If it was 60+ lbs of ice it would be like 60+ lbs of ice hitting the orbiter as it falls from the tank. The relative velocity between the falling foam/ice and the orbiter was relatively small,
Once it becomes detached it starts accelerating downwards at 1G, at the same time the shuttle is still acceletating upwards at something like 3G. So the velocity at impact probably isn't that low. Also pure ice is harder than the tiles, possibly harder than the skin underneath.
'cold soaking'--done a while ago on Atlantis; you orient the shuttle so the undersurface is facing away from the sun in order to get it X-tra cold before rentry.
Which wouldn't have done much good if the heatshield was punctured. Cold aluminium will melt just as easily as if it was at room temperature.
There is no difference between the Soyuz and the shuttle, isn't it? Like payload, Canada Arm, experiments, shuttle bay,
If you want to put payload into orbit then what's wrong with a cargo rocket? A vehicle designed just to lift cargo can be a lot more efficent since it dosn't have to also have a safe place for humans to sit. Cargo can be packaged to survive more than 3G and dosn't need to breath.
An 11 year old snuck into his classroom during lunch and changed some of his grades on his teacher's computer. He was caught and is now facing FELONY computer fraud charges. Tell me that's not a bit ridiculous.
What would have happened if he had altered a paper gradebook? Would he have been facing felony fraud charges? Or would he have simply failed everything:)
The other difference is that "white collar" crime affects hundreds or thousands or even more... while violent crime usually only affects a handfull.
Also individuals can often take some steps to protect themselves against violent criminals. e.g. a store clerk confronted by an armed robber could shoot the robber. But what can the same person do against someone robbing his or her pension fund?
It's equally disingenuous to try to argue that guns are designed to kill. As a matter of fact, one of the "advantages" to the 5.56mm round the US Army (and USMC) use is that it's supposed to wound, rather than kill outright, its target. By administering a grave wound, the theory goes, not only do you disable the target, but you disable two of his friends who now have to take him off the battlefield to get medical attention. Three for one.
We allow the government to regulate the operation of motor vehicles only on public roads or public property in the US. You can drive at any age, drive vehicles of any type or drive vehicles of any condition on your own property.
Or anyone else's land so long as you have their permission. Many cars used in motor sport are not "street legal".
I don't know why so many Americans are fixated on the idea that terrorists hate 'American Freedom' and the American lifestyle itself is the target.
Because that is the message the US mainstream media and US politicians give out repeatedly.
No, the real thing they hate (and this applies in Europe too, to a much lesser extent of course) is the PERCEPTION of the American way of live, demonstrated by American foreign policy. It might seem hard to someone living inside the USA, but American foreign policy is rather different, often anti-democratic (eg, the number of dictators substantially supported by the USA is ridiculous),
Sometimes even more directly "anti-democratic" installing dictators. Even overthrowing democratic governments, because they don't automatically support the US government or the interests of some US based corporation.
and always pushing to change local laws to favour US business interests.
But willing to impose tariffs against the likes of steel and wood, when US industries can't compete.
Is is this 'cultural imperialism' that evokes everything from "they are our friends, but we wish they wouldn't be so power-mongering" (among the allies of the US)
The US dosn't appear to have that many allies left, especially when you count the general populations of many countries.
2. US soldiers on Arabic soil - to them this is a great insult/sin or something, I don't fully understand, to have western soldiers in their home countries.
Why is that so difficult to understand? Do you think that the average American would be happy to have a bunch of Arab soldiers in the US? The Koreans arn't that happy with US soldiers on their soil either.
This doesn't follow. 9/11 casualties were not caused by 'weapons' (except indirectly by boxcutters) but by planes. Planes are a form of transport.
It's not as if the planes suddenly came from nowhere. Someone failed to sound the alarm when they started to behave stangely. (Which should have been a complete "no brainer", since the planes did several things any of which FAA documents define as an "emergency".)
Many kinds of concentrated energy storage are dangerous in this respect - petrol, rocket motors, fertiliser. Restricting peoples' ability to accumulate such substances does make sense up to a point.
How do you restrict someone's ability to stockpile anything? Especially when terrorists can operate as a group and use false/stolen identities/documents.
Turn off your sarcasm for a moment and think: How do you expect to impose democracy on a place like Iraq and have it work?
