Since the pitch problem was occuring on landing, you may safely conclude that the speeds involved were not great. I wouldn't want to land a plane a whole heck of a lot faster than a powerful truck can travel.
Gosh, maybe this Rutan guy knows what the fuck he's doing, huh?
Depends on how you release it. If you can keep it from being disturbed by air currents, and you let it sit there for a REALLY long time, it will form a sphere.
Surface tension is a very not strong force. A litre of water masses what, a kilo? Surface tension force in water is (if I remember correctly) teeny fractions of a newton per unit length, which must be integrated over the surface, blah blah math happens now, but you don't have much F to do MA.
As you have surmised, the fuel for landing is dead weight. Now, if you were a rocket scientist, you'd know that you need way, way, way, way, way, way more fuel mass than wing mass.
No diss, but I know a bit about this stuff. I hope that somebody who knows more than me can explain this to me.
Frankly, I don't think they can, because I think it's an attempt to be Flash Gordon rather than to make a good spaceship.
Anime is not a genre, it's a medium. You can use it to tell good stories, or bad stories. You can use it to tell funny stories, or serious stories. You can use it to tell stories for kids, or stories no kid should ever be within 50 yards of. (Way to end a sentence with a preposition!)
There are people who will watch anime just because it's anime. Me, I watch good anime, because it's good.
Watch Grave of the Fireflies and tell me that anime not a serious artistic medium. After you stop crying your eyes out.
The problem is that hardcore simulation games are dying. I can't think of any big ones that have shipped recently.
If it's not a POV shooter, or an RPG, or a RTS, it's not shipping for PC (to a good approximation).
PC games are, unfortunately, stagnating. This is less true of the console market. If you told me five years ago that I'd say this, I'd have laughed at you.
Without specifics, I can't contend your allegation. I will, however, agree completely that there is no justice in the world. There are, though, just people.
If ever there was a justified war, it was the European war against Hitler.
War is madness, but it is a part of the human condition.
I'm not demanding anybody dance to my pipes. I just lament the fact that everybody has such a short memory. Me, I think 60 years isn't very long at all.
It's really pretty simple if you think about it. The "technology to defeat Google" was just a big check to buy Google. You know, like all of Microsoft's "technology" developments.
Except for the ones where they get the government to leave them alone after being convicted. That's called "innovation".
The math is quite simple, and I inserted it only as evidence for my point.
Half the fuel may be used up before you exit the atmosphere (I don't have numbers one way or the other to dispute this, and it may well be so), because you use a lot of fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to (...) accelerate the payload.
It's a decreasing geometric progression. As your spacecraft loses weight, you get more acceleration per pound of fuel burned, so it stands to reason that you'll use the large part of your fuel in the first part of your flight.
I (me this one in my opinion I could be wrong) don't see the utility of launching from high altitude, simply because altitude is far, far easier to get than velocity. Even if you launch from 80,000 feet (like Burt Rutan's entry into the X-Prize competition that will a) probably win and b) not look anything like an orbital flight), you will not decrease the amount of fuel you need to accelerate to orbital velocity by a significant margin.
The problem with scramjets is simple: Drag.
Assume you have a teeny space ship that you've figured needs 1 pound of thrust to get up into space. In order to generate that one pound of thrust, let's pretend that we have a space ship that has one square inch of frontal area. The frontal area is the dominant term in the equation that calculates the wave drag of a supersonic body, and the wave drag is the dominant term in the overall drag experienced by a vehicle that needs to do a lot of its acceleration in the atmosphere (which, by virtue of the fact that it needs air to breathe, an air-breathing spaceship like a scramjet must do).
The problem is, that to generate the same pound of thrust as our imaginary rocket, our imaginary scramjet needs to have four times the frontal area to ram the air down its own gullet. So it has a lot more drag (geometric progression, as the frontal area is squared in your wave drag equation). This is really really bad. So, to generate the same amount of thrust, it must be large enough such that it generates LOTS LOTS LOTS more drag. Since your net acceleration (brace for mathematics) A is proportional to the net force Thrust minus Drag (we'll assume the mass M is the same in both rockets) your acceleration is much smaller in your draggy scramjet-powered vehicle than in your rocket.
I encourage you to examine the math. It's really pretty straightforward, and a smart layperson can easily comprehend even the simple calculus of rocketry.
If this is in any way unclear, let me know and I shall elucicate.
The hard part of getting into space is not the altitude, it's the velocity.
Consider the energy equation.
Etotal=Ekinetic+Epotential
Epotential=mgh
where m is mass, g is acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s^2) and h is height (calculated surface of the earth, since it's really a change in height, and the vehicle starts out with some potential energy due to its distance from the center of the earth).
Ekinetic=.5*m*v^2
Where m is (again) mass, and v is velocity. Orbital velocity. That's a big number. That's squared.
