I’ve always liked the line that “A child is not a cup to be filled, but a candle to be lit.” Lighting those candles has less to do with what we tell kids about the world than what they learn about it through exploring, imagining, and observing the world that surrounds them.
The Cabin
Pressure Vessels are arguably the most critical thing in manned space exploration. A brony gotta breath amirite? Sadly it’s not as simple as making a big jar and closing the lid.
Your jar is going to need to connect to all of your tools and systems-which means you need a lot of seals. It is a good idea to try to minimize the number of your cables tubes and ports, but also remember that you need backups in case one breaks, that becomes more and more important as time goes on. Take it from me on personal experience, when big equipment runs consistently from 6 to 12 to 24hours or even non stop-no matter how much maintenance you do-something eventually breaks or catches on fire. Redundancy is king, just don’t overdo it.
The ISS needs 14.7PSI for daily operation, and Moon and Mars missions may require going outside 2 or 3 times a week (NASA). This makes things tricky, seeing as you cant just open your front door in space and expect air to come rushing in. We’ll go over airlocks another week, right now we’ll stick to the jar.
For now there is an international standard for airlock doors, if you plan on playing with friends from another country-it’s pretty much a copy paste. If you just want to fly around, do your thing and make your own door, just remember two things: rubber seals can break down, and metal on metal can fuse together in space if you are not careful.
Apollo ships built their cabin around a honeycomb aluminium shell surrounded by their equipment, insulation, and finally another honeycomb shell made of stainless steel then their hull (SSE, pg 246). These panels are made open ended and sealed by an adhesive film and skin. Think of it like duct tape instead the sticky part is two sided and the other side you can pick before you use it (SSE, pg 263). This honeycomb structure is great because even though it is lighter than a solid block of metal-it still has a very good ability to resist bending.
And no ship is complete with out a port hole, who wants to go to space and miss the view? Its also a critical back up in case the navigation equipment goes down and you have to pilot manually. Shuttle and station windows have a reputation for being very thick. On more than one occasion pieces of space debris no larger than a fleck of paint have managed to pierce several centimetres through ballistic glass. Transparent aluminium armour technology is lighter, but either out of reach for space or just ridiculously expensive.
I haven’t picked a topic for next week just yet, the way I’m gonna try to swing this is commission a piece and build post around it. I have a few in the mix so the pressure is off the artists and they can have fun with it. I’m toying with a few ideas on where I want this to go in the long run, but it’s too early for anything definitive. Smooth sailing, and see you soon!
(Awesome commission by festivaldays)
Sources:
NASA/SP-2004-6113(2005)
Spacecraft Systems Engineering, Fourth Edition
Me talking about random things is gonna go nowhere, too many headaches for anyone who actually wants to read it and I’d eventually lose interest and I really don’t want that to happen. So I’m going to stick with something that is near and dear to my heart and do my best to keep it simple…. (imagine a drum roll……. keep imagining it……..ok that’s good)….
Space! and how to get there! With a very detailed set of sources so that no one tracks me down where I work and throws me bagged up into a van never to be seen again… like I have said before people I work with are a little back-stabby sometimes but I really do love the job so it works for now.
This is my first blog so if it seems like I’m a bumbling idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing, please forgive and climb aboard!
Why not? instead of why?
