And The Rockets' Red Glare 56
orpheus writes: "After the cops come and confiscate -er- 'your kids' illegal fireworks (yeah, that's the ticket), consider popping over to Space.Com for a special retrospective of clips and pictures of real fireworks in the 4th of July special section, "Triumphs and Tragedies Behind Launch 'Fireworks' featuring videos of when rockets go bad, and when rockets go right. It'll make you feel better about your own backyard suborbital ventures, as you brace yourself to rebuild your neighbor's doghouse." Thankfully, they don't have the Challenger. And keep in mind that most (all?) of those detonations were intentional, if a launch deviates from the flight-path it is destroyed so that it doesn't land on Tampa or Disneyworld.
wray (Score:1)
Challenger? (Score:1)
I don't understand what objections you could have to this.
Re:Blew up the netherlands (Score:1)
The accident in the Netherlands was particularly nasty because it initially bought a lot of people out their houses to look at the fireworks going off, then a couple of minutes later the main silo exploded like a bomb, obviously a lot of the people were badly injured.
"celebrate your country by blowing up a small part of it"
Kindly old Karma Vice Cop sez (Score:2)
Re:Challenger? (Score:1)
Re:Illegal Fireworks? (Score:2)
Re:Challenger? (Score:2)
More Nuclear Fun... (Score:2)
Incidentally, the DoD is preparing to run the next NMD ground-based interceptor test on the 7th, which presumably will decide whether we'll deploy the thing or not... reading testimony [defenselink.mil] from the Defense Dept. concerning a previous test is like reading an Abbott and Costello routine: More info on NMD and the EKV system proposed could normally be found at the BMDO's site (http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo
http://www.defensel ink.mil/news/Jun2000/b06202000_bt350-00.html [defenselink.mil]
kaboom! (Score:1)
Why would they come? (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:1)
Is there such thing? Oxymoron?
On a nice festive day celebrating over 200 years of freedom, I have to look deep in my bottle before me and analyze the contents. What we have here appears to be is the essensial barely and hops with lots of little happy alchohol producing workers called yeast each with a happy face doing thier thing. How they do it, I'm not sure. Some say its when they produce thier ATP energy packets from the sugar molecule, they aren't as efficient in doing so and release a few molecules of alchohol as a byproduct. Now, I wouldn't say its a byproduct or waste, but a gift. Yessir, our fine beverages are brought to us by the generous contribution of our favorite little organisms called yeast.
Now some people would like to call some kinds of beer cheap, trash, or piss water. I'm here to tell you all yeast have one job and all are here to serve our country in thier best ability. Its all from fine grain stock and the rest is from marketing hype, so give your respect for these important patriots and drink up.
Mine, I prefer bottom of the barrel dark beer. My friends hang out in lowly places.
Re:Illegal Fireworks? (Score:2)
I think you're not quite correct on this one:
Fireworks are built for either the loudest bang or the brightest flash, while explosives are built for the biggest blast. Usually fireworks have fairly small amounts of explosives in them, packed in relatively large amounts of paper or plastic, so piling up a lot of fireworks will give you just a lot of little explosions most of the time, because the fire first has to burn through the paper/plastic before it ignites the powder. Even if this takes half a second, this is enough to spread the energy of the blast over a much longer period of time than the split-second of one large explosion.
Why there was a big blast in Enschede is still not clear; there are several theories about it:
- The company stored high-order explosives as well as fireworks. Very unlikely, Dutch government is very strict in regulations with explosives and weapons, and the company was known as very good and safe.
- The company stored raw titanium or magnesium for light-effects in a relatively large quantity. The fire-brigade didn't know this, tried extinguishing the fire with water, and hydrogen gas was produced by a reaction between the titanium and the water.
- Because of a small fire the temperature and pressure in one of the bunkers got so high that the fireworks inside ignited, and the actual blast was not the fireworks going of, but the bunker literally bursting open. Quite unlikely, because these bunkers were built to withstand a blazing fire for at least 10-15 minutes.
We might never know what caused the blast, but all I know for now is that we were extremely lucky everything went so perfect after the disaster; the mayor and public services (from all over the country and across the border from Germany) did one perfect job!
My 2ct. for this thread; hope you enjoyed it.
Tijn
PS: Later on in this thread they're bickering about which lager's the best? Try Grolsch: three weeks after the blast the part of their factory that didn't burn down was running again!