(Note: You can divide out the mass of your ship, giving you an energy requirement per unit mass on orbit. If you care.)
To solve for orbital velocity as a function of altitude, you can use this equation:
v=sqrt(GM/r) (Szebehely "Adventures in Celestial Mechanics eqn 1.5)
Where G is the gravitational constant (6.672*10^-11 m^3/(kg*sec^2)), and M is the mass of the earth (5.9x10^24 kg), and r is the radius from the center of the Earth to our ship (the desired orbital radius).
OK.
So now you do some algebra (or fire up Excel) and note that the dominating factor in that first equation is the velocity of the spacecraft. According to my simple model (assuming point masses, circular orbits, and ignoring air resistance) the potential energy required is one fifth of the kinetic energy required. Fuel consumption is approximately proportional to energy consumption (again, ignoring things like changing motor efficiency with height and stuff like that).
For every six pounds of fuel, five go to increasing your velocity, and one pound to increasing your height.
So "flying up to orbit" is just a silly idea.
If you're interested, I'll be glad to de-bunk air breathing "rocket" motors (scramjets) for you as well.
Staged, chemical rockets are the best way to get to orbit with current technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Since the pitch problem was occuring on landing, you may safely conclude that the speeds involved were not great. I wouldn't want to land a plane a whole heck of a lot faster than a powerful truck can travel.
Gosh, maybe this Rutan guy knows what the fuck he's doing, huh?
Depends on how you release it. If you can keep it from being disturbed by air currents, and you let it sit there for a REALLY long time, it will form a sphere.
Surface tension is a very not strong force. A litre of water masses what, a kilo? Surface tension force in water is (if I remember correctly) teeny fractions of a newton per unit length, which must be integrated over the surface, blah blah math happens now, but you don't have much F to do MA.
So, forming that sphere is not going to be easy.
I think you need a hug.
I think you also need a clue, but you REALLY need a hug.
This is no different, and no less annoying, than region encoding, which is widely enforced.
That bit is an access control measure, and if you think that circumventing it is not illegal according to the DMCA, you're a loony.
This is EXACTLY what that law was purchased to do.
As you have surmised, the fuel for landing is dead weight. Now, if you were a rocket scientist, you'd know that you need way, way, way, way, way, way more fuel mass than wing mass.
No diss, but I know a bit about this stuff. I hope that somebody who knows more than me can explain this to me.
Frankly, I don't think they can, because I think it's an attempt to be Flash Gordon rather than to make a good spaceship.
Do you have any substantiation for your claim, or are you trolling?
And I DO know something about the industry.
Absolutely not, and anybody who does is a sociopath. Yes, that applies to the people who go to NASCAR races for the same reason.
Will somebody please explain to me why rocket-borne landing is a win on a planet where wings and parachutes work really, really well?
I thought the DC-X was a neat technology demonstrator, and a catastrophically broken idea for a spacecraft.
Well, if it's any consolation (pardon the pun) I won't buy Microsoft products, so that doesn't count. : )
Flanker 2.5 is awesome, but I have trouble reading Cyrillic, and I can't use the English cockpit 'cuz that's cheating.
Yes, I am a psycho.
And GitS didn't have any damn unicorns.
Stupid unicorns. "Oooh! Let's have a unicorn run through the woods! It'll be all ethereal and mysterious!"
grumble grumble ridley scott grumble grumble
Anime is not a genre, it's a medium. You can use it to tell good stories, or bad stories. You can use it to tell funny stories, or serious stories. You can use it to tell stories for kids, or stories no kid should ever be within 50 yards of. (Way to end a sentence with a preposition!)
There are people who will watch anime just because it's anime. Me, I watch good anime, because it's good.
Watch Grave of the Fireflies and tell me that anime not a serious artistic medium. After you stop crying your eyes out.
The problem is that hardcore simulation games are dying. I can't think of any big ones that have shipped recently.
If it's not a POV shooter, or an RPG, or a RTS, it's not shipping for PC (to a good approximation).
PC games are, unfortunately, stagnating. This is less true of the console market. If you told me five years ago that I'd say this, I'd have laughed at you.
Hmm. So you're surprised that people react negatively when you are rude to them?
You're not very good with people, are you?
I agree...Unbreakable was superb.
However, Signs was 3/4 of a good movie with a really stupid ending.
"Aliens cross galaxy to kidnap humans, only to be thwarted by THE MOST COMMON COMPOUND ON THE PLANET'S SURFACE and a fucking pantry door."
I was disappointed.
You have to keep fighting for it, is my point.
Without specifics, I can't contend your allegation. I will, however, agree completely that there is no justice in the world. There are, though, just people.
Freedom is a struggle. You lose it unless you fight for it.
If ever there was a justified war, it was the European war against Hitler.
War is madness, but it is a part of the human condition.
I'm not demanding anybody dance to my pipes. I just lament the fact that everybody has such a short memory. Me, I think 60 years isn't very long at all.
