Spaceship for Planetary or Asteroidal Exploration

"Pat Flannery" skrev i meddelelsen
dakotatelephone...

Never did get around to filling one with glass marbles and seeing what
_those_ would do when they shattered on impact, although I'd hate to get
hit with something like that as they went to pieces on hitting your bones.
:-D

Mebbe just as well. Politicians these days stand ready to pretty much
send you to Gitmo if you use a box cutter at work and forget to remove it
from your car after hours. But I remember some decades ago the Norwegian
Home Guard, I believe it was, making plans for turning everyday items such
as cement pipes into makeshift weapons to be used against the Soviet
invader. Home-made explosives, sort of thing. Let defence-minded citizens
know how to do that. Caused a bit of controversy then; certainly wouldn't
fly now.

Jon Lennart Beck.

On 6/5/2010 3:02 AM, Raven wrote:
"Pat Flannery" skrev i meddelelsen
dakotatelephone...

I'd have to check, but I don't think anyone has put beer in a plastic
bottle as of yet.

The Tuborg brewery in Denmark did about a decade back. The move was
hyped well in advance. The big idea was that plastic bottles are lighter
than glass ones - the weight of the bottle was actually less than that
of the beer inside.

You could say the same thing for aluminum beer cans.

Also they hoped to cut back, pun intended, on brawl
injuries.
Beers normally come in cans nowadays. And glass bottles. Part of the
reason for discontinuing plastic bottles was, I believe, that beer
bottles are reused, but plastic bottles get scratched and have much
fewer reuses than glass ones.

That only applies for the non-returnable glass beer bottles; around here
(Jamestown, North Dakota) the returnable type were discontinued around
four decades back, which was a pity - as they had the original date of
manufacture cast into the bottom of them.
One of the prize possessions of the Distressed Gentlefolks Wine
Appreciation & Free-Thought Society (of which I am a founding member) is
a returnable beer bottle originally made in 1938 that we got in a case
of beer from Fargo in around 1985.
The full story of its journey through the decades would be fascinating
to know.
Many a hand of "The Greatest Generation" no doubt held that bottle as it
quenched their thirst during the struggle against fascism and later
communism, and breweries now long extinct filled it up again and again
to aid them in their battles against tyranny. ;-)

Also beer drinking is usually a communal activity in this country. And
clinking the bottles together just doesn't have the right ring to it
when the bottles go 'clack' rather than 'clink'. :-)

On the other hand, a large can of Foster's Lager with its top cut off,
filled with gravel, and having a sheet of aluminum foil taped over the
front makes one hell of a round of canister shot for a homemade
cannon...and turns a sheet of thin plywood into something resembling
Swiss cheese when fired at it.
Never did get around to filling one with glass marbles and seeing what
_those_ would do when they shattered on impact, although I'd hate to get
hit with something like that as they went to pieces on hitting your
bones. :-D

Pat

On 6/5/2010 5:23 AM, Raven wrote:


Mebbe just as well. Politicians these days stand ready to pretty much
send you to Gitmo if you use a box cutter at work and forget to remove
it from your car after hours. But I remember some decades ago the
Norwegian Home Guard, I believe it was, making plans for turning
everyday items such as cement pipes into makeshift weapons to be used
against the Soviet invader. Home-made explosives, sort of thing. Let
defence-minded citizens know how to do that. Caused a bit of controversy
then; certainly wouldn't fly now.

I still like the Pavlovian trained Soviet antitank dogs with the bombs
on their backs.
When I was over there I saw zero dogs in the whole place; I take it they
had all been blown up.

pat

In sci.space.policy message e3ae12f6-2360-4647-8ef8-7cda78e2b10b@a39g20
00prb.googlegroups.com, Fri, 4 Jun 2010 23:39:42, tom Donnley
posted:

I know I shouldnt have such bias against tethers for AG, but I just
get squeamish at the thought. While Gemini demonstrated passive
control, it didnt really get up to the speeds of 1G nor last long
enough to have to deal with environmental instabilities. Combine that
with the number of failed Tether experiments and those in the know not
believing that they are stable over any length of time and I start to
favour a good ole fashioned spinning truss.

Give me a 200m truss spinning at 3 RPM any day. Actually come to think
of it thats about the length of 4 ET's, maybe not too hard at all.

A truss is unnecessarily heavy.

Use instead a pole or two, braced with crosstrees (spreaders) and
shrouds in the fashion of a mast.

