western hemisphere. F***ing colonizing bastards, it's the 21st century, let go of your archane ways.

And besides, isn't the EU these days all about putting up false economic barriers in the form of protectionism? SI units protect your economy from US exports. You wouldn't us to change, the trade deficit might go to your side instead.

Seriously, get off it. SI has no advantages whatsoever save the decimal conversion, which indicates you blokes couldn't remember conversion factors so you decided on power of 10s.

On a more serious note, when the f*** did SI become THE standard the rest of the world is doing? As if. Your mentality is very much like what you allege the US/France is like. There are plenty of countries that use their own stuff or a mix.

On a practical matter, I don't get the point anyways. When I build stuff (sheds, houses, furniture), I use inches and feet. When I do bio lab work, I use SI units and actual molecule counts or estimates thereof (daltons, amu). When I do physics, I use SI units and other sort of SI stuff like eV. (And before you ask, yeah, I do those things.) When I do prototyping, I use both, depending on the supply and what I'm building, and frequently convert; if it's got servos in it, I go SI, if it's computer equipment I convert to inches. I don't screw up, since I test everything.

To say SI units are the cure all and be all, even in the sciences, is just plain false. Even their original base of trying to be even counts of some physical constant is nowadays false.

The only advantage to SI units is the conversion between like units, and again, that's slight. The stuff is no longer based on exacting physical constraints (the meter is based on a fixed wavelength of light out to some ridiculous timing and hence decimal place), the kilogram is not standardized at all (there are current efforts to use purified silicon spheres to define it better than the one known constant). The only exception to this appears to be temperature, and even that depends on how water is being defined these days (oceanic water, mix of oceanic water, pure water, etc.).

So, what's so great about it besides a bunch of countries using it? Nothing. How many times have I read how the European countries bitch and whine about how dominant the US is, and in turn, your best argument is a) to say we don't use SI units and b) want us to adopt SI units, meaning you don't want to be like the US but want to use those supposed US-like tactics of adopting your crappy system?

Sorry. Like some of you guys still build houses without power tools--works for you, but I'm not doing it your way.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Just one thing to add.. I think the reason they use more brick than wood in Europe is because wood is more expensive there than in N. America. Also possibly different construction standards and conventions.

Re:1 Question

[initialE]

I blame McDonalds. Would you rather eat a quarter pounder or a hundred and thirteen point three nine eight zero nine three grammer?
On the other hand, the point is moot. They don't sell quarter pounders over here.

Re:1 Question

[calidoscope]

The road signs cause their own special problems. When you read a planning document for a section of road, you see lines like "A 4.8km stretch of 30mph limit" and so on. Crazy.

No crazier than a say 250mm wide tire on a 15 inch rim...

Prolly the most bizzarro mixture of English/SI units is the definition of HO scale - 3.5mm per foot.

Re:1 Question

[aqk]

Hmmnnnn...
Would this be an Imperial question? Or a metric one?

(One Imperial question = 0.8933 Metric questions)
Or perhaps = .755 Australian questions - They tend to talk slowly in Australia

.

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the unit was standardised on the weight of Winston Churchill's right testicle.

How did they measure just the right one ?
And did they measure it before he got laid, or after ?

Re:1 Question

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I'm concerned things like the units used in Gas/Petrol, glasses of beer, road signs, and the side of the road we drive on all are a part of a country's culture and there's no huge need to change them. Sure it would make things simpler for people visiting, but it's not a necessity.

Measurements used in scientific experiments on the other hand I feel should be standardized. The scientific community isn't just based in one country, and using a bunch of different measurements isn't only an inconvenience, it's dangerous. People will make conversion errors, things will go wrong. NASA should know this by now.

The Metric system was just made so that American auto mechanics would just have to always purchase and maintain 2 sets of wrenches and sockets.

Better for the economy.

Re:1 Question

[metaforest]

yeah most bars on the west coat seem to use 12oz "pint" glasses.
Except the Irish ones where you tend to get a choice...

Re:1 Question

[smoker2]

Well corrected. But I have to ask, which makes more sense ?
1 cwt = 100 lbs or 1 cwt = 112 lbs ?
Useful and interesting site.

