Happy Mother's Day, Undead FRiends and kittehs!
Posted on 04/12/2009 12:15:48 PM PDT by 1believer
So the relatives get excluded. Sounds like a family powwow.
No doubt the discussions will be heated, but they’ll get things sorted out, by degrees.
Chilled beers help break the sub-zero frostiness.
... which can be so negative.
It's weird: corporate differences don't have to be personal. Are we on our way to becoming lawyers?
If your ultimate destiny is to become politicians, then yes.
You may already be doomed. Have you ordered a hamburger with Dijon mustard?
Happy Mother's Day, Undead FRiends and kittehs!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Please note that this occasion is not celebrated as “Happy Mothers” Day. We bow to reality.
Take time to smell the flowers. That diaper has several pounds to go before it’s full.
Heh. Vlad used the toilet this morning.
In my opinion, the concept of Mothers’ Day creates expectations that can only remain unsatisfied. If you assume it’s going to be an ordinary work day (or even a worse-than-average workday), then you can’t be disappointed.
Men could be more properly accustomed to being willing to celebrate Mothers Day if more preparatory attention were paid to the concept in early August.
Yeah, they could organize the zombies to wash their dishes and put their clothing away for one day, with enough lead time.
Hmm. Okay.
Back to designing the flying saucer.
Sorry, I’m in a Mood. It is not your fault, nor the zombies’.
All ears. We had an earlier thread that touched on this...
Saw it yesterday! Awesome!
The Trekkie purists will go ballistic over a few small things (I shall not spoil it) but I thought it was great.
Thanks, I’ll look in the library. Vlad can read it himself!
But it’s not like he’s six or something ... he was 3 at the end of January. He can just read.
I'm not saying it will work for everyone, but it worked for me - and was easy. Also, there wasn't any "resistance" or sad feelings on the part of the grandkids - they felt good about their choice.
I read the book to them ( whenever I read their other books ) and put a kiddie potty chair in the bathroom. They trained themselves. These books have probably been out of print for over 20 years ( who knows?)- but it would be worth an internet search to try to find one.
The purpose of the flying saucer is to make atmospheric entry to the planet Venus.
Most who have studied the matter will agree that a station keeping position in the atmosphere of Venus at 50 to 60 kilometers above the hell below is an intriguing thought.
The problem is two-fold. How to get there, and how to leave.
One would not want the trap situation of Larry Niven's Ringworld, where if you do manage to arrive and are still living, there is no way to leave.
So you need an exit strategy, as well as an arrival strategy.
In my estimation, you need a flying saucer.
.
In space, any contrivance that holds air will serve as a vessel. Moving that contrivance through any amount of atmosphere raises legitimate cautions.
Essentially, to enter the atmosphere of Venus, you will want something between the Space Shuttle, and Burt Rutan's re-entry vehicle for Spaceship One.
You may want the heat-shedding ability of the Space Shuttle, and it may be prudent to have the light and airy structural configuration of SpaceShipOne to slow one's descent in atmosphere.
So-o-o-o, I came up with the notion of using a flying saucer. If you've read Chapter Eighteen of my book "Reaction!" you'll recall that in visiting this facility in the future, my protagonists get to look over a flying saucer being assembled or disassembled in a large storage facility located in a lower level of the Flying Castle habitat.
That's here. Us. Down below in the feared "Lower Levels".
Anyway, a flying saucer design should provide what we need for getting to Venus. For shedding re-entry heat, we can rotate the skin of the vessel, absorbing energy at the front and then radiating it away as that portion moves away and cooler material takes its place.
Once sufficient speed has been dissipated, we can orient the vessel to a stall position and slow our descent still further, until we have reached a relative equilibrium so-called "terminal velocity".
At that point, counter-rotating atmospheric control rings will be drawing in atmosphere, compressing it, and expelling it from a central orifice in the belly of the craft. A column of supporting air like a slow speed jet exhaust.
Control vanes in the air-flow path of the counter-rotating rings will give directional and balancing ability to the flying saucer as it comes to a relative halt at the appropriate altitude. It will hover.
Hovering may give temporary stability to our altitude, but that is not what is supposed to keep us there. An oxygen-nitrogen filled enclosure, displacing the heavier carbon dioxide, is what is supposed to keep us aloft.
So, slowly, our vessel will transform itself from a sleek, aerodynamic craft to a lumbering slug of an airborne water-tank.
A flexible wall of scissor-jointed framework covered with impermeable membrane will unfold, separating the flying saucer into two pieces, the upper domed section of a spherical section, covering the top of the cylindrical expansion chamber, and the lower, flatter spherical section comprising the bottom.
You've seen this shape, standing idly about all over the countryside of Earth, on tubular legs with a metal ladder attached, sometimes connecting to a spiral staircase around the cylinder leading up to the top. We call them water towers.
After we have displaced sufficient carbon dioxide with our expanding volume, we can slowly shut down the thrust from the rotating rings, and enjoy relative quiet in our new mooring.
For stability, we will lower anchor in the form of a long boom descending below the structure, with heavy materials such as power generating equipment and storage tanks contained at the end of the boom. This will keep us vertically oriented as we serenely float along in the three-hundred mile per hour jet stream of Venus.
All clear so far?
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