Wonderful Photographs from Mars

[smartcooky]

Solid rocket propellant is extremely flammable and potentially dangerous as hell, but it still doesn't  detonate. That's very different.

Solid rocket propellant doesn't detonate? Really?

http://www.chemaxx.com/explosion1a.htm

[cjameshuff]

Solid rocket propellant doesn't detonate? Really?

Ammonium perchlorate isn't solid rocket propellant, it's just one component. It can detonate, but the mix with binder, aluminum powder, etc may not.

However, ability to detonate is only a requirement for something to be classified as a high explosive. Apparently the combustion rate of APCP is low enough that it can't even be classified as a low explosive, but a rocket motor using it can certainly still explode.

[Sus_pilot]

For what it's worth, the SRB'S were placarded and had shipping instructions as Explosives 1.3 when they were moved by rail.

[smartcooky]

So "detonation" is distinctly different from "burning extremely bloody fast"?

Isn't it just a matter of how fast the chemical reaction is; an explosive chemical burns so fast that it appears to explode

e.g. detcord burns at a rate of about 21,000 f.p.s. a one hundred foot length would burn in about 5 milliseconds. To all appearances, the stuff appears to detonate; only a very slow motion camera would show that it burns from one end to the other.

Is there some other definition that draws the line between detonating and burning so fast that the appearance is one of detonation?

[Echnaton]

I have always heard that the difference between combustion and explosion was that in explosives, the reaction traveled faster than the speed of sound.  That difference in speed makes the boom. 

[cjameshuff]

So "detonation" is distinctly different from "burning extremely bloody fast"?

Isn't it just a matter of how fast the chemical reaction is; an explosive chemical burns so fast that it appears to explode

Detonation requires the reaction to occur faster than the speed of sound in the material. In a detonation, the explosive can't even start moving under the influence of the explosion before the detonation front goes through. This is what lets shaped charges and such work. High explosives will often burn vigorously but non-explosively, detonation is a quite distinct process. (However, some will quickly go from burning to detonation, and others will just detonate at any excuse.)

Low explosives burn slower than the speed of sound in the material, and burning is burning...there's no distinction between explosive burning and non-explosive burning. I'm not sure what formal definitions are in use for making a distinction between low-explosive and non-explosive...one possibility might be the ability to burn fast enough that the gas expands faster than the speed of sound in sea-level air, allowing a shock wave to be produced in the surrounding air even though the material itself is burning subsonically.

[ka9q]

Ammonium perchlorate isn't solid rocket propellant, it's just one component.

Right. And the polyethylene that combined with the ammonium perchlorate in that plant isn't a component of APCP.

When solid rocket motors "explode", what generally happens is that the case ruptures suddenly and there's a sudden release of high pressure gas. That may look like a violent explosion but it's still not a detonation.

 

[raven]

Ammonium perchlorate isn't solid rocket propellant, it's just one component.

Right. And the polyethylene that combined with the ammonium perchlorate in that plant isn't a component of APCP.

When solid rocket motors "explode", what generally happens is that the case ruptures suddenly and there's a sudden release of high pressure gas. That may look like a violent explosion but it's still not a detonation.

As can be seen from the results, the difference can be somewhat academic.

[ka9q]

True.

[LunarOrbit]

They found no new chemicals compounds on the Moon much to everybody’s surprise.   What are they going to find this time ?

Hey, Jockndoris, you might want to follow the news for the next few weeks because it sounds like Curiosity might have found something worthy of your attention.

From NPR:

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

[sts60]

I posted about this in the MSL thread over on JREF... but Jockndoris is a casual troll, and I doubt he will bother to read or reply to any of the rebuttals to his claims; his "last active" date was Oct. 26.

[smartcooky]

I heard a rumour today that MSL has found a box with a cat in it, that was dead or alive

Apparently, it belonged to a Mr. Schrodinger, and a NASA spokesman said they were unsure if Curiosity had killed it.

[twik]

I heard a rumour today that MSL has found a box with a cat in it, that was dead or alive

Apparently, it belonged to a Mr. Schrodinger, and a NASA spokesman said they were unsure if Curiosity had killed it.

GROAN!

(Actually, I'll be stealing that, thank you!)

[sts60]

Jockndoris, since you are active on the board, I am refreshing my earlier post.  You made a number of claims, addresses long ago and again here.  Please defend them or retract them.

 Wonderful Photographs from MARS

I was very excited to see the first pictures which have just arrived from Mars directly from those wonderful people at NASA.

