Did you follow the Apollo programme?
The rockets on the Apollo 11 were powerful. The five engines created more power than 85 hoover dams. The sound of the launch was so intense that they had to dump 3m litres of water onto the pad every minute just to dampen the sound waves so they couldn’t bounce back up and destroy the rocket. They have a large water tank near the launch pad to supply the water.
(18-03-2023, 02:54 PM)Roscoe Wrote: [ -> ]Did you follow the Apollo programme?
The rockets on the Apollo 11 were powerful. The five engines created more power than 85 hoover dams. The sound of the launch was so intense that they had to dump 3m litres of water onto the pad every minute just to dampen the sound waves so they couldn’t bounce back up and destroy the rocket. They have a large water tank near the launch pad to supply the water.
Imagine then being one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 11. would have to have had a lot of faith in the design and construction of the craft and its support structures.
(18-03-2023, 03:31 PM)harm_less Wrote: [ -> ] (18-03-2023, 02:54 PM)Roscoe Wrote: [ -> ]Did you follow the Apollo programme?
The rockets on the Apollo 11 were powerful. The five engines created more power than 85 hoover dams. The sound of the launch was so intense that they had to dump 3m litres of water onto the pad every minute just to dampen the sound waves so they couldn’t bounce back up and destroy the rocket. They have a large water tank near the launch pad to supply the water.
Imagine then being one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 11. would have to have had a lot of faith in the design and construction of the craft and its support structures.
The power of rockets increased hugely in that era. As a point of interest, in 1957, Sputnik's rocket output 188,000 pounds of thrust. A huge amount then. Today, one of General Electric's GE9X engines puts out 134,000 pounds of thrust. (Different principle, I know, as one requires air going through it and the other carries its own propellant environment.)
The American way of describing things is amusing, as long as 3 school buses, as big as 2 football fields and the meteor that was heading to Earth in January was the size of a large moving truck. Hoover Dam power comparison is a new one on me!
(18-03-2023, 05:11 PM)Kenj Wrote: [ -> ]The American way of describing things is amusing, as long as 3 school buses, as big as 2 football fields and the meteor that was heading to Earth in January was the size of a large moving truck. Hoover Dam power comparison is a new one on me!
Our own media is also wedded to using olympic swimming pools, African elephants, jumbo jets and able to power powering X houses as measures of volume, weight and energy as they seem completely ignorant of the metric system that anybody with a brain can understand but in the American's case they are still using their own archaic measurement system of 1,000s of pounds, undersized 'US gallons', feet & yards and other such oddball units so perhaps they're hoping to simply things for the rest of the metricated world.
Hint: They refer to both long haul transporters and utility vehicles as 'trucks' so their definition falls over on that detail from the get go.
reminded me of this from Armageddon
I listened to Neil Armstrong say he had never been more terrified in all his life, but did it anyway.
At the time I thought he was the bravest person I had ever met. But I have lived a lot of years since then, and met some equally courageous human beings. None though who have traveled quite as far as he did.
(19-03-2023, 05:22 AM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: [ -> ]I listened to Neil Armstrong say he had never been more terrified in all his life, but did it anyway.
At the time I thought he was the bravest person I had ever met. But I have lived a lot of years since then, and met some equally courageous human beings. None though who have traveled quite as far as he did.
....or as fast
And what about the dogs and monkeys...were they brave and do they have our respect ?
(19-03-2023, 08:18 AM)Zurdo Wrote: [ -> ]And what about the dogs and monkeys...were they brave and do they have our respect ?
Of course they do. Even though they didn't know what was happening!
It is an often unacknowledged human trait, our species elitism. We really believe we have a right to do incredibly bad things to other creatures, not for food, but for our own other benefits.
(19-03-2023, 08:51 AM)Oh_hunnihunni Wrote: [ -> ]It is an often unacknowledged human trait, our species elitism. We really believe we have a right to do incredibly bad things to other creatures, not for food, but for our own other benefits.
True - although I think its very very slowly becoming recognised that our exploitation of other species isn't altogether a good thing.