inventive americans

[skyblue]

Something Americans will find interesting ......(and the rest of us will laugh at )




When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity.

To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300° C.

The Russians used a pencil.:24:

Enjoy paying your taxes Americans

 

[Zorak]

They don't use pencils in space craft because bits of broken graphite can be very dangerous in zero gravity.

A ball point pen works fine in zero gravity. They use them up in the ISS right now

 

[Niamh]

The Russians used a pencil lmfao:24:

 

[edgray]

I remember receiving this in an email forward back in 1998. It was just as wrong then as it is now.

NASA did not invent the zero-gravity pen.

 

[TommyTooter]

Something Americans will find interesting ......(and the rest of us will laugh at )




When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity.

To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300° C.

The Russians used a pencil.:24:

Enjoy paying your taxes Americans

at least we didn't spend a skezillion dollars sending a lemon to mars. i believe that one was financed by you limies :24:

 

[edgray]

at least we didn't spend a skezillion dollars sending a lemon to mars. i believe that one was financed by you limies :24:

RIP Beagle 2, it was so sad, I still wonder to this day what happened to the poor thing.

It only cost 5million GBP, btw.

I believe they've built a second, improved one now, I hope they get the funding for the launch.

 

[TommyTooter]

RIP Beagle 2, it was so sad, I still wonder to this day what happened to the poor thing.

It only cost 5million GBP, btw.

I believe they've built a second, improved one now, I hope they get the funding for the launch.

that was just the beagle. how much was the launch vehicle and everything else? some of that antenna gear probably cost more than the rover.

 

[edgray]

that was just the beagle. how much was the launch vehicle and everything else? some of that antenna gear probably cost more than the rover.

well the Beagle 2 just rode in a tiny bit of free-space on the Mars Orbiter. The unit was basically taking a free ride to Mars in the nose cone of the Mars voyage. It only weighed a few kilos and took up a couple of square feet in space, I don't know if that would've significantly increased the cost of the voyage.

Think of Beagle 2 as a stowaway!

 

[TommyTooter]

well the Beagle 2 just rode in a tiny bit of free-space on the Mars Orbiter. The unit was basically taking a free ride to Mars in the nose cone of the Mars voyage. It only weighed a few kilos and took up a couple of square feet in space, I don't know if that would've significantly increased the cost of the voyage.

Think of Beagle 2 as a stowaway!

oh yeah. i remember now. ours fired up and yours just sat there or did we put the rover down on a later launch and the orbiter didn't have a lander.

i haven't watched nasa very closely since before the end of the apollo program though i did watch the challenger blow up and the columbia fall out of the sky on the live feeds when they happened. i was at one of these forums with a radio on when the flash came. my house was in the debris path but none landed for many miles from me.

 

[edgray]

oh yeah. i remember now. ours fired up and yours just sat there or did we put the rover down on a later launch and the orbiter didn't have a lander.

i haven't watched nasa very closely since before the end of the apollo program though i did watch the challenger blow up and the columbia fall out of the sky on the live feeds when they happened. i was at one of these forums with a radio on when the flash came. my house was in the debris path but none landed for many miles from me.

It was a European Space Agency rocket that carried the Beagle 2 unit. There was already a NASA probe in orbit of Mars which was supposed to receive confirmation of landing... which never came ... they think the unit might have not even landed at all, but skimmed over the Mars atmosphere and is currently residing in orbit...

Apparently Beagle 3 has been cancelled

 

[porterjack]

space the vinyl front ear

 

[edgray]