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  #72  
Old January 8th 04, 02:53 PM
Andrew Gray
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Default More good news

In article , Vincent
Cate wrote:

What technology is new?


You seen another airplane that bends in the middle so it is stable
during atmospheric reentry?


Well, there was an early Shuttle design which had the entire wing
section slide forward ten or fifteen feet during entry... g

Seen another nitrous-oxide/rubber hybrid engine with fiber optics wound
into the casing to detect if the case is burning through and shut
off the engine?


I must admit, I hadn't heard of that; it is rather smart. Is this done
on anything else made by similar methods?

--
-Andrew Gray

  #74  
Old January 8th 04, 05:33 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Vincent Cate wrote:
*That* part is not particularly novel. The power wires to the
solenoid valves of the shuttle RCS engines wrap around the
combustion chambers, for the same reason.


Because SS1 has a composite chamber they could put the fiber inside
as they made the chamber and so detect when things were going bad
before burning all the way through. Do the RCS ones trip before the
chamber has burned all the way through?


Nope, it has to be a complete burn-through. But in the case that mostly
worried their designers -- combustion instability -- that happens very
quickly, and there is no useful advance warning to be had by detecting a
partial burn-through. That can also happen with hybrids, in slightly
different ways; the casing of Amroc's first 250klb motor went from intact
to massively ruptured in under 20 milliseconds, due to a hot-gas leak in
the insulation.

Also, is this the first time a nitrous-oxide/rubber engine of
this size (or larger) has been used?


Depends on what you mean by "used". Considerably bigger hybrids have been
fired, although I think they may have all used LOX rather than N2O. I'm
not aware of any previous use of hybrids to propel a manned aircraft,
however.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |
  #76  
Old January 8th 04, 09:01 PM
Karl Hallowell
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"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message ...
Scott Lowther wrote:

Further discussion with you is clearly a waste of time.


This means you've lost the argument. Don't let the door
hit your sorry ass on the way out, ok?


Actually, I did find the earlier parts of your arguments enlightening.
My take on this is that we have some prototypes and a lot more good
ideas. I think we are capable of building a lot of usable
infrastructure, though the economic justification is pretty weak right
now. Currently, we've got all the eggs in one basket and some long
term limits to our growth. We have the capability to address that even
if it takes a few decades or more.


Karl Hallowell

  #79  
Old January 9th 04, 05:40 AM
Vincent Cate
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Sander Vesik
Vince
Incrementally advancing the state of the art is still advancing
the state of the art, even when it is not particularly novel.


Uhh... But "not particularily novel" = definitely not new technology.


If in 2005 they can make larger capacity hard drives, faster
CPUs, and bigger memory chips, you won't count that as new
technology because it is "not particularly novel"? I think
most computer guys count it as the "latest tech".

If GE makes a new jet engine and it is 5% more efficient, you
won't count it as "new technology" because it is not novel?
The airlines would count it as new technology.

To me it seems like most of technology advancement is incremental
and not particularly novel. People even talk about the
technology treadmill, in part because the progress is so
steady and regular.

I am beginning to wonder if many space people have this mindset
that incremental tech advancement does not count. Have people
bought into the NASA way of trying to leapfrog to some distant
tech without incremental improvements? Could this help explain
why launch technology has moved so slowly over the last 30 years?
Did Apollo give space people the wrong idea about tech?

These new space companies started by computer guys might not
have this hangup.

Might just be something to this...

-- Vince
  #80  
Old January 9th 04, 02:20 PM
Kaido Kert
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"Vincent Cate" wrote in message
om...
Sander Vesik
Vince
Incrementally advancing the state of the art is still advancing
the state of the art, even when it is not particularly novel.


Uhh... But "not particularily novel" = definitely not new technology.


If in 2005 they can make larger capacity hard drives, faster
CPUs, and bigger memory chips, you won't count that as new
technology because it is "not particularly novel"? I think
most computer guys count it as the "latest tech".

If the larger HDD capacity comes from increased platter count, it aint new
tech.
If CPUs and and memory chips ramp up clock speeds or go through die shrinks
it aint new tech. If you simply put a bigger data cache on chip it aint new
tech. In a case of die shrink, you might be employing a new manufacturing
tech to achieve smaller semiconductors, but the chip itself stays the same,
although smaller.
New algorithms on chip, new physical principles of inner workings of a chip,
like copper interconnects, it might be called new tech.

-kert


 




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