Thank you NASA!

[Morkalin]

Maybe someday I'll be able to take up skydiving after all!

Re:Thank you NASA!

[Lord Lode]

Your mom will.

Re:Thank you NASA!

[MrKaos]

I know I could have used this chute the morning after a heavy curry. There is a lot to be said for reducing the splashdown impact.

Re:Thank you NASA!

[lightversusdark]

something about subscribing to a newsletter

What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[darkmeridian]

Recovering, fixing, and verifying the booster is an expensive proposition. How much does the recovered booster actually cost? The entire reusable Shuttle idea was kind of dumb because it was cheaper to stick with expendable launch vehicles than drag a huge piece of deadweight into space every time. What is the difference here? (Seriously.)

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[berglin]

But then we wouldn't have known how to build a reusable shuttle, which I'm sure left some residual science in other fields as well.

Some things are worth doing just for the sake of it.

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[AikonMGB]

The shuttle concept in an of itself is not a terrible idea, however it got horribly warped by the Air Force's unrelenting requirements (i.e. payload bay size, etc.) and morphed into something horrendously inefficient.

There are certain parts of rockets that lend themselves much more to re-use than others. In this case, I believe the intent for Ares rockets is to replace the nozzle each flight -- they decided it was cheaper to build consumable thruster nozzles for each flight than to re-process the expensive, intricate cooling designs for keeping a nozzle in good enough shape to use again.

Aikon-

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[Locklin]

I'd argue that much less was learned building the shuttle. Thats why they are having so much trouble building a new launch vehicle now -no one knows how to build one first hand. If they had been building rockets for the last 30 years, the technology would have been improving in each iteration. We would be in an entirely different situation now.

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[korbin_dallas]

The shuttle nozzles are expendables, they are ablatives.

The 'reusable' solids concept is about 4-5x heavier than it could be. This reduces lift efficiency, AND increases complexity. The Shuttle SRBs are the single MOST COMPLEX SRBs I have ever seen. I've seen the engineering drawings.

Not to mention the man-hours involved in refurbishing the things.

SRBs on the scale of the Shuttle and larger are far too inefficient. Cheap liquids are the way. Kerosene and alcohol are relatively easy to manage. And an empty liquid booster can be made very lightweight, i.e. for the tonnage of steel in 1 set of Shuttle SRBs you could build 4 Atlas boosters. Atlas skin is only 0.060 inch thick (about 2mm !), that makes ground handling and transport easier. How much fuel does it take to MOVE an SRB from Utah to Fla ??? (too much)

NASA is a boneheaded as any other agency. They should be extending stuff like Atlas, and making boosters easier to manufacture, and easier to use. Problem with that is, that is what the Russians do well, and NASA cannot copy Russia (or buy their already designed, tested and built engines).

NASA suffers from NIHS.

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[AikonMGB]

From the Wikipedia article(s) on the SSMEs and RS-68 (the former being the Space Shuttle main engines, and the latter being designed for the Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle, and later being snapped up for the Ares V):

The [SSMEs] are removed after every flight and taken to the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility (SSMEPF) for inspection and replacement of any necessary components.

A leading goal of the RS-68 program was to produce a simple engine that would be cost-effective when jettisoned after a single launch. To achieve this, the RS-68 has 80% fewer parts than the multi-launch Space Shuttle main engine (SSME). Simplicity came at the cost of lower thrust-efficiency versus the SSME: the RS-68's thrust-to-weight ratio is significantly lower and the RS-68's specific impulse is 10% lower. The benefit of the RS-68 is its reduced construction cost: To build an RS-68 for the Boeing Delta IV program costs about $14 million, compared to $50 million for the SSME. While the SSME's higher costs were designed to be spread across multiple launches, the larger, less-costly, more powerful (50% more thrust) RS-68 was a more cost-effective engine for an expendable launch vehicle.

From http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/12/ssme-ares-v-undergoes-evaluation-potential-switch/:

The regenerative nozzle of the SSME may have an advantage over the ablative RS-68 by providing a more resistant nozzle in the extreme environment of the core stage cluster.

