FACTOIDS

On July 29, 1985 - the Challenger space shuttle lifted off on STS-51F, the nation's nineteenth shuttle mission. Five minutes and forty-five seconds into the flight, engine number one shut down prematurely. Because it shut down so late in the trajectory (the shuttle only requires eight minutes to achieve orbital velocity), the vehicle was able to burn the other two engines longer and achieve a safe, if lower than expected orbit. This maneuver is called an ATO - Abort To Orbit. If the engine had shut down one minute earlier, the crew would have executed a much more difficult maneuver called a TAL (Trans-Atlantic Landing) abort in which the shuttle is landed in Moron, Spain because it lacks the thrust needed to achieve orbit.

While I was studying Aerospace Engineering at Purdue as an undergrad, Col. Roy Bridges (the mission's pilot and a Purdue grad) came to speak to us. He said that he is grateful the failure happened as late as it did - but there would always be a small part of him that would have enjoyed the TAL abort. This abort has never been tried in anything but a simulator and doing it would re-set the trans-Atlantic crossing record, which currently stands at 2h53m (concord) to a new value...

22 MINUTES!!!

(working for NASA means always having plenty of nerd-amunition
-Nicholas

 

an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere, will greatly increase the survivability of microbes that are currently unknown. this could cause several new dieases some probably as bad as the bird flu or worse

 

The character 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' was created for the Montgomery Ward group of department stores.

(Snopes.com is an excellent source of factoids.)

 

All of the current aircraft carriers are nuclear powered.

I spent the better part of 20 yrs on non-nuclear aircraft carriers -- all of which were of modified WWII vintage and two tours off Vietnam. They were not diesel powered but burned black crude oil (bunker oil) in boilers to generate super-heated high pressure steam which, in turn, powered very high pressure steam turbines hooked to 4 propeller shafts. On many of the carriers, the steam was also taken off to power the catapults. The remaining ones had older, hydraulic catapults (real kick in the a....).

Nuclear carrriers use the nuc to also heat steam for propulsion through steam turbines.

Another side issue. When I was flying from the Kearsarge, we made a test flank speed run. The old girl was able to get up to 32 knots. But, boy was it a rough ride in the after part of the ship!

I flew from 8 of these WWII converted carriers -- the conversion was mainly the addition of an angled flight deck, a hurricane bow add on and optical landing systems. All of them except the Lexington (on which I oprated the flight deck) had hydraulic catapults. The Lex had steam. Steam provides a much easier launch. The hydraulic cat kicks the aircraft to launch speed in about 40 ft. The steam builds the same speed up in about 3 times that distance. For your hot car people, the hydraulic pushed my prop plane from 0 to 75 in about 3 sec. and in 40 ft. (add the forward speed of the ship, about 20 kts.) FYI, landing involved 96 knts to a stop in 125 ft.

I'm too old to have operated off a nuc. carrier.

 

I knew they used stream to turn the screws but didn't know they used a lower grade fuel. makes sense though. How shaft horsepower did those old carriers generate? Speaking of carriers have you ever heard of pikecrete? The British came up with the idea of using pikecrete (90% ice and 10% sawdust) to make super enormous aircraft carriers (like 1/2 mi long) that could accomodate bombers. Pikecrete is almost as strong as concrete is have poor thermal conductivity so it melts slowly. The plans never got funded but came pretty close. Ive seen instructions on the web for pikecrete bongs as well.

 

There were more homocides in the Washington DC area during the sniper attacks than there were people killed by the sniper.

Every month, on the nations highways, there are more people brutally killed than were killed in the 9/11 attacks. (NHTSA)

Impaired drivers kill 50% of the above.

 

Umm, fratricide is sibling killing sibling. This throws this "factoid" into doubt. I was aware of the "accident" / "disease" thing.

 

Uhh, this is a myth (snopes.com) and personal knowledge (son is Marine on honor guard and knows some of these guys)

FACToids require fact in them.

 

Quick Google search reveals "the rest of the definition."

Fratricide ... the act of killing one's brother or sister ... or, in the case of war, one's own soldiers. According to the Department of Defense, twenty-four percent of the 146 American battle deaths during Operation Desert Storm were by "friendly fire." A further fifteen percent of the 480 wounded were by our own troops. This article is dedicated to a fratricide that occurred at a small airfield called Umm Hajul, located about 150 kilometers southwest of Basra, Iraq. Sergeant Douglas "Lance" Fielder met his fate there several hours before sunrise on February 27, 1991 at the hands of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Interesting reading on the web site if you have the time to read it.

fratricide

 

Atari buried millions of unsold E.T. game cartridges in a New Mexico desert landfill.

One of my favorite "weird but true" stories...

 

Last time I checked fratricide was considered accidental so I don't see how that calls the statistic into question. Considering the above statistic on Desert storm fratricide I think it's reasonable. WWII was the first war in which more combatants were killed by enemy action than disease.

 

how many steps does the soldier take in each direction and why?

hint: its the same number of seconds the soldier pauses before turning.

answer:

21

 

Actually . . .
Two conventionally powered aircraft carriers, the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Kennedy, are both still on active front line service with the US Navy.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp

The Kitty Hawk (aka Shitty Kitty ) is stationed in Yokosuka, Japan.
http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=29259

The Kennedy’s home port is Naval Station Mayport, Florida.
http://www.nol.navy.mil/homepages/cv67/

 

Bicycling wastes gas.

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/beef.html

 

I see, I thought that was called "fragging". Of course, fragging might be INTENTIONAL. Accidental "friendly-fire" is a tragedy. Fratricide, a new defintion I did not know...

 

Fragging is intentional killing of friendlies, but of course this is used when talking about an individual. You don't "frag" one of the other platoons in your company. However , you might want to frag your LT (this is common).

Fratricide, on the otherhand, is accidental killing of friendlies because they were miss identified as enemy troops. It's very easy to see how this could happen in a jungle where visibility is extremely limited. However, as was pointed out earlier, it can happen almost as often in the desert where visibility is usually pretty good.

 

Well, actually that's what insurance is intended to deal with (at least it was in my day).

You come down with something serious, and insurance covers the expense. Serious illness happens to very few people overall -- which is how the insurance companies manages the cost.

I'm not saying you shouldn't take care of yourself (you should), or that people shouldn't get discounts for not smoking, etc. But that's how the concept of insurance works -- and not just medical insurance.

 

"only 3 percent of all crashes involve roll-overs" - some sort of national insurance institute...

h34r: