The Very Many Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XXXII
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sophie
Break My Heart
That etymology has been rejected by the OED. The origins of the alternative pronunciation are wholly unknown.
Gori the Grey
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Byron, at least, pronounces Don Juan as Don Jew On. One knows by the things he rhymes it with. And he sorta wrote the book on the guy.
My question: do mosquitoes have an altitude limit to their flight? If you owned a penthouse apartment in a skyscraper, would you be bothered by mosquitoes while sitting on your terrace?
Byron, as in Lord Byron? The chap who died before the US was even 50 years old and before Noah Webster published the dictionary that led to many of the changes between UK and US English? Maybe a more up-to-date reference would be useful here.
They fly along the Rio Grande river at 4, 5 and 6,000 feet above sea level. But you probably mean feet above the ground. I'm guessing that depends upon winds and proximity to some sort of needed cover for when they are not flying. So, if you live in NYC on the 70th floor and put a basin of water out where mosquitoes could breed, will they? Ask a New Yorker.
Gori the Grey
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On a site devoted to a game that spans 6000 years of human history, anything within 200 years is recent history.
Snerk
Smeghead
Sugar is generally the worst offender. Not that salty snack is healthy.
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GoodSarmatian
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Salt isn't really that bad for you. The problem with most salty snacks is that they're also full of carbs (but not as full as cookies or cakes).
As with most such things, it depends. If you are borderline diabetic but do not have blood pressure problems the salty snacks will be better. If you have good glucose tolerance but high blood pressure the sugary snacks are probably better.
shadowplay
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I would guess the latter. In addition to all the sugar, baked goods can have a lot of hidden fat.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Deep Fried Twinkies?
Chukchi Husky
Lone Wolf
Did the space shuttle use aluminium as fuel?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'm not 100% on the science (arts major, etc.), but as far as I know, that's why they used aluminium: they needed something with a high enough combustion temperature to force gas out of the rocket at sufficiently face-destroying speeds, but also just low enough that we could actually convince it to burn, and aluminum ticks those boxes while being light enough that you can plausibly put it into a rocket.
@hobbsyoyo can doubtless explain it better.
@hobbsyoyo can doubtless explain it better.
The boosters did, the shuttle engine where Hydrogen burners. Our resident spaceflight expert can go into more detail but if I remember correctly boosters are there for getting the shuttle airborne, so you need thrust to lift it against gravity. To get enough thrust you heavy elements in your exhaust, heavy compared to H and O that is. In Aluminiums case you get to kill two birds with one stone as it doubles as fuel. You can mix in non reacting elements as well, but as always it's a tradeoff.
hobbsyoyo
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Your comment gets a like, your comment gets a like, EVERYONE'S COMMENT GETS A LIKE.
Yes, the Space Shuttle used a slurry mix of aluminum and a binding agent in the big white solid boosters. The reason is that it provides insanely high thrust.
You don't want heavy atoms in your exhaust stream (except when you do - it gets complicated with electric thrusters), you actually want very light atoms. Light atoms can be accelerated by the combustion of the fuel to much higher velocities than heavier atoms, which helps produce both higher thrust and high efficiency. From this prospective, aluminum is very bad compared to the hydrogen that the Space Shuttle Main Engines burn (those are the ones on the back of the orbiter itself).
However, light atoms tend to come in fluids that aren't very dense. So to burn enough of these fluids to make the thrust you need, you have to pump and compress it into the engine. There is a limit to how fast you can reasonably pump and compress these fluids which means that the larger your engine, the more complicated and failure prone it gets.
Ideally, the space shuttle would have used massive (think Saturn V size) liquid engines to get to space. But because the fluid they burn is hydrogen (easily the least dense fluid in rocketry) they couldn't build engines big enough for the job.
So the compromise was to use these massive solid boosters to provide the thrust (I think over 90% of total lift-off thrust) to get the thing in the air. Then, after they burn out, the shuttle had burned enough fuel that it no longer needed as much thrust and the hydrogen engines could take over the full load and the solid boosters fall off.
Solid fuels have bad efficiency (big, heavy atoms that are not as energetic as many liquids) but they provide a huge amount of thrust because they burn along their entire length all at once and they don't require pumps to do that. Aluminum is very reactive with oxygen so it burns well. It also readily combines with the binding agents that turn it into the actual propellant mix, so again it's good on that front. You have to have non-burning binding elements in the mix in order to be able to form the fuel into a solid block instead of a loose powder mix and because they keep it from getting too explodey. Loose aluminum dust would blow up if you looked at it cross; loose aluminum in a binder is much more stable. It is a trade off but its unavoidable.
Spoiler :
Yes, the Space Shuttle used a slurry mix of aluminum and a binding agent in the big white solid boosters. The reason is that it provides insanely high thrust.
You don't want heavy atoms in your exhaust stream (except when you do - it gets complicated with electric thrusters), you actually want very light atoms. Light atoms can be accelerated by the combustion of the fuel to much higher velocities than heavier atoms, which helps produce both higher thrust and high efficiency. From this prospective, aluminum is very bad compared to the hydrogen that the Space Shuttle Main Engines burn (those are the ones on the back of the orbiter itself).
However, light atoms tend to come in fluids that aren't very dense. So to burn enough of these fluids to make the thrust you need, you have to pump and compress it into the engine. There is a limit to how fast you can reasonably pump and compress these fluids which means that the larger your engine, the more complicated and failure prone it gets.
Ideally, the space shuttle would have used massive (think Saturn V size) liquid engines to get to space. But because the fluid they burn is hydrogen (easily the least dense fluid in rocketry) they couldn't build engines big enough for the job.
So the compromise was to use these massive solid boosters to provide the thrust (I think over 90% of total lift-off thrust) to get the thing in the air. Then, after they burn out, the shuttle had burned enough fuel that it no longer needed as much thrust and the hydrogen engines could take over the full load and the solid boosters fall off.
Solid fuels have bad efficiency (big, heavy atoms that are not as energetic as many liquids) but they provide a huge amount of thrust because they burn along their entire length all at once and they don't require pumps to do that. Aluminum is very reactive with oxygen so it burns well. It also readily combines with the binding agents that turn it into the actual propellant mix, so again it's good on that front. You have to have non-burning binding elements in the mix in order to be able to form the fuel into a solid block instead of a loose powder mix and because they keep it from getting too explodey. Loose aluminum dust would blow up if you looked at it cross; loose aluminum in a binder is much more stable. It is a trade off but its unavoidable.
hobbsyoyo
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Fun fact:
Partially because of the aluminum, the space shuttle was one of the worst things for the environment. Rockets in general are hyper-destructive for the the ozone, the broader atmosphere, global warming and living things general and the space shuttle was the #1 champ in that regard.
World class ultra-polluter
Partially because of the aluminum, the space shuttle was one of the worst things for the environment. Rockets in general are hyper-destructive for the the ozone, the broader atmosphere, global warming and living things general and the space shuttle was the #1 champ in that regard.
World class ultra-polluter
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warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
What's SpaceX's carbon footprint? Explained in some way that would put the numbers in a context my sick mind could comprehend, if possible
Ajidica
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Use rocket to travel to new planet.
Problem solved.
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