Of course all of this is moot because I failed to recognize that we were talking about SRBs as opposed to SSMEs.

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw, NASA's contractors have been designing and building rockets for the commercial launch market for years, and NASA uses traditional rockets regularly for unmanned missions. No one "forgot" how to build a rocket. The problem is funding - they have to support the twin white elephants (shuttle and space station) while simultaneously funding a new rocket project. They simply didn't have the funding until recently, and even now they'll have to stop manned flight for a while to conserve funds.

Re:What Is The Upside To Reusing The Booster?

[petermgreen]

The trouble with the shuttle IMO was it stopped incremental improvement and modernisation. It also makes it very very hard to increase fleet size or replace lost craft down the line.

Because the ruskies have to make a new soyuz each time they keep the ability to make them going AND they can make incremental improvements easilly because each flight is with a newly made craft.

"Pounds don't mean anything to me"

[macraig]

Yeah, but when you use an alias like Karganeth you're Totally speaking a language I understand! Now I have to go dig my Orcone out of his storage pen and take him for a run in the dog park....

Not even close to "heaviest ever"

[Anonymous Coward]

Current SRB cases which parachute back weigh ~200 000 lbs

Re:Not even close to "heaviest ever"

[dltaylor]

Not after the fuel burns out.

Re:Not even close to "heaviest ever"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they do.
Since you're too lazy to get your facts straight, here's a link:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/srb.html

How many libraries of congress?

[definate]

Seriously, this is a useless measurement, it's way over things I know about. I need it in something practical, like how many libraries of congress is it?

Re:How many libraries of congress?

[MichaelSmith]

The challenge would be getting your Library of Congress down as a single load.

Re:How many libraries of congress?

[definate]

Well go to your local library of congress, and just drop my name, and they'll help you set it up for a single load.

Re:How many libraries of congress?

[spcmky]

There are 3 buildings that make up the LOC.

No M-1 Abrhams, then

[dltaylor]

At roughly 140,000 lbs, they're still out of reach.

Re:No M-1 Abrhams, then

[giorgist]

Unless you use two ...

I can't find the link but it has been thought of. All you have to save is the cabin. That is just an aluminum can

no fuel, no engines, no cargo ... easy peasy.

Next attempt....

[Anonymous Coward]

....dropping Rosie o"Donnell from 10 feet. The reason for this first test is to figure out how to keep the world from cracking every time the Rosie gets out of bed.

1 answer!

[johannesg]

Since I know a thing or two about conversions, I've looked this up for you. The answer is the following: 50,000 (British) pounds is roughly 53,823 euros.

I don't know what the answer is for Canadian pounds though... Sorry!

Re:1 answer!

[camperdave]

In Canada, a pound is where you store stray dogs. I wouldn't know how to convert that to euros.

Re:1 answer!

[a whoabot]

You can probably store 10 billion stray dogs in Europe without breaking regulations. The average pound keeps 100 dogs, so 1 euro is roughly 100,000,000 Canadian pounds.

Heaviest chute drop?

[GodfatherofSoul]

My first thought was that this had something to do with the new waste recovery system. Ever since the Pizza Hut pastas came out, I've been a ready and willing contributor of test samples.

Re:Heaviest chute drop?

[Hoi Polloi]

Say "NASA just had a huge chute drop" fast to someone and watch their response.

Re:Heaviest chute drop?

[evalencia1]

I misread it and thought it was about the "Heaviest Chute" - "50,000 pounds!! WTF?"

About 22.7 Tonnes

[rHBa]

~2.2 pounds/Kg so off the top of my head that's about 22.7 Tonnes. Of course it depends what type of pounds your talking about as there are lots.

crashed softly?

[1u3hr]

it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly...

WTF? If it "landed softly" it didn't "crash".

Re:crashed softly?

[Locklin]

You left out "Before it"

Re:crashed softly?

[1u3hr]

You left out "Before it"

Please explain how it could land before crashing, or vice versa.

Memory doesn't last too long, right?

[silverdr]

50,000-pound dummy rocket booster was dropped [...] This was possibly the heaviest parachute drop ever

Like if Soviet Russia never dropped 20+ tons tanks on the chutes still in the seventies...

