Cool Pictures IV: The Awesomeness is Volatile

[Tee Kay]

Most of the time, surgeons are infallible super-people. Going to med school for 4 years'll do that to ya.

If surgeons can be wrong some of the time then they are not infallible are they?

 

[bhsup]

Rocket scientists are pretty smart people, but I betcha there's a checklist for a shuttle launch.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Rocket scientists are pretty smart people, but I betcha there's a checklist for a shuttle launch.

There is, actually.

 

[Meteor Man]

If surgeons can be wrong some of the time then they are not infallible are they?

Give me a break, "infallible" does not mean without mistakes, no human being is without mistakes, with or without a checklist.

indeed.

 

[Tee Kay]

in·fal·li·ble (n-fl-bl), adj.
1. Incapable of erring:
2. Incapable of failing; certain

So yes, infallible does mean without mistakes.

I guess I must apologise for using words correctly.

 

[cardgame]

Surgeons actually go to school for closer to 12 years. 4 pre-med, 4-6 med, 3-4 residency.

 

[Meteor Man]

in·fal·li·ble (n-fl-bl), adj.
1. Incapable of erring:
2. Incapable of failing; certain

So yes, infallible does mean without mistakes.

I guess I must apologize for using words correctly.

I did not use the literal meaning of "infallible," I used it to quote a previous post. In fact, I quoted YOU.

With all due respect, excuse me for using nuances of language that may be a bit esoteric. You know, such as "symbolism" or, more accurately "sarcasm."

Moving on.
Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin:

Spoiler :

 

[Tee Kay]

I did not use the literal meaning of "infallible," I used it to quote a previous post. In fact, I quoted YOU.

With all due respect, excuse me for using nuances of language that may be a bit esoteric. You know, such as "symbolism" or, more accurately "sarcasm."

With all due respect, I knew full well the meaning and nuances of the word and how it is supposed to be used when I used it; something that you would do well to learn some day.

===

Contributing:

Beijing, 1940s, and someone's else portrait is on Tiananmen.

Spoiler :

Link

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Rocket scientists are pretty smart people, but I betcha there's a checklist for a shuttle launch.

It's a huge list. You may find it amusing to note that if every single thing had to be checked off and every engineered had to give the go for launch, we never would have launched a single shuttle.

The flip side is that two of them blow up/disentegrated because of this.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

It's a huge list. You may find it amusing to note that if every single thing had to be checked off and every engineered had to give the go for launch, we never would have launched a single shuttle.

The flip side is that two of them blow up/disentegrated because of this.

Then we never should have launched the damned thing in the first place if it was that risky.

I recall someone a while back saying it is pretty much a flying or gliding brick. Dunno who or where.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Then we never should have launched the damned thing in the first place if it was that risky.

I recall someone a while back saying it is pretty much a flying or gliding brick. Dunno who or where.

There's a lot of stuff we have done that was risky.

 

[Borachio]

Gimme hat.

 

[Meteor Man]

Beautiful hat.

And PS taillesskangaru, the only reason I'm giving up fighting with you is because you're fellow a Doctor Who fan. Consider yourself sized-up.

Spoiler :

 

[Samez]

A picture of the Dolomite Alps a friend of mine took during our last hiking tour from Sarner Scharte.

Spoiler :

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Then we never should have launched the damned thing in the first place if it was that risky.

I recall someone a while back saying it is pretty much a flying or gliding brick. Dunno who or where.

It was a gliding bric; it's lift to drag ration was attrocious. Both the Shuttle and the Buran (USSR Space Shuttle) were intended to have jet engines at points early in their histories. The reason they never got them was because despite being bricks, the darn things did exactly what they needed to do to get back to Earth without jets and the added weight would've cut payload signficantly and introduced new failure modes. (and the Buran program collapsed with the USSR)

The shuttle was inherently risky (no escape rocket like on the top of the Saturn V) and they made it more so by taking out the ejector seats after the first launch. This saved weight, but directly lead to the deaths of the Challenger astronauts as ejector seats were exactly what they needed. Of course, those seats would have been worthless in the case of a full-scale on-the-pad explosion that would've been equivalent to a small atom bomb. Escape rockets would have helped in this scenario, but they weren't compatable with the shuttle.

The thing to remember is that the engineers were only 'wrong' twice, and in both cases (Challenger in particular), some engineers screamed their head off that the launches should have been aborted. In Challenger's case, someone high up decided to launch at a temperature so low that they knew the rubber O-rings would become brittle and fail.

At the time of Challenger, they were trying to live up to the Shuttle's promise of being a 'space pick-up truck' that launched once a week (the only way to make it pay for itself assuming they sold cargo space to companies on most launches). They were ramping up to that goal and didn't let facts, like rubber failure points, get in their way.

Columbia burned up because the foam strikes were so common (almost every launch) that the engineers got complacent and assumed that the strikes were essentially harmless. Seven brave souls paid for this arrogance.

The next generation of private and government launchers will avoid all of these problems (well the technical ones at least, we'll see about the human ones). But it will always be a risky business. That won't stop me from sitting at the top of a giant stack of rockets if given the chance.

And because it's a pictures thread:

That's not the Space Shuttle!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the one Buran launch actually happened in a blizzard. That's badass my friends. The Russians used to build some spectacular hardward, this being the ultimate example. It was amazing. But now all their best engineers are dead or work for the US.

Random pictures of the N-1 (Soviet moon rocket), a great example of a spectacular USSR FAIL:

One of the N-1's blew up on the pad, and when it did, it was the biggest man-made non-nuclear explosion in history. It was a 6-7 kt explosion!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions
(relevant table at the bottom of the page)

 

[Meteor Man]

That won't stop me from sitting at the top of a giant stack of rockets if given the chance.

Amen, especially because the first-ever space port was built about 70 miles south of me.

It's done, this is just concept art:
Spoilered because it's huge.

Spoiler :

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Amen, especially because the first-ever space port was built about 70 miles south of me.

It's done, this is just concept art:
Spoilered because it's huge.

Spoiler :

NO FREAKING WAY! Can I come stay with you?

(there's a good chance I'll be working out there in the next couple of years)

 

[Meteor Man]

It is pretty freakin cool. Pretty soon, that area's going to become another Las Vegas; oasis in the desert, with the spaceport bringing all the aerospace industries...and all the money.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Casinos in space are the logical next step in our evolution.

 

[Monsterzuma]