By definition you cannot impose democracy.
That's the main problem - you can't just tell someone that they will be democratic, they have to do it themselves. Any other method will be viewed as imperialism and dealt with accordingly.
Whatever you call it it won't be a "democracy". Even if such a system winds up holding elections they are unlikely to be free and fair.
We can encourage Iran's democratic movement
Don't expect a democratic Iran to be too "US friendly". Overturning the last Iranian democracy, installing a dictator and helping Iraq in the war is hardly a good basis for friendship.
and support anyone else who chooses democracy
Where the US government has a big problem is in treating other governments as peers.
or at least stop funding the dictators who put them down.
It's one way the US government can be reasonably sure that it has "friends"...
I find it amusing that Americans think that the reason why terrorists target them is because of their freedom. Only American media believes that. Everyone else in the world knows that the reason is because of American administration foreign policy, which tries to: 1. Shove democracy down countries throats, even if they don't want it; by using forceful tactics.
2. Topple and encourage rebels to topple regimes to set up "US-friendly" governments.
Actually the first point isn't actually the case. The US has shown itself perfectly prepared to topple democratic governments. e.g. in Iran and Chilie. Democracies are not guarenteed to be "US friendly". Especially if the US government or US corporates want easy access to their land, fruit, sugar, oil, etc. Indeed when facing foreign exploitation a democratic government will act to protect the interests of their own citizens and corporate entities. (If they don't they get replaced by those who will.)
How can you be so sure? The Nazis killed men, women, and children based on Hitlers twisted interpretations of religion. There is no pit too low for some to stoop.
They are hardly the only people to do this. Plenty of people throughout history have used twisted interpretations of religion for warfare and terrorism. We have political leaders and even entire nation states which operate in exactly this way right now.
I'm pretty sure the statistic about kids killed by handguns being fewer than those drowned in buckets is true. The numbers I remember (kids under 12!) are 30 for handguns and 50 for buckets. Many places you will see "children" of 18 and under included in this statistic. Including 18-year-olds includes all the "children" being killed in the crossfire of the War On Drugs (which is really a war on self-medication).
The latter certainly includes drug dealers battling with each other. Also there is nothing stopping criminals being younger than 18 anyway.
My take is this: it's just one more sign of the total lack of competence on the part of the United States Federal Government. It reminds me of the TFRs placed around nuclear power plants. Pilots like me were warned "don't fly within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant!"
What are you flying? More to the point at what kind of speed...
The Japs did this in WW II, and if they had had access to WMD, and a GPS receiver as a crude trigger, they might have actually hurt somebody, instead of those bombs landing and exploding in the California desert somewhere.
The Japanese were developing a WMD. A plague flea bomb.
Yeah well, why the hell do you think that tickets cost so damn much? I can't get a sporting event ticket with even half decent seats for less than $60-70.
However there must be enough people prepared to pay these prices.
And how would giving guns to the law-abiding masses help in this situation? Do you think *you* could take down a terrorist who's aiming an AK-47 at you?
A terrorist is going to be bolder going after civilians they know won't have any guns. They might not be so bold facing the other end of several AK-47s.
We had a rather eccentric neighbor who was ex-military (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam), and who worked on one of the US missile systems (patriot, I think). Anyway, one day he was telling my mom about how easy it would be to put a bomb on a remote controlled airplane, fly it in to someone's house, and then detonate it, with no one knowing what happened. Thing is, he probably could have done it himself with stuff in his garage or something.
If you have terrorists prepared to kill themselves you don't need to modify an aircraft at all. Even an explosive loaded truck can do a lot of damage.
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If it was 60+ lbs of ice it would be like 60+ lbs of ice hitting the orbiter as it falls from the tank. The relative velocity between the falling foam/ice and the orbiter was relatively small,
Once it becomes detached it starts accelerating downwards at 1G, at the same time the shuttle is still acceletating upwards at something like 3G.
So the velocity at impact probably isn't that low. Also pure ice is harder than the tiles, possibly harder than the skin underneath.
'cold soaking'--done a while ago on Atlantis; you orient the shuttle so the undersurface is facing away from the sun in order to get it X-tra cold before rentry.
Which wouldn't have done much good if the heatshield was punctured. Cold aluminium will melt just as easily as if it was at room temperature.
Why on earth would NASA want people to think a random peice of space junk was responsible?
Because that way it's no longer NASA's fault. A random piece of junk is either NORAD's problem or just an "act of God".
There is no difference between the Soyuz and the shuttle, isn't it? Like payload, Canada Arm, experiments, shuttle bay,
If you want to put payload into orbit then what's wrong with a cargo rocket? A vehicle designed just to lift cargo can be a lot more efficent since it dosn't have to also have a safe place for humans to sit. Cargo can be packaged to survive more than 3G and dosn't need to breath.
Space Station orbit corrections.
Radical idea: fit the station with an OMS...
The shuttle costs $500M per flight and is reusable.
Remembering that "reusable" includes rebuilding the SRBs after fishing them out of the Atlantic and doing the equivalent of an HMV on the orbiter.
Soyuz costs $10M per flight (they charge $20M) and is disposable, and has a superior safety record.
It's only ever killed 4 people in flight, none recently, and the crew escape system actually works.
An 11 year old snuck into his classroom during lunch and changed some of his grades on his teacher's computer. He was caught and is now facing FELONY computer fraud charges. Tell me that's not a bit ridiculous.
:)
What would have happened if he had altered a paper gradebook? Would he have been facing felony fraud charges?
Or would he have simply failed everything
The other difference is that "white collar" crime affects hundreds or thousands or even more... while violent crime usually only affects a handfull.
Also individuals can often take some steps to protect themselves against violent criminals. e.g. a store clerk confronted by an armed robber could shoot the robber. But what can the same person do against someone robbing his or her pension fund?
It's equally disingenuous to try to argue that guns are designed to kill. As a matter of fact, one of the "advantages" to the 5.56mm round the US Army (and USMC) use is that it's supposed to wound, rather than kill outright, its target. By administering a grave wound, the theory goes, not only do you disable the target, but you disable two of his friends who now have to take him off the battlefield to get medical attention. Three for one.
Much the same applies to landmines...
Try buying a car with no catalytic converter.
Simple, find someone who wants to sell one and offer them money.
We allow the government to regulate the operation of motor vehicles only on public roads or public property in the US. You can drive at any age, drive vehicles of any type or drive vehicles of any condition on your own property.
Or anyone else's land so long as you have their permission. Many cars used in motor sport are not "street legal".
I see it as an excellent oppertunity to make liquid-fuel rockets more popular as a hobby.
The irony is that liquid fueled rockets are a lot more likely to explode.
With solid fuel rockets, you don't have any dynamic control over thrust.
You don't have to deal with the fuel sloshing around and messing up stability either.
I don't know why so many Americans are fixated on the idea that terrorists hate 'American Freedom' and the American lifestyle itself is the target.
Because that is the message the US mainstream media and US politicians give out repeatedly.
No, the real thing they hate (and this applies in Europe too, to a much lesser extent of course) is the PERCEPTION of the American way of live, demonstrated by American foreign policy. It might seem hard to someone living inside the USA, but American foreign policy is rather different, often anti-democratic (eg, the number of dictators substantially supported by the USA is ridiculous),
Sometimes even more directly "anti-democratic" installing dictators. Even overthrowing democratic governments, because they don't automatically support the US government or the interests of some US based corporation.
and always pushing to change local laws to favour US business interests.
But willing to impose tariffs against the likes of steel and wood, when US industries can't compete.
Is is this 'cultural imperialism' that evokes everything from "they are our friends, but we wish they wouldn't be so power-mongering" (among the allies of the US)
The US dosn't appear to have that many allies left, especially when you count the general populations of many countries.
2. US soldiers on Arabic soil - to them this is a great insult/sin or something, I don't fully understand, to have western soldiers in their home countries.
Why is that so difficult to understand? Do you think that the average American would be happy to have a bunch of Arab soldiers in the US? The Koreans arn't that happy with US soldiers on their soil either.
This doesn't follow. 9/11 casualties were not caused by 'weapons' (except indirectly by boxcutters) but by planes. Planes are a form of transport.
It's not as if the planes suddenly came from nowhere. Someone failed to sound the alarm when they started to behave stangely. (Which should have been a complete "no brainer", since the planes did several things any of which FAA documents define as an "emergency".)