It's really pretty simple if you think about it. The "technology to defeat Google" was just a big check to buy Google. You know, like all of Microsoft's "technology" developments.
Except for the ones where they get the government to leave them alone after being convicted. That's called "innovation".
I thought people from Europe could spell. You know, better schools or something.
Those same soldiers would be pretty offended at the treatment America gets from lots of Europe. Go ahead. Ask 'em. I'm related to a couple of them.
The math is quite simple, and I inserted it only as evidence for my point.
Half the fuel may be used up before you exit the atmosphere (I don't have numbers one way or the other to dispute this, and it may well be so), because you use a lot of fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to accelerate the fuel that you need to (...) accelerate the payload.
It's a decreasing geometric progression. As your spacecraft loses weight, you get more acceleration per pound of fuel burned, so it stands to reason that you'll use the large part of your fuel in the first part of your flight.
I (me this one in my opinion I could be wrong) don't see the utility of launching from high altitude, simply because altitude is far, far easier to get than velocity. Even if you launch from 80,000 feet (like Burt Rutan's entry into the X-Prize competition that will a) probably win and b) not look anything like an orbital flight), you will not decrease the amount of fuel you need to accelerate to orbital velocity by a significant margin.
The problem with scramjets is simple: Drag.
Assume you have a teeny space ship that you've figured needs 1 pound of thrust to get up into space. In order to generate that one pound of thrust, let's pretend that we have a space ship that has one square inch of frontal area. The frontal area is the dominant term in the equation that calculates the wave drag of a supersonic body, and the wave drag is the dominant term in the overall drag experienced by a vehicle that needs to do a lot of its acceleration in the atmosphere (which, by virtue of the fact that it needs air to breathe, an air-breathing spaceship like a scramjet must do).
The problem is, that to generate the same pound of thrust as our imaginary rocket, our imaginary scramjet needs to have four times the frontal area to ram the air down its own gullet. So it has a lot more drag (geometric progression, as the frontal area is squared in your wave drag equation). This is really really bad. So, to generate the same amount of thrust, it must be large enough such that it generates LOTS LOTS LOTS more drag. Since your net acceleration (brace for mathematics) A is proportional to the net force Thrust minus Drag (we'll assume the mass M is the same in both rockets) your acceleration is much smaller in your draggy scramjet-powered vehicle than in your rocket.
I encourage you to examine the math. It's really pretty straightforward, and a smart layperson can easily comprehend even the simple calculus of rocketry.
If this is in any way unclear, let me know and I shall elucicate.
Yep. Me too. Couldn't agree more.
Just keep your cat away from my spaceship, and I'll be fine. Think yew.
Riding in your car is not safe. I suggest you stop doing it. Same with going in your bathroom. That's not safe either.
Safety is overrated. Safety is for cowards. Explorers manage risks.
Over, because you say it is. That's nice to know. Are you similarly the arbiter of right and wrong on all other topics? How can I contact you?
Probes don't explore. They gather data, to facilitate exploration. Exploration takes humans. Anything else is a waste of money.
I'll be delighted to send you a check for the $2 you spent this year on NASA's budget.
Please stop pretending like we're talking about large amounts of money here. The costs are miniscule, and the potential rewards are incalculable.
You're wrong. A lot.
The hard part of getting into space is not the altitude, it's the velocity.
Consider the energy equation.
Etotal=Ekinetic+Epotential
Epotential=mgh
where m is mass, g is acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s^2) and h is height (calculated surface of the earth, since it's really a change in height, and the vehicle starts out with some potential energy due to its distance from the center of the earth).
Ekinetic=.5*m*v^2
Where m is (again) mass, and v is velocity. Orbital velocity. That's a big number. That's squared.
(Note: You can divide out the mass of your ship, giving you an energy requirement per unit mass on orbit. If you care.)
To solve for orbital velocity as a function of altitude, you can use this equation:
v=sqrt(GM/r) (Szebehely "Adventures in Celestial Mechanics eqn 1.5)
Where G is the gravitational constant (6.672*10^-11 m^3/(kg*sec^2)), and M is the mass of the earth (5.9x10^24 kg), and r is the radius from the center of the Earth to our ship (the desired orbital radius).
OK.
So now you do some algebra (or fire up Excel) and note that the dominating factor in that first equation is the velocity of the spacecraft. According to my simple model (assuming point masses, circular orbits, and ignoring air resistance) the potential energy required is one fifth of the kinetic energy required. Fuel consumption is approximately proportional to energy consumption (again, ignoring things like changing motor efficiency with height and stuff like that).
For every six pounds of fuel, five go to increasing your velocity, and one pound to increasing your height.
So "flying up to orbit" is just a silly idea.
If you're interested, I'll be glad to de-bunk air breathing "rocket" motors (scramjets) for you as well.
Staged, chemical rockets are the best way to get to orbit with current technology.