And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Alternative to parachutes for getting the Gemini space capsule safely back to Earth
The timeline is about righ. I read a book that shredded the alien crash site narrative to pieces. The facility in question was doing high altitude parachute testing, and high altitude ballon research. One of the stories involved triangular balloons, and flying saucer looking objects. It turns out America was working on a space program as far back as 1947. The saucer was identical to one of the early Mars landers. Every citizen in the area near the base was offered rewards to recover parachute dummys and other objects if they went astray due to unexpected winds. It was all a big nothing burger!
1) Overly complicated. 2) No control over where and how they fly, or into what predicament. 3) One minor equipment failure with that whizbang contraption, and instead of a soft water landing, they hit at terminal velocity with a SPLAT! from 60,000' altitude, wrapped in a flying twin coffin. 4) Rube Goldberg shook his head at that bit of comic book nonsense, and said "They're on their own."
Thank heavens the actual pilots told the engineers on that stupid idea to take a hike. It only looks like a good idea in artist's renderings, much like communism.
That was such a cool idea! How sad that it apparently didn't work well in the real world. I bet Benton Quest could have made it work!
ReplyDeleteThe timeline is about righ. I read a book that shredded the alien crash
ReplyDeletesite narrative to pieces. The facility in question was doing high altitude
parachute testing, and high altitude ballon research. One of the stories
involved triangular balloons, and flying saucer looking objects. It turns
out America was working on a space program as far back as 1947. The saucer
was identical to one of the early Mars landers. Every citizen in the area
near the base was offered rewards to recover parachute dummys and other
objects if they went astray due to unexpected winds. It was all a big
nothing burger!
1) Overly complicated.
ReplyDelete2) No control over where and how they fly, or into what predicament.
3) One minor equipment failure with that whizbang contraption, and instead of a soft water landing, they hit at terminal velocity with a SPLAT! from 60,000' altitude, wrapped in a flying twin coffin.
4) Rube Goldberg shook his head at that bit of comic book nonsense, and said "They're on their own."
Thank heavens the actual pilots told the engineers on that stupid idea to take a hike. It only looks like a good idea in artist's renderings, much like communism.
As I recall they were called Rogallo wings, the rigid version is still used in hang gliders.
ReplyDeleteWithout a solid frame/keel the wings fold up instantly and it turns into a high speed water entry event.
ReplyDelete