Tag: rocket

How Flames Were Artificially Produced for Opera Productions During the 18th Century

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During the 18th century within opera and theater productions, stage doors which would lead a character to Hell achieved simulating the flames of Hell with brandy which would be placed into a container and lit on fire due to the fact that during the period, brandy was the brightest glowing flame available because of it’s high alcohol content. Once the brandy was burning bright, a powder referred to as “lycopodium” was blown across the flames to create an intense illumination, creating a fireball of sorts. It was in truth a very dangerous special effect to achieve because of the wooden sets, the actors involved, and the enclosure of the theatre itself. Most of those who performed the pyrotechnics for operas and plays during this period were ex-military, often soldiers who understood how these chemicals worked in depth as rocket technology was at the cutting edge of warfare during the era

The Loudest Animal Upon Earth

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Blue whales communicate at volumes up to 185 decibels, and can be heard tens of kilometers away and possibly even hundreds of kilometers away. It is believed that the U.S. Navy’s Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) transmitters can produce sounds underwater up to 215 decibels. To provide a frame of reference, the Saturn V rocket launch produced a sound of 200 decibels, loud enough to kill a human being. The blue whale is the loudest animal within the ocean in terms of continuous, sustained sound

The Usage of 5D Crystals as a Means of Computational Storage

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Quartz is being used to create the most powerful data storage device ever developed, the 5D Superman Memory Crystal, a technology which could store data for up to 13,800,000,000 (13.8 billion) years, the calculated age of the universe. The 5D quartz crystal is a method of ensuring a large density of data can be saved within a relatively small object. This is an incredibly secure and long lasting method of saving data as the information is physically encoded into the crystal itself, remaining indefinitely until the quartz itself is destroyed, a very difficult task in and of itself. In 2018, technology entrepreneur Nova Spivack used a 5D crystal to create a permanent space library, sending it to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Heavy Falcon rocket. Quartz is highly stable because it is a crystal, remaining unchanged for billions of years meaning if data is inserted, theoretically it could survive for billions of years. For a quartz crystal approximately 2.5 centimeters by 2.5 centimeters in diameter and 5 millimeters thick, 30 terabytes of data can be held, which is 30,000 gigabytes or 800 Blu-ray discs or 600 smartphones worth of information. This means that the entire British library could be fit into 1000 5D crystal slides, a small enough volume to fit within a single shoebox. A traditional storage medium like a compact disc, stores data in individual pixels, with 1 pixel able to hold the equivalent of 1 bit or 8 bytes of information. In a quartz drive however, each voxel can hold 8 bits or 64 bytes of information. The technology required to achieve this feat however is still in its infancy with scientists still discovering new ways to refine manufacturing, the writing and reading of data, and storage capabilities

Robert Goddard’s Liquid Fueled Rocket Concept

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Robert Goddard devised the idea of liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen being mixed together to create a fierce, but most importantly, a controllable flame for propulsion. When kerosine reacts with oxygen, the result is an incredibly hot, rapidly expanding gas which when channeled through a nozzle, creates enormous thrust. On March 16, 1926, Goddard launched the world’s first liquid fuel rocket bearing this concept. This rocket did not travel fast nor far but it did demonstrate a proof of concept making space flight theoretically possible for the first time in human history

Re-Useable Rockets for Space Exploration

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Rockets are traditionally not re-used unlike aviation aircraft because making a landing from space means that a craft must come back to Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 8 kilometers per second, a much more difficult task than that of landing a commercial aircraft at a cruising speed of just over 800’ per second

Nazi German V2 Rocket Production During World War II 

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The V2 rocket was one of the most expensive pieces of weaponry utilized during World War II. The V2 rocket was manufactured under slave labor conditions and although it was successful in its ability to kill 5000 people during its various attacks, 10,000 – 20,000 people died during its production as miscalculations and errors often occurred during the various manufacturing and testing processes. The V2 rocket was primarily built by Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and French prisoners of war. Overworking, underfeeding, and not providing sanitation caused many deaths to these slave laborers which hindered the ability to produce the unrealistic quota demands Adolf Hitler had requested of the German military. For each V2 rocket which was produced, 6 slave laborers died. Wernher von Braun performed many calculations for the German military in terms of the amount of concentration camp slave laborers required to meet demand quotas as well as how many people were expected to die during each production run. Prisoners were often hung publicly within the labor camps as punishment for resistance or sabotage of the project