Yes, I was excited too.  Especially since I particpated in the design analysis of the generator currently powering MSL on Mars.  And, yes, those people at NASA, or more accurately JPL, are pretty clever.

“The images show a landscape closely resembling portions of the southwestern United States”

Resembling, not "identical to".  I grew up in the southwestern United States.  It's not the same as Mars.

This is the headline in Astromony Magazine who are the first people to spot that NASA are pulling the same fast one on us again.

Wrong on a few different counts.  First, that's a sub-heading, not a headline.  Second, Astronomy thinks the mission is quite real.  Third, that description was issued by NASA and quoted by the magazine.

We all fell for it in 1969 when we believed what we saw on the supposed telecasts from the Moon which were in fact shot in lot 171 in the Nevada Desert.

Have you been to Nevada?   I have.  The parts I've seen don't look like the Moon.  Of course, your unsupported assertion fails on many other counts as well, but there's no point in discussing them unless you actually supply some details for your claim.

There is no way that they would be able to get high quality photographs half way across our solar system which took the craft 7 months to cross.

Non sequitir.  It takes radio signals only minutes to make that voyage.  We have routinely received "high quality photographs" from spacecraft much farther away.

It took the craft 7 months to get to Mars at full speed

Meaningless.  MSL was on a trajectory designed for the launch vehicle constraints and coasted almost the entire way to Mars.  The notion of "full speed" has no particular definition in this case.  You might as well say the Moon orbits the Earth at "full speed".

and we are supposed to believe that they can just beam back at the first attempt  pictures of exquisite quality

First, it's been done before.  A lot.  Second, you are simply appealing to personal incredulity.  I don't find it hard to believe, and I work in this business.  Do you?  Third, can you supply a specific reason the systems should not work as claimed?

of a near perfectly flat landing area.

Of course.  The landing area was selected to be flat.  It's merely flat enough.

They found no new chemicals compounds on the Moon much to everybody’s surprise.

Wrong.  Again.  You have no idea at all what you're talking about.

What are they going to find this time ?

Several very interesting things, I expect.   That's the beautiful reality of these missions, quite unlike the cramped, dreary fantasy world of the ignorant conspiracy-monger.

[sts60]

And a followup.

Jockndoris wrote: Attention  sts60
The reason I have not responded is that I have been away from my desk for nearly three weeks of the six since I first put up my post.

The time between answers is not the problem.  The problem is that you put no thought into your answers, nor do you attempt to learn anything between answers.

Also I am not as skilled as you chaps at picking up the quotes to respond directly to them but I am here to respond to any oustanding points.

No, your history here does not support that assertion.

You never answered the bulk of my questions and rebuttals to your opening post, in which post I noted that you couldn't even figure out the source of your quote - not a promising start, and you went downhill from there. 

You eventually waved your hands vaguely about "lot 171" - a place you have never bothered to identify - and made some garbled, self-contradictory claim that the places you thought looked too much like another place didn't actually look like another place, but have ignored subsequent rebuttals, including an explanation as to your completely incorrect handwaving about "roundabout" trajectories, as well as a dissection of your profoundly silly claims about "three crafts to Mars" and "Mission Control simulators".  You have responded to none of these in any substantive manner.

You abandoned the "Who shot Armstrong?" thread you started on the old board, yet brought it up again here despite the fact that the very simple explanation had been provided to you years ago!

The fact that there have been 2772 views and 128 replies shows that I have caused a fair amount of interest

Don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back.  There are no other conspiracists active on this board, and the bulk of the replies corrected your many wrong claims, but you have largely ignored them only to reappear as if nothing had happened.

and nobody has shot me down in flames.

Fantasy. 

You have repeatedly demonstrated that you don't understand the engineering or scientific principles involved, have made many errors of fact, and your opinions are simply bald and manifestly uninformed assertions.  I alone have corrected something like a dozen major errors you have made. 

I think NASA are doing the same thing again that they did it the 1960's and give out far too much detail because thats what they think the American public expect for the money spent (some estimates show $7 for every preson in America).

Wrong.  Again.  NASA puts out so much detail because it is the organization's mission to disseminate scientific information.

I want them to succeed and show us something useful that we have not seen before. Surely the Curiosity is going to find something new.

You've previously made claims about "nothing new" which were promptly shown to be wrong.  You have yet to admit your errors.

Why I am still shouting about the original hoax is because all the scientists in other countries have assumed that they did it and have not looked for other ways of getting to the Moon or Mars.

No, this is completely untrue.  You have no idea what you're talking about.

Completely different ideas are needed like anti-gravity or using springs...

You don't understand the current ideas; you have no business proposing fantasy alternatives.