Many kinds of concentrated energy storage are dangerous in this respect - petrol, rocket motors, fertiliser. Restricting peoples' ability to accumulate such substances does make sense up to a point.
How do you restrict someone's ability to stockpile anything? Especially when terrorists can operate as a group and use false/stolen identities/documents.
Turn off your sarcasm for a moment and think: How do you expect to impose democracy on a place like Iraq and have it work?
By definition you cannot impose democracy.
That's the main problem - you can't just tell someone that they will be democratic, they have to do it themselves. Any other method will be viewed as imperialism and dealt with accordingly.
Whatever you call it it won't be a "democracy". Even if such a system winds up holding elections they are unlikely to be free and fair.
We can encourage Iran's democratic movement
Don't expect a democratic Iran to be too "US friendly". Overturning the last Iranian democracy, installing a dictator and helping Iraq in the war is hardly a good basis for friendship.
and support anyone else who chooses democracy
Where the US government has a big problem is in treating other governments as peers.
or at least stop funding the dictators who put them down.
It's one way the US government can be reasonably sure that it has "friends"...
It really is complicated.
Actually it's not that complicated at all.
I find it amusing that Americans think that the reason why terrorists target them is because of their freedom. Only American media believes that. Everyone else in the world knows that the reason is because of American administration foreign policy, which tries to:
1. Shove democracy down countries throats, even if they don't want it; by using forceful tactics.
2. Topple and encourage rebels to topple regimes to set up "US-friendly" governments.
Actually the first point isn't actually the case. The US has shown itself perfectly prepared to topple democratic governments. e.g. in Iran and Chilie.
Democracies are not guarenteed to be "US friendly". Especially if the US government or US corporates want easy access to their land, fruit, sugar, oil, etc.
Indeed when facing foreign exploitation a democratic government will act to protect the interests of their own citizens and corporate entities. (If they don't they get replaced by those who will.)
How can you be so sure? The Nazis killed men, women, and children based on Hitlers twisted interpretations of religion. There is no pit too low for some to stoop.
They are hardly the only people to do this. Plenty of people throughout history have used twisted interpretations of religion for warfare and terrorism. We have political leaders and even entire nation states which operate in exactly this way right now.
I'm pretty sure the statistic about kids killed by handguns being fewer than those drowned in buckets is true. The numbers I remember (kids under 12!) are 30 for handguns and 50 for buckets. Many places you will see "children" of 18 and under included in this statistic. Including 18-year-olds includes all the "children" being killed in the crossfire of the War On Drugs (which is really a war on self-medication).
The latter certainly includes drug dealers battling with each other. Also there is nothing stopping criminals being younger than 18 anyway.
My take is this: it's just one more sign of the total lack of competence on the part of the United States Federal Government. It reminds me of the TFRs placed around nuclear power plants. Pilots like me were warned "don't fly within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant!"
What are you flying? More to the point at what kind of speed...
The Japs did this in WW II, and if they had had access to WMD, and a GPS receiver as a crude trigger, they might have actually hurt somebody, instead of those bombs landing and exploding in the California desert somewhere.
The Japanese were developing a WMD. A plague flea bomb.
Yeah well, why the hell do you think that tickets cost so damn much? I can't get a sporting event ticket with even half decent seats for less than $60-70.
However there must be enough people prepared to pay these prices.
And how would giving guns to the law-abiding masses help in this situation? Do you think *you* could take down a terrorist who's aiming an AK-47 at you?
A terrorist is going to be bolder going after civilians they know won't have any guns. They might not be so bold facing the other end of several AK-47s.
AP based propellent is NOT a good explosive. Believe me, I've used this stuff for years.
The last thing you want with a solid fuel motor is for it to explode when ignited. It's dangerous and makes an expensive mess.
Actually your model plane can fly higher and carry a bigger payload than most model rockets.
As well as further, quite likely an important criteria if you are a terrorist.
We had a rather eccentric neighbor who was ex-military (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam), and who worked on one of the US missile systems (patriot, I think). Anyway, one day he was telling my mom about how easy it would be to put a bomb on a remote controlled airplane, fly it in to someone's house, and then detonate it, with no one knowing what happened. Thing is, he probably could have done it himself with stuff in his garage or something.
If you have terrorists prepared to kill themselves you don't need to modify an aircraft at all. Even an explosive loaded truck can do a lot of damage.