Re:Memory doesn't last too long, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

i inmediatly thought of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Czar bomba was 27 tonnes, almost 60k pounds for you imperial people, and was dropped with 800kg of nylon chute attached to it, to allow the bomber to escape the range of the 50 megaton blast..

granted it wasnt ment to land in a recoverable fashion on the ground, but it was a chute drop..

Re:Memory doesn't last too long, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you can't remember where a link is? Or do you have one but didn't remember to preview the post? Get over yourself.

Rate of descent...

[Joce640k]

How can it "crash to the ground" and "land softly" all in the same paragraph...?

Only one chute

[Nimey]

I'm curious about the engineering reasons for using one really big chute instead of a cluster of smaller ones as on the Apollo command module.

Re:Only one chute

[NorthWestFLNative]

I'm curious about the engineering reasons for using one really big chute instead of a cluster of smaller ones as on the Apollo command module.

I might have read this wrong, but I read it as a 3 stage system, pilot chute to pull out the drogue, drogue chute, and then a cluster of 3 main chutes.

Re:Only one chute

[Nimey]

Oh. The picture showed one big chute with the whole arrangement pretty near the ground.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I can order a car online, and have it air lifted to me? like in Mercenaries?

Original NASA press release

[smoker2]

The original press release is here.
This is pretty old news. If you want up to date news from NASA, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Could the wind mess with this?

[ilikebees]

I realize it is a very large object so perhaps the answer is no. I'm just curious. Whenever I made rockets as a kid I lost them in the damn trees after the first launch because of that blasted parachute. It took so long to get the decals just right too... "It's going to land on my house!" "Don't worry, it's going to land softly." "Oh, ok." *crunch*

to hell with parchutes

[jollyreaper]

I want to see flyback boosters! There was a design they had for the shuttle boosters that would replace them with liquid-fueled models and they would also come equipped with jet engines. Launches as a liquid-fueled rocket, separates from the shuttle stack, deploys swing wings (which were flush with the airframe at launch) and fire up the conventional jets to make a powered return flight, landing at the Cape pretty as you please.

I think they scrapped this plan because it would be too much development for a program near the end of its life but you'd think it would be viable for the boost stages of newer vehicles. The first stage has got to be the heaviest, most expensive part of the stack. The refurb cost on the shuttle makes you think it might just be cheaper to throw it away but maybe we could actually save some money with better engineering on something like this?

Re:to hell with parchutes

[srothroc]

But, uh, even though the shuttle boosters weren't flyback-capable, we recovered them just fine, didn't we? Isn't that money saved because we didn't spend it on a R&D program for automated return?

Re:to hell with parchutes

[DerekLyons]

I think they scrapped this plan because it would be too much development for a program near the end of its life but you'd think it would be viable for the boost stages of newer vehicles.

They aren't as viable as you might think because flyback stages are expensive to build, expensive to operate and are maintenance intensive.
 
 

The first stage has got to be the heaviest, most expensive part of the stack.

Not entirely true actually... While they are the heaviest, the generally aren't the most expensive. When it comes to spacecraft, cost varies strongly with complexity and only weakly (if at all) with mass. Generally speaking, the higher you go in a vehicle the more complex the engineering and manufacturing gets because it endures more extreme environments and because the impact of any excess weight grows disproportionately. A pound in the Nth stage is a problem because it is carried all the way to orbit - while a pound in the 1st stage can end up being lost in the noise.
 
 

maybe we could actually save some money with better engineering on something like this?

Less than you might think, and frequently it can cost money rather than saving it because of the need to provide landing and refurbishment facilities which a throwaway first stage does not require. This means higher up front costs in engineering the flyback booster and building those facilities, as well as higher ongoing costs.
 
They key to problem, as always, is flight rate - the more you fly a vehicle, the less it costs. But to make a vehicle that flies often, you need to make it bigger and attractive to a wider variety of customers... Which is one of the key compromises lead to many of the Shuttle's problems.

Re:to hell with parchutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they do that with cruise missiles? Maybe they should re-tool a few as shuttle boosters.

