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News Briefs 11-08-2009

By Jameskeon

There’s always somebody fighting – even UFOs in space.

  • UFOs in the NASA archives.
  • The unwavering truth about the zodiacal light.
  • Mars, methane and mysteries.
  • A new twist on life.
  • Saturn’s hexagonal clouds in motion.
  • NASA to spend $50 million to spur commercial spacecraft.
  • The source of Earth’s hum finally discovered.
  • Being awake in your nightmares.
  • Universal theory of the universe in the works
  • Civilsation collapse: could we be next?
  • The ghastly secrets of Cahokia.
  • How humans could end war.
  • Freak wave hot spots identified.
  • How to cure diseases before they have even evolved.

Quote of the Day:

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

JFK

Jameske

4 Comments

  1. The Unwavering Light of the Zodiacal Truth
    If ever there were an expert on the subject of the zodiacal lights it’d be Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. He spent years collecting data and studying it using some of the best devices available. Then in the best tradition of brilliant thinkers such as Roger Penrose and Albert Einstein, spent a long time (three decades in his case) thinking about other things, giving his nonconscious, intuitive mind free reign. Finally, he published his work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780387777054 . If he did have anything to say about the subject of variation in the zodiacal light (he didn’t, and he should know), he would probably pick up his Big Red instrument, say “Tie Your Mother Down, Fat Bottom Girls. I Want It All,” then play at top volume:

    FLASH? HAAAA-HAAAA! THAT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE!
    [air guitar accompaniment by the reader here is acceptable]
    Who you gonna believe, the naked eye observations of the past centuries, or Brian May’s telescopic digital photometer?

    No, I am not the brain specialist…..
    YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.

  2. UFOs in the NASA archives
    I wonder how many times are we going see objects such as dust, ice crystals, urine crystals being blown around by the Shuttle’s reaction control system, (abbreviated RCS) being called UFOs, huh? (Even a UFO space war!! haha) I guess forever, as long as there are people who flunked out of science class and believe exactly what they want to believe.

    When the Hubble space telescope had its solar panels upgraded one of the old ones would not retract so it was decided to just throw it away. Astronaut Kathy Thornton cast it off into space and the to make sure that it would not get into the way the shuttle used is RCS and blew it away like blowing a leaf.

    Yes, there is a vacuum in space but the high velocity jet of gas from the RCS will travel quite a distance and will interact with anything that is in orbit around the shuttle such as dust, ice crystals, urine crystals and so on making for some great UFO looking special effects. 😉

    Cheers

    1. Sesame Orbit
      [quote=tihz_ho]
      Yes, there is a vacuum in space but the high velocity jet of gas from the RCS will travel quite a distance and will interact with anything that is in orbit around the shuttle such as dust, ice crystals, urine crystals and so on making for some great UFO looking special effects. 😉

      Cheers[/quote]

      Just to expand if not expound a bit with some scientific and technical details that might be illustrative as to just how much stuff can get literally blown around out there…

      It might even be more accurate to say “there is a vacuum in space AND the high velocity jet…”

      The RCS motors are small but complete fuel-and-oxidizer rocket motors in their own right. High pressure helium forces the fuel (monomethyl hydrazine) and oxidizer (nitrogen tetroxide) separately but simultaneously into a firing chamber. Separately, because they are “hypergolic”, meaning them spontaneously ignite upon contact.

      Upon release they ignite, reach over 2000 degress F, and explode out through the motor nozzle with a thrust of 870 pounds and a pressure of 152 PSI, a bit more than 10 atmospheres. All within 0.08 seconds (in pulse mode, which is the hammering sound you can hear on cockpit communications; they can fire steady for over 2 minutes if need be).

      On Earth that pressure is called an “overpressure” of 10:1 (at sea level) because it’s pushing out 10 times harder than the weight of the atmosphere is pushing to keep it in. If the atmosphere pressure were less, there’d be an even greater overpressure ratio due to less resistance. In space there is no resistance, so the effect is maximized.

      Compared to firing on Earth, it is as if the exhaust gasses are being sucked out of the motor. The motor nozzle makes the gasses accelerate as they come out. Coming out into the wide open with an ever widening (to infinity now) nozzle causes this very powerful though small exhaust burst to literally explode outwards. Just as the high acceleration of an ion motor can use a very small reaction mass to move a spacecraft, the maximized acceleration of this exhaust exploding outward can, despite the thinning out in vacuum over a distance, smack into something floating alongside with incredible force.

      That something, being in the same orbit and in space, has no friction resistance at all when something tries to move it, and the exhaust burst can and will transfer quite a wallop and send it spinning out of sight in short order with an apparently instantaneous change in velocity (speed and/or direction). With no visible material to mark the exhaust’s expansion, it looks as if there were an invisible cord attached to that something and someone suddenly yanked on it. Or, it can look as if something were moving smoothly along a trajectory (in a case such as the solar panel example, nearly paralleling the shuttle) then suddenly accelerated away at a different angle with a change in velocity that seems to be far greater than our ‘normal’ technology is capable of. Especially if you don’t recognize the object, and of course because you can’t see any force acting on it, such as an exhaust plume coming from a rocket motor.

      Sound familiar?

      And that panel had a fair amount of mass. Mass, and ts equivalent, momentum, is the only “resistance” something has in space has to counter a force acting on it. Ice crystals and such have almost no mass and almost no momentum compared to the small mass but high speed of the exhaust. It’s that velocity (or Acceleration) that can make a small Mass transfer a large Force to something, causing it to Change Velocity.

      This lesson has been brought to you by the letters “delta” (for “change in”) and “V” (velocity) and the number 14.7 (Pounds per Square Inch = 1 [sea level] atmosphere). Hey, it’s not like this rocket surgery is brain science or anything.

      The formula “F(orce) = M(ass) x A(cceleration)” has been brought to you courtesy of Newton and his figs, though some doubt the story that he invented gravity so that if one of his fruit preserve filled pastry cookies fell, he’d known where to look for it so he could grab it and eat of before the “5 second rule” for dropped food expired and it become inedible due to the Action of “tasty” being countered by the equal but opposite Reactions of “icky”, “gross”, and his mom watching.

      No, I am not the brain specialist…..
      YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.

      1. Excellent!!
        Great explanation.

        Blame Hollywood (especially Star Wars) for showing that spaceships “fly” just like aeroplanes and jet fighters do on Earth effectively dumbing down everyone.

        Cheers

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