Feather-based Jacobean Space Chariot 173
simonmsh writes "The article Cromwell's moonshot: how one Jacobean scientist tried to kick off the space race describes 17th century plans to build a space chariot out of springs, feathers and gunpowder. The design was based on the idea that gravity disappeared at an altitude of 20 miles, which was called into question by Hooke ? and Boyle ? 's work.
It sounds like the plot of a Neal Stephenson book." Said book, and its sequels are phenomenal.
Favorite Quote (Score:4, Interesting)
Quotes like this remind you of a child trying to divine where all the food they eat goes. I remember thinking at 3 or 4 years old that there must be some sort of containers inside us to hold the food forever. Then I considered the volume of food we eat and just couldn't fathom what was happening to it. It didn't quite connect that the food might get processed then *ahem* ejected.
Yet not the first (Score:5, Interesting)
He didn't come back, but that's the way with pioneers
--
US$10, really [slashdot.org]
Hmmmmmm, curious (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Mars Direct" of its day (Score:4, Interesting)
At any rate, it's an amusing story.
All that hand-waving is vaguely reminiscent of "Mars Direct" or whatever they're calling it these days. Once upon a time, we didn't have to eat in space because of the absence of gravity. Now, we just hand-wave away radiation damage to the crew and the logistics of setting up a nuclear reactor on Mars to produce fuel for the return journey.
Ancient Flying Machines in India (Score:5, Interesting)
According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called "Vimanas." The ancient Indian epic describes a Vimana as a double-deck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer.
It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a "melodious sound." There were at least four different types of Vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long cylinders ("cigar shaped airships"). The ancient Indian texts on Vimanas are so numerous, it would take volumes to relate what they had to say. The ancient Indians, who manufactured these ships themselves, wrote entire flight manuals on the control of the various types of Vimanas, many of which are still in existence, and some have even been translated into English.
The Samara Sutradhara is a scientific treatise dealing with every possible angle of air travel in a Vimana. There are 230 stanzas dealing with the construction, take-off, cruising for thousand of miles, normal and forced landings, and even possible collisions with birds. In 1875, the Vaimanika Sastra, a fourth century B.C. text written by Bharadvajy the Wise, using even older texts as his source, was rediscovered in a temple in India. It dealt with the operation of Vimanas and included information on the steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightening and how to switch the drive to "solar energy" from a free energy source which sounds like "anti-gravity."
The Vaimanika Sastra (or Vymaanika-Shaastra) has eight chapters with diagrams, describing three types of aircraft, including apparatuses that could neither catch on fire nor break. It also mentions 31 essential parts of these vehicles and 16 materials from which they are constructed, which absorb light and heat; for which reason they were considered suitable for the construction of Vimanas. This document has been translated into English and is available by writing the publisher: VYMAANIDASHAASTRA AERONAUTICS by Maharishi Bharadwaaja, translated into English and edited, printed and published by Mr. G. R. Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979 (sorry, no street address). Mr. Josyer is the director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Investigation located in Mysore.
Sources: Ancient flying machines [world-mysteries.com] (Contains diagrams/details).
Wikipedia reference to the term-Vimanas [wikipedia.org]
Re:Favorite Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
Go figure.
Interesting man (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, with his book, A Discourse concerning a New Planet, he tried to popularise the view of the universe according to Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. He attempted to explain in the book that the Moon is not purely a shiny, cut out disc but rather it is a world with a landscape like that of the Earth.
Fairly radical stuff for the time, though admittedly he did publish the book annonymously.
For more info, try this [bbc.co.uk] or this [st-and.ac.uk]
Re:Favorite Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
Money bought fandom. and most of the real scientists were shunned, stoned or hanged for daring to go against the lunatics.... I mean "professors" of the day.
Hell President Lincoln was not killed by the bullet but by the QUACKs that were the doctors of that day.
A little knowlege is extremely dangerous, and history shows us a large number of "little knowlege" people that caused lots of pain and suffereing for hundreds of years afterwards.
Hooke and Boyle? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sail On! Sail On! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sail On, Sail On! posited that Francis Bacon turned his experiments toward electromagnetism, inventing the radio- except, that instead of electrons, they refered to them as Cherubim. So the AM radios of the day were tuned to various CW's - Cherubim wavelengths, which where the slope the cherubim's wings described as they flew through the ether.
The story takes place on columbus' ships as he travels to discover America- it's terrific. Strongly recommend digging this one up out of your local library.
Re:Interesting man (Score:4, Interesting)
You can find a lot more about the real (in addition to Stephenson's historical fiction version) Wilkins at Stephenson's metaweb [metaweb.com].
Gunpowder Boosters? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The "Mars Direct" of its day (Score:1, Interesting)
However I do become worried when I see this concerning grow crops on mars:
Element Terrestrial Martian soil
Soil (average) (estimated average)
Nitrogen 0.14% Unknown.
(p196)
Now he makes the point that because of the high nitrogen content of the air the soil should be abundant in nitrates. Fair enough says I, but I would like to find out such things before we send people over there. Now the rest of the table is well bulked out with information. The only problem being that the potassium content is around a tenth (estimated) than that of earth, however it could probably be extracted from salt beds deposited on the dry shores of mars' ancient water bodies.
Considering the age of the book I would like to see a rover roll over one of these salty shores and make damn sure that the stuff is there.
This is just a small example and a petty one, however the fact remains that he uses assumptions from information gathered years ago, and we are still finding new things. Were all the things he makes assumptions on be proven correct then go back and point to it. If it's a case about radiation in space by all means use it. If you're talking about going to mars wait until more evidence has been collected.
I would say the evidence we need is the evidence to support what we plan to do, send a bloke their, not much, sent one or more blokes there with plans to almost "live off the land", we need a lot, from air composition to soil composition to frozen water and carbon dioxide deposits and much more.
odd rock:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= 04/08/1 9/1446218&tid=160&tid=134
new water claims
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid =04/07/2 0/1729235&tid=134&tid=160
trying to find out a better composition
http://science.slashdot.org/article.p l?sid=04/07/1 6/208231&tid=160&tid=134&tid=14
new results on water and methan concentrations
http://science.slashdot.org/articl e.pl?sid=04/09/2 0/177241&tid=160
traces of ammonia found
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= 04/07/1 5/1637207&tid=160&tid=134&tid=14
more on methane
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?si d=04/03/2 8/1744254&tid=160&tid=134&tid=14
salty seas
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0 4/03/2 3/1916246&tid=160&tid=134&tid=14
supporting Zubrin: hematite ore found in apparant abundance
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/1 8/mars.blue berries/index.html
Iron sulfur hydrate, suggesting drenched mars
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0 4/03/0 2/1913211&tid=160&tid=134&tid=14
what could have been mud
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=4 6515F 50-5A6F-4C50-A399FF5034713CB3
I cant remember zubrin mentioning bromide salts but he may have
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/marswa ter_ch emistry_040303.html
water and carbon dioxide ice, i remember the announcements, I wondered how we could have missed it.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04
From mud to crusty and water to dry, olivine is found which needs to stay dry and wasn't expected to be found. and new surface texture is crusty.
http://science.slashdot.org