Indeed. "Submarine", "aircraft carrier" and "fleet oiler" are legitimately descriptive names, but "destroyer", "cruiser" and (in the past) "battleship" are totally arbitrary: all three of those types do all three things!
No, it's a Kamikaze airplane if it's launched on a suicide mission under the Kamikaze program. With one small-numbers exception, it was pretty much any type of combat airplane before it got worn out.
I've always been fascinated by people who keep dangerous pets or work with them. They often seem to hold the belief that their relationship with these creatures transcends their instinctive nature to kill.
Back in the Seventies there was an article on these folks in the short-lived US edition of Geo Magazine. The writer interviewed some, and noticed a recurring thread: they stoutly maintained that Leo would never hurt them; they had a good-sized bandage somewhere on them; and the first thing out of their mouths was a lame description of a kitchen accident...
And where does the payload land on the 1-in-100 launches that the orbital insertion motor fails?
Pretty much the same place as the payload on a current launch if its insertion motor fails. Were you under the impression rocket-based launches don't use insertion motors?
The insertion motor isn't necessarily a single-purpose item; for example, the Shuttle used the same motors for insertion that it used for the rest of its on-orbit maneuvers...but one way or another, you either insert or you come back down.
Good point, but it may not be a deal breaker: the sensible atmosphere isn't all that thick. When you reach 18,000 feet, you've already left half of it below you.
Well, so far nobody has tried to harden a rocket motor against high lateral acceleration, because there hasn't been any application for it. Absent some research, I wouldn't kiss it off as impossible.
3) And finally, it still won't work even if a payload is accelerated to orbital speed. That's because the payload would re-enter the atmosphere and return to the point where it left the accelerator at the end of its first orbit - that's simple freaking orbital mechanics.
TFA points out that it will have to have an orbital insertion motor on board.
In mountains, it's much cheaper to put a man on a high point with a radar and radio, and have several cars lurk just round the next bend. The Georgetown Grade west of Denver gets endless homeward-bound skiers that way.
If an airport terminal in a country can be considered "not in a country" and that works, and a hotel can also be considered "not really in a country", why not a bus?
Quite right. As long as he's continuously under the control of the immigration authority, he's still "in transit". Not uncommon to bus international passengers between airplanes and customs/immigration, especially if the airport has construction going on.
Well, in principle, the pilot could fly back to the boat and bail out.
The Brits did something like that on a trial basis in WW1: An airplane would be catapulted off a ship, fly a recon mission, then ditch in the water and the pilot would be fished out. Since the price of an airplane in those days was about the same as one 14-inch shell for a battleship, the economics weren't that bad.
Submarines are ballasted with seawater. The leaking mercury you read about was cargo, being carried to Japan by one German submarine (U-864) for use in explosives manufacture.
Slashdot Mirror
Hookers supposedly got their name from General Hooker in the Civil War
Accent on "supposedly". Here it is five years before that war:
http://books.google.com/books?id=6EfnQ2HMU9QC&pg=PA201&dq=intitle:americanisms+hooker&output=html
Indeed. "Submarine", "aircraft carrier" and "fleet oiler" are legitimately descriptive names, but "destroyer", "cruiser" and (in the past) "battleship" are totally arbitrary: all three of those types do all three things!
When the Japanese name a plane Cherry blossom, it's not going to be the sort of plane that needs landing gear.
By the same token, when medieval Spain named a ship Most Holy Virgin or something similar, you could be sure it packed at least two hundred guns...
No, it's a Kamikaze airplane if it's launched on a suicide mission under the Kamikaze program. With one small-numbers exception, it was pretty much any type of combat airplane before it got worn out.
Gold, no. Platinum, no. Unobtainium...sure.
I assume this wasn't done for half a dozen reasons stacking up, from it's too big, too hard to let go, how dare you, etc.
I think you left out "You can't buy a new orca for the price of a dolphin"...
I've always been fascinated by people who keep dangerous pets or work with them. They often seem to hold the belief that their relationship with these creatures transcends their instinctive nature to kill.
Back in the Seventies there was an article on these folks in the short-lived US edition of Geo Magazine. The writer interviewed some, and noticed a recurring thread: they stoutly maintained that Leo would never hurt them; they had a good-sized bandage somewhere on them; and the first thing out of their mouths was a lame description of a kitchen accident...
Undoubtedly, but he probably doesn't know that.
Mod parent up. Every airline has massively better simulators.
Of course, what a NM _really_ is (or was) is one minute of arc on the surface of the Earth.
"Was" is the correct alternative. Today it's 1852 point nothing meters.
And where does the payload land on the 1-in-100 launches that the orbital insertion motor fails?
Pretty much the same place as the payload on a current launch if its insertion motor fails. Were you under the impression rocket-based launches don't use insertion motors?
The insertion motor isn't necessarily a single-purpose item; for example, the Shuttle used the same motors for insertion that it used for the rest of its on-orbit maneuvers...but one way or another, you either insert or you come back down.
Good point, but it may not be a deal breaker: the sensible atmosphere isn't all that thick. When you reach 18,000 feet, you've already left half of it below you.
Well, so far nobody has tried to harden a rocket motor against high lateral acceleration, because there hasn't been any application for it. Absent some research, I wouldn't kiss it off as impossible.
3) And finally, it still won't work even if a payload is accelerated to orbital speed. That's because the payload would re-enter the atmosphere and return to the point where it left the accelerator at the end of its first orbit - that's simple freaking orbital mechanics.
TFA points out that it will have to have an orbital insertion motor on board.
Approximately 1990, back when my knees were still working.
In mountains, it's much cheaper to put a man on a high point with a radar and radio, and have several cars lurk just round the next bend. The Georgetown Grade west of Denver gets endless homeward-bound skiers that way.
If an airport terminal in a country can be considered "not in a country" and that works, and a hotel can also be considered "not really in a country", why not a bus?
Quite right. As long as he's continuously under the control of the immigration authority, he's still "in transit".
Not uncommon to bus international passengers between airplanes and customs/immigration, especially if the airport has construction going on.
Wrong crop.
the plane was never supposed to ever come back.
Well, in principle, the pilot could fly back to the boat and bail out.
The Brits did something like that on a trial basis in WW1: An airplane would be catapulted off a ship, fly a recon mission, then ditch in the water and the pilot would be fished out. Since the price of an airplane in those days was about the same as one 14-inch shell for a battleship, the economics weren't that bad.
they were intended to drop incendiary bombs on forests.
There was also a plan to attack the Panama Canal. One of the airplanes is preserved at the National Air & Space Museum.
You're missing plentiful foreplay. Titanic, Ghost, The English Patient...
Submarines are ballasted with seawater. The leaking mercury you read about was cargo, being carried to Japan by one German submarine (U-864) for use in explosives manufacture.
The Hunley lay at half that depth for 130 years.
And tons of English words not used in the standard context. Like "tons".
I feel as if I just woke up in a beer bar between football games...