Illegal Fireworks? (Score:1)
Re:Mucho Coolio (Score:2)
this is why I read slashdot! (Score:1)
I haven't checked em all out yet, but the "Cruise Missile Mayhem" one is genius! For dramatic effect, try cranking the 1812 overture on your stereo while you watch them...
da da da da da da da-da-da BOOM BOOM!
Richard
Re:Something for that rosetta stone.. (Score:1)
OK the Saturn 5 moon rockets *did* have small fins but AFIK their job was to keep the thing stable just long enough for the escape system to trigger if there was a really bad guidence system f*** up.
Re:... (Score:1)
I would think a self respecting geek would balance his parenthisis. Regardless, I've never seen, nor heard of an instance of Minesweeper crashing.
Crashed rocket in Disney = ultimate Amusment Ride (Score:1)
Look at the shuttle after Goofy couldn't convert to metric system and Donald was the voice over at launch control.
Just need to find a way to put 2 giant circular ears on the wreckage.
Mental note.... (Score:1)
... some people in the world do live in seperate time zone to America. Me included.
Tampa?!?! I'll be dead then! (Score:1)
memoir of growing up around missiles (Score:1)
I grew up a military brat. I was born at Patrick AFB, at the Cape. My father was a geodetic surveyor for the Air Force, and so I lived at mostly missile bases- F.E. Warren in Wyoming, Vandenberg in California.
Every summer, the ICBM crews would fly their missiles into Vandenberg in C5a Galaxies, and then fire them off in training. Watching all those Minutemen IIIs go into the sky, heading downstream to Kwajalein (sp., i'm sure) Atoll was a thrilling experience. Supposedly, they would land in the middle of it, thanks to my dad's work (and 1000s of other peoples, too) on the guidance system.
I also got to see a good chunk of the GPS satellites go into orbit, and also watched the first MX missile, aka Peacekeeper, launch.
At the time, I wished that we lived somewhere that had fighter planes, or bombers, or some active squadron- instead, we only saw big transports and such. Now, though, I can't imagine growing up any other way.
One time, during the halftime of a water polo match, a minutemen went up. It was near winter, and was about 9pm. It was a normal launch, except for one thing: at about 50 degrees on the horizon, its vapor trail left a glowing cross that stayed in the sky for about 15 minutes. I still don't know why it happened, but it's one of the prettiest things I've even seen.
Even after the glory days of the space program, with its vigor, there was still an aura of excitement that was more than just military: it was geek excitement, that of making things, things that worked in spectacular ways, even if their intended purpose wasn't always nice. That aura shaped me, made me what I am, a computer professional, and I'm happy today for it. This is a wonderful country, and I hope Americans never lose sight of it.
Something for that rosetta stone.. (Score:2)
How to build rockets might be a good thing for that rosetta stone.. If nothing else, it could tell people (?) to go look for the little monument we left on the moon :). Rockets (stable rockets, that is) are a pretty big engineering feat, one I believe that took almost a decade to make reliable enough to do useful work (unfortunately this "useful work" was to launch nuclear warheads.. maybe we could leave that part off the stone :).
When I used to build rockets I think I had about a 60% failure rate on or near the launching pad.. when you think about it, those nasa rockets need to hang at near-perfect balance for a significant period of time before they get any degree of aerodynamic stability. The control systems for 'em are something else *flashbacks to industrial controls* nooooo..
kudos
Re:Mucho Coolio (Score:1)
HA-haha
Ahh the holidays (Score:1)
I remember going on a smuggling run into Wisconsin(from Minnesota) to a small fireworks store near the border. We got there before it opened, and the 5 other cars that were there all coincidentally had Minnesota plates. I felt like Han Solo.
Re:... (Score:2)
Please don't flame me on this. I know why Ariane 5 crashed. I've read the report. You might just as well say it was a hardware-related problem, or a harware-to-software-interface-related problem. Whatever.
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Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:2)
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Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:2)
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Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:3)
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Fox Special (Score:1)
"My favorite part is when the rocket blew up"
-- Tyler
Challenger (Score:1)
It's not advertised on the front page, and Categrized under Historical Documents, it's there more as a Chronicle "This is what happened", just as war footage would be. Let's remember those who gave their lives... Going into space is a dangerous task, Astronouts know this and willingly take that risk with every mission. Seven people died that day in 1986, we need to remember our mistakes to prevent them in the future. "Those who do not study history are bound to repeat it"
Chris
Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:1)
Is this so? Is there another way to find your posts or the replies to it? Is there a non damaging way to check your karma? After all, karma is likely supposed to be the total of the appreciation of your contributions to slashdot. And if you're not supposed to know how much your appreciated, why bother with karma at alll?