Re:to hell with parchutes

[Eil]

I think they scrapped this plan because it would be too much development for a program near the end of its life but you'd think it would be viable for the boost stages of newer vehicles. The first stage has got to be the heaviest, most expensive part of the stack. The refurb cost on the shuttle makes you think it might just be cheaper to throw it away but maybe we could actually save some money with better engineering on something like this?

They probably scrapped the plan because more elaborate engineering is often mutually exclusive with better engineering. Think about the incredible amount of development, tests, money, and materials it would take to design a rocket booster that flies itself back home versus just bolting a few parachutes on.

UAVs are still fairly tricky with today's technology and those contain about 1/10th the sophistication of these flyback boosters you speak of.

Parachutes are a drag.

[SoupIsGood Food]

So. We're back to parachutes. While I suppose it's better than just letting the boosters crash, we're still not where we need to be. The age of the rocket is over, dammit, and serious work needs to be done on the next generation earth-to-orbit vehicles.

This means space planes (The X-prize made it out of the atmosphere, if not the gravity well, on a private sector budget) or cool stuff like the Delta Clipper.

Parachutes in the year 2009 is not a re-entry mechanism worthy of the manpower and money NASA has at its disposal.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[WatcherXP]

Yeah, and get rid of wheels and the printing press as well!

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[SoupIsGood Food]

Yeah, and get rid of wheels and the printing press as well!

Maglev trains don't need wheels, and modern Print-on-Demand systems do not require a press.

Just sayin'.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[WatcherXP]

Complexity = Better?

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[MrKaos]

Complexity = Better?

DumbedDown = MoreSmarterer.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[WindBourne]

A maglev is NOT complex. Current implementations are, but the core concept is actually simpler than a wheel, transmission, motor combo.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[WindBourne]

Delta Clipper was always a mistake for earth WRT going to orbit and back. We have the ability to actually fly or use a much lighter parachute with a load. Of course, the clipper is exactly what is needed for the moon, and something similar for mars.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[SoupIsGood Food]

It seemed to work OK, apart from the "Technician Headpace Error" with the landing gear hydraulics.

You need some more fuel, which adds weight... but not as much weight as would be required in turning it into a glider, along the lines of the shuttle or the X-33. You're lugging dead weight up into orbit either way, but you're actually lugging less with the DC-X.

A spaceplane is elegant, practical and probably a good idea for the future, if it can be made to work with commercial airstrips. That's not the point. The point is that the DC-X was flying with mid-'90s off-the-shelf systems, at under $50mil per each, and was a lot closer to success than failure.

Killing it for vastly more expensive and unproven theoretically-more-elegant craft (that never seem to even make it to the prototype stage) was pure idiocy. "Best is the enemy of good enough" as the good General Kalishnikov said - I'd take an inefficient, inelegant DC-X today over an idealized spaceplane tomorrow.

Re:Parachutes are a drag.

[WindBourne]

You're lugging dead weight up into orbit either way, but you're actually lugging less with the DC-X.
Hmmm. IANARE, but somehow that seems surprising. You sure about that?
I'd take an inefficient, inelegant DC-X today over an idealized spaceplane tomorrow.
Fair enough. Of course, the X-33 was basically done when W's ppl killed it and kept it down. What has amazed me is that little of the new tech made it into other items.

Crashed or Landed?

[DigitalReverend]

...before it crashed to the ground. The booster landed softly without any damage.

It's only a joke that any crash you can walk away from is called a landing. So did the chutes not work and the thing crashed? Or did they work and it landed? Make up your mind!!!!

Tell Twitter.com!

[dan_linder]

Now they can give those birds a rest!

Dan

Well, which is it, young feller?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminded me of this quote from Raising Arizona.

"Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'm a-gonna be in motion. You see... "

One of the rules

[Gilmoure]

11. Everything is air-droppable at least once.

-Seven Rules of Highly Effective Pirates

RR

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is fine. before it crashed, the parachutes were deployed and it landed softly preventing the crash. Nothing to fix.