My travels are far from over, and I see clearly that my view on the world is limited. But in the places I have gone this difference has been the main limiting factor in people lives. Another example: “why even bother” instead of “watch this”. People are fine with the second only if it is short lived and easy to escape from. Maximum glory from minimum effort. It is a strange thing to build a foundation but nothing on top of it. Regardless of religious belief, or lack of one, it is known that this is the only life we get- and then most people go different ways in what comes after. But we are here now, we exist now, we can do now, and there are no second chances-good luck on reincarnating if that’s your thing. The biggest example I can think of is rocket science- I’ll keep the big words down where I can. So we had Cold War 1 and it ended with one side on the Moon and the other sulking, bloody indirect conflicts to the side. But since then there has been next to no major innovations, at the very least the pace has slowed from cheetah to snail. Our best rocket formula is UDMH with NO4 as an oxidizer, problem is that it is very toxic and was discovered in 1954-ish. The point is that it’s been well over 60 years and we still don’t have anything better. I’ve heard it said that we would have to redesign our rockets because a better fuel would push the payload too far- I’m calling bull on that, you can add more science to your payload and get it to the exact same spot. Or re-light your engines and have the thing land so you can use it again instead of throwing it away (falcon 9 reusable). Then you have people who attribute some form of safety to the tried and true, don’t trust cell phones and the internet or you will be killed by ghosts from the cloud that somehow cant get through duct tape. Or even better, lets use 8-inch floppy disks to protect our nations nuclear launch program! And my favourite, the worlds not getting warmer-93%(ish) of the worlds scientists are conspiring against our way of life. I suppose at the end of the day it comes down to choosing between being afraid or lazy, and adventure with learning. The last one takes power away from those who are used to the old ways, are you your master or are they?
So yeah, I am an adventurer at heart and I love my job. The people I work with tho are a little backstabby sometimes and judgemental as a rule. People who work under me think I’m crazy but a pretty chill guy (I can live with that). So if you never see my face or learn my name, I need a veneer of anonymity to prevent personal hardship at work-but not so much that I’m hiding anything illegal. If you happen to learn my name or we meet in person, I ask you to please refrain from dispersing that information as a courtesy. My whole life, I have never set foot outside the continental United States. But through a series of unfortunate events that resulted in broken/mended ties with family marriage/divorce, depression/recovery, weight loss/gain/loss (healthy this time)- I am now writing this blog from the Kingdom of Qatar. I have not had much time to travel throughout the country as I am here more or less on business, but I have been to Doha a few occasions. The Villagio Mall is stunning, the architecture of “The Pearl” is fantastic, and the Souks with surrounding stores filled with items of questionable origin have all been memorable. Two things stand out most of all-their pizza is good, their local cuisine does not give you explosive diarrhoea-nor discomfort of any kind, other than you sleep great right afterwards; but I have noticed a striking lack of book stores. Jafirs “its not just a book store” gets a bi-they had an english section and it is unfair of me to judge their selection when I don’t read arabic and I happen to be in an arabic country-but including the Virgin superstore book section there are only two places in the city of Doha I know of to pick up books. Those are my two prejudices: Pizza and book stores. Grade A on the first and the jury’s still out on the second. Now imagine just walking across the street during full traffic, crazy right?-totally normal, apparently you only wait when the cars are moving the fastest. But the one thing I have seen here that I would take with me when I leave if I could only take one thing is this- McDonalds delivery by dirt-bike HO-LY-SHIT! I thought they were just rumours but nope-that’s legit. Also the cigar shop in the Pearl sells Cubans, my very first cigars were a Hoyo De Monterrey, a Cohiba, & a Bolivar. Every now and then we drive by what you could call a ranch that has Camels, either they are a very dark brown Camel or somehow the light just hits them the wrong way. A few months ago a fuel tanker truck exploded, everyone thought it was a terrorist-just a spark and boom. The poor driver was the only one who died, but the road is still melted from the fire. The craziest thing isn’t that there are terrorist organizations operating in Qatar, technically-they are allowed to do logistics here, but if they cause trouble all bets are off (google that one). Overall I am glad I came, and I cannot wait for the next country. Last bit: hookahs are awesome
askcherrytheslime asked:
starskip42 answered:
lets make the eyes green
the piece is amazing, thank you so much :D
askcherrytheslime asked:
lets make the eyes green
tumblrbot asked:
Anything I can fully immerse myself in.
science-junkie
Two of the biggest Science YouTubers come out and respond to hate comments with a healthy dose of science education!