Stefan, trying to understand the underlying assumptions, reasoning and mechanisms of the karma system.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Re:Blew up the netherlands (Score:1)
I guess I've fallen for some bug troller. Oh well, 'nuff said.
Stefan.
Whether the bug is in slashdot or Netscape 4.61, I refuse to comment at this stage.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:1)
BS by AC about disaster Enschede (Score:1)
Mucho Coolio (Score:2)
Something else i'd love to see is videos of Fission and Fusion bombs. Those are cool too, but i havn't seen any encoded and available on the internet. Anyone know where i can find some? Or some more Trident "mishaps"?
Re:Illegal Fireworks? (Score:1)
Guns are legal in the US and quite obviously can't be controlled very well, or at least not as well as in most countries where they aren't.
And the other question is: What's the difference between fireworks and explosives that can level a large house? Answer: none, as is evident after the explosion of a fireworks factory in the Netherlands some time ago destroyed a sizable part of a town and killed some 20 people.
What is this? FOX?? (Score:1)
ARGGH!
Fuck The Fuck OFF (Score:1)
And coming from a Libertarian thats bad
Big bangs. (Score:1)
Re:Crashed rocket in Disney = ultimate Amusment Ri (Score:1)
(Yes, I know I stole this joke)
Re:Whatever happened to beer? (Score:1)
Memories (Score:1)
This put me off fireworks for years. Given that kids get injured regularly with fireworks, maybe there's something to be said for seeing the horrible injuries that can happen with them.
Regardless, if you're American, enjoy your Independence Day. I'm not anti fireworks, but what I saw was certainly a VERY harsh lesson as to the dangers.
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I'll pay better attention today! (Score:1)
Now I'll be a little bit more attentive with those bottle rockets
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Connection closed by foreign host.
Re:Challenger? (Score:1)
Re:Challenger? (Score:1)
Re:Mucho Coolio (Score:1)
Re:Challenger? (Score:1)
Including Challenger would have made it akin to broadcasting videos of fatal plane and car crashes.
Hope you don't mind me poking my head in here.
Rob Myers
Multimedia Producer, SPACE.com
Re:Challenger? (Score:1)
And the shuttle? (Score:1)
And where's the video clip of the Challenger exploding? Maybe it wasn't a "rocket" but that was quite a display.
Happy fourth of July from Nasa! We just wasted billions of dollars on rockets that don't work.
::music blares::
America, America...
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Okay, okay, I should be nicer... NASA has done a lot of great stuff, and I thank them for it. What they used out of necessity, has become some of our favorite play things. Thanks for the semiconductor!
This post made with top-secret space technology.
this is a nice change (Score:2)
Wow. A site that offers a range of formats and in some cases even lets the user decide what viewer to use. (Referring to the video gallery [space.com], of course.)
I wish every media provider was as flexible as this one. Someone out there likes me. :)
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Blew up the netherlands (Score:2)
I only post this because it seems like people are finding a hard time coming up with something to reply to this story. :)
Voyage (Score:2)
It tells of how we today essentially have little or no clue to how they made those old Saturn 5 rockets work. If we had to use them again today we'de basically would have to reinvent them. There is a lot of problems with making a stable burn at the center of the exhaust so that maximum thrust is produced but where the fuel doesn't build up into a bubble that explodes. I wouldn't want to go into those flow calculations. In the book they just take the test engines and make a lot of changes by heart (like they did in reality) changing the shapes of the bells, changing the rate of flow of coolant and fuel and so on...
Very little science and a lot of engineering. :)
Re:Blew up the netherlands (Score:3)
Unwarranted FUD (Score:1)
Wow, that had so much to do with the topic at hand didn't it? What happened, did you see the story, couldn't think of anything intelligent to say so instead you thought "I know, I'll just bash Micro$haft, that's always a winner". Zealots like you give this site a bad name.
In future, if you can't think of anything relevent to say then don't say anything. Your comment added as much to this story as a first post.
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Jon E. Erikson
Re:Illegal Fireworks? (Score:1)
Re:Illegal Fireworks? (Score:1)