--
(c) John Stockton, near London.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Correct = 4-line sig. separator as above, a line precisely "-- " (RFC5536/7)
Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with "" or " " (RFC5536/7)

On 6/6/2010 10:56 AM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
In sci.space.policy messagee3ae12f6-2360-4647-8ef8-7cda78e2b10b@a39g20
00prb.googlegroups.com, Fri, 4 Jun 2010 23:39:42, tom Donnley
posted:

I know I shouldnt have such bias against tethers for AG, but I just
get squeamish at the thought. While Gemini demonstrated passive
control, it didnt really get up to the speeds of 1G nor last long
enough to have to deal with environmental instabilities. Combine that
with the number of failed Tether experiments and those in the know not
believing that they are stable over any length of time and I start to
favour a good ole fashioned spinning truss.

Give me a 200m truss spinning at 3 RPM any day. Actually come to think
of it thats about the length of 4 ET's, maybe not too hard at all.

A truss is unnecessarily heavy.

Use instead a pole or two, braced with crosstrees (spreaders) and
shrouds in the fashion of a mast.


That's just what I did on my model:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/gallery/pf_disc.htm

Pat

On Jun 5, 10:04*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

For real fun, get Guinness stout in the can with the nitrogen ampule in
it sometime and try to open it while it's warm (as God and Ireland
intended it, and you, to be drunk).

Thou shalt not drink beer warm is the 11th commandment. Rule #1 on my
space colony, if the beer gets warm time to leave and abandon all
hope.

Afterall and only semi jokingly, it's likely to be a cash crop
produced locally in the colony.

On Jun 7, 4:56*am, Dr J R Stockton
wrote:
In sci.space.policy message e3ae12f6-2360-4647-8ef8-7cda78e2b10b@a39g20
00prb.googlegroups.com, Fri, 4 Jun 2010 23:39:42, tom Donnley
posted:



Give me a 200m truss spinning at 3 RPM any day. Actually come to think
of it thats about the length of 4 ET's, maybe not too hard at all.

A truss is unnecessarily heavy.

Use instead a pole or two, braced with crosstrees (spreaders) and
shrouds in the fashion of a mast.


Hmm...I went for a truss given it of a size for a pressurised elevator
or similar to allow travel between sections. Using crosstrees could
you afford to lose some say to meteorite or other damage and still be
in good shape.

As mentioned it would be an interesting thought process to may out
weights and tradeoffs of such a design.

On Jun 7, 12:16*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 6/6/2010 10:56 AM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

A truss is unnecessarily heavy.

Use instead a pole or two, braced with crosstrees (spreaders) and
shrouds in the fashion of a mast.

That's just what I did on my model:http://www.starshipmodeler.com/gallery/pf_disc.htm

That model is so kewl. It's probably closer to how an actual discovery
class ship would like than the clean and sterile designs in scifi
movies. Dont suppose you ever did a writeup to go with it ??

On Jun 5, 10:42*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 6/4/2010 10:39 PM, tom Donnley wrote:

On Jun 4, 3:16 pm, Pat *wrote:


Of course they did have that Gemini that got up to well over 1G spinning
while attached to the Agena when the RCS thruster got stuck.
The cool way Armstrong handled that situation became one of the major
reasons that he was chosen to pilot the LM on Apollo 11.

That story always gave me the willies. I cant imagine what they must
have felt up there. Probably a critical moment in the whole program,
if armstrong wasnt there (no offense to the other pilots) and the
mission was lost who knows what would have happened to the program.

On 6/7/2010 3:01 PM, tom Donnley wrote:
On Jun 5, 10:04 pm, Pat wrote:

For real fun, get Guinness stout in the can with the nitrogen ampule in
it sometime and try to open it while it's warm (as God and Ireland
intended it, and you, to be drunk).

Thou shalt not drink beer warm is the 11th commandment. Rule #1 on my
space colony, if the beer gets warm time to leave and abandon all
hope.

Afterall and only semi jokingly, it's likely to be a cash crop
produced locally in the colony.

You'd have to check up on that - the malting process is very water
intensive, and all that water would need to be re-filtered before it
could be reused.
Wine production on the other hand would not use much water beyond that
consumed by the grapes as they grew, and would also yield grapes as a
food crop, grape juice as a nutritious non-alcoholic drink, and raisins
as a snack. The grapeskins are also a good source of potassium for the
colonists

Pat