Other large parachute systems

[kaszeta]

For work, I regularly spend time out at Yuma Proving Ground, and 50,000 lbs isn't that much larger than some of the other existing systems being tested by the military.

Para-Flite's MegaFly, for example, is a 30,000 lb payload guided parachute system (GPS-steered to land at a designated LZ), with a variant of it being tested up to, IIRC, 42,000 lbs, with 50,000 lbs being a goal. It's still basically a development system, but similar systems are regularly used for 8,000 and 10,000 lb payloads.

Granted, airdrop aerodynamic issues are different than booster recovery issues, but it's still worth noting that 50,000 lbs isn't necessarily as huge as it seems relative to the existing technology.

Oprah vists NASA

[cgfsd]

So that is why Oprah visited NASA, she wanted to go sky diving.

I'm not impressed yet.

[CrimsonAvenger]

The US Army made a paradrop of a 40000+ lb tank in the late 1940's.

Sixty years later, NASA manages an extra 10000- lbs. Wake me when they manage 100000 lbs.

Re:I'm not impressed yet.

[brkello]

Man is able to fill mouth with 400 m&m's. Sixty years later, someone is able to do 500. Sometimes the extra 100 is a lot harder than the previous 400.

Re:I'm not impressed yet.

[Stratocastr]

The US Army made a paradrop of a 40000+ lb tank in the late 1940's.

Was this a tank full of explosives being thrown on the enemy? like waay before they had missiles?

Re:I'm not impressed yet.

[zxjio]

The Army has long wanted to air-drop tanks into combat alongside paratroopers. One of the big weaknesses of airborne operations are that such light troops lack much offensive punch and are vulnerable to enemy armor attacking them. See the M551 Sheridan light tank.

Scam Alert: English use English Units

[Lord of the Fries]

I thought this too (that the English don't use English units).

But now I've become a Top Gear addict. And Jeremy definitely talks in miles per hour. And Hammond does vehicle weights in pounds.

I seen it on youtube. It must be so.

Honey???

[RandomFactor]

Where is my super-chute?

CONGRABULASHUNS!

[RevWaldo]

You graduated! Yer full-fledged tank paratroopers!

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/938744/

Take a step further

[WindBourne]

NASA originally wanted the 2 part airplane/spacecraft. They really were going to use expendable rockets for cargo (such as Saturn), while using the craft similar to Scaled Composites (the carrier aircraft would have been different). Nixon nixed that idea and pushed their working with the air force on a space truck.

Swing Wings

[Anonymous Coward]

Swing wings proved to be a combination of too fragile, too prone to mechanical failures, and too much weight to be practical or efficient or economical enough.

In simple terms: a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Imperial or Metric confusion-free

[Anonymous Coward]

Only hope NASA knows very well it is 50000 lbs (pounds) [approx 25000 kilograms] and have not assumed it is 50000 kilograms (approx 100000 pounds).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Heaviest parachute drop ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, atleast Tsar Bomba ( biggest soviet nuclear test, 50mt, 27 ton device ) is heavier... Thou it didnt quite make it to the ground.

citation please

[ovu]

and pics

Good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now your mom can go skydiving.

Mr. Potato Head....

[rts008]

Like a hot potato?

I/my network have asbestos mittens, dawg, so 'drop it when it's hot', is just an excuse, not an answer.

Yes, race for funny....it is your only option/head-start! *gets out BFG 9000, and takes aim, starts counting down from #5...4...3..)Run, Mf'r, run!*

Pure ignorance of the subject matter....

[rts008]

There is a limit to the 'g-forces' the average/mean human being can withstand...or will tolerate commercially.- this is the 'moving limit' that must be addressed.

Give up your inertial compensator design, and we(/.) may agree with you.

Without some form of 'inertial compensator' tech, your comment falls into the 'Hand Waving' category.

Re:Pure ignorance of the subject matter....

[berend botje]

Are you sure you posted in the right thread?

Electronics Units

[sfm]

I have just about given up on the dual standard for ASIC area.
Having only the choice between mils^2 or mm^ I have decided to
do all my measurements in pico-acres.

FWIW - 1 pico-acre is darned close to 2*Pi square mils :-)