tony sayer wrote: [snip]
Tssk, you're not thinking this through. To make it work we need skyhooks. Suspend anyone who wants to travel from parachute harness so their feet don't touch the ground. Start up the windmills and move the country under the suspended individuals. When they see where they want to be they can drop out of the harness. We could arrane to move the country 600 miles north in the morning then back again in the evening. It's a winner.
A more valid comparison would be with a modern cargo ship. The Emma Maersk has a cruising speed, typical for a large cargo ship, of 25 knots (although recently 20kts and in some cases speeds as low as 12 kts have been used to lower costs). Whilst the tea cutters averaged (unpredictably) about 17kts the more usual sailing cargo vessel managed about 8kts.
Apart from predictability the killer for sail ships was of course the cost per ton of cargo and also the Suez Canal - which sailing ships could not use reliably. The Suez Canal made steam ships, of no greater average speed than the best clippers, far faster and much more reliable on the India and Far East routes while the clippers still went out by the Trade Winds and home by the Cape of Good Hope. In 1875 the Cutty Sark came to the UK from Shanghai in 108 days, but the SS Glenartney took only 42 days through the canal.
The Cutty Sark carried about 1,500 tonnes, had a crew of 30 and couldn't use the Suez Canal. The Emma Maersk carries over 150,000 tonnes, has a crew of 13 and does use the Suez Canal.
Peter Parry wrote: [snip]
None of which or any of the other good stuff that you posted is in dispute. As was previously stated the major advantage of steam was reliability of journey time. We'll not know for some time what sail could have offered in performance and if sail ever did make a comeback then the Suez canal would need electric traction tugs as are used on the Panama locks but for the length of the canal.
None of which makes any of TNPs "facts" factual.
Well they do have sail assist systems 'tho I don't know of any in use....
The problem is not so much navigating the canal, tugs can be used for that, but of getting to and from the ends when the winds are unpredictable or blowing in the wrong direction (such as in the Mediterranean where the prevailing wind is west to east) or Red Sea where the wind is from the north and west and any ship heading north is sailing into the wind.
It COULD. But if you bother to learn English, you might see that I said 'average'
ON average, they did not. Due to having to cover huge extra distances in tacking, or simple lack of wind.
150-250 miles a day was a good speed for any fast sailer. 6-10mph. And highly dependent on the wind.No, they AVERAGED about 8-9 knots at best.
the more usual sailing cargo vessel
No, they AVERAGED about 5 knots.
The point is that steamships were reliably faster, not in best top speed, but in predictable average speed, and used less crew. So they were commercially more profitable.
As with all things wind power, everybody thinks that what they COLD do is what they DID do. On average, clipper ships were by the standards of a modern motorised vessel, total rubbish on AVERAGE speeds.
With or without the Suez canal.
Remember the heyday of the tea clipper was shangai to san francisco. No canal in the way there.
If you bothered to remove your head from your arse you will realise that you did not say that a clipper ship made an average speed a little over fast walking pace. You stated that the average clipper ship made a speed a little over fast walking pace.
Perhaps you could learn how to write English?
You're still wrong. Clipper ships averaged 8 knots. A fast walk is not 8 knots.
You could be a man and admit you were wrong, for a change.
Almost no tacking is require imbibe clipper routes. Stop showing your ignorance.
In message , Steve Firth writes
Is there ANYONE here that speekee inggris
The iPhone thinks it can speak Ingrish better than I can.
Can I seize this opportunity to recommend one of the best books I've ever come across;
"Ignition! An informal history of liquid rocket propellants" by John D. Clark.
It's what the Septics call it, not being happy using the word "rape". Stands for Canadian Oil Association, I believe.
Blimey - now that looks like an interesting read! Thanks.
Or alternatively why were the solid boosters, which provide most of the thrust up to 150,000 feet and that burn aluminium as a fuel necessary?
It would be the wrong way to do things IMO. Politically anything that fosters international trade and gives a country with no much more than sunlight a chance of an income is fine by me. And if one wanted to use nuclear to produce hydrocarbons from feedstock I'm sure there are more efficient means to do so than using sunlamps to grow algae. Algae farms work well at harvesting sunlight and that, IMO, is how they should be used.
Yes.
Huge wrote: [snip]
Excellent, thanks.
If you don't already have it, I recommend "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" by Robert Brent. There was a copy in the Library of one of the primary schools that I attended. It's what got me into science in general and chemistry in particular.
Maybe, but there's quite a bit of work going on investigating the opportunities for a large number of electric vehicles providing mass storage for generated electricity (see "Windfarms paid to shut down").
Cars connected up to car-park charging units during the day acting as a national resource for storage of electrical energy. Then driven home and connected to the charging units there, where their stored charge can be used to top up the evening peak demand, with the drawn charge 'repaid' later in the night.
That would be because its difficult to mix the O2 and H2 fast enough in a controlled manner to get the same thrust as you can get from burning the solid propellant (which isn't all aluminium BTW).
I could be wrong, but I've heard that internal politics - having the work done in the right congressman's area - was a significant factor in the Morton Thiokol contract.
After all what sensible engineer would have chosen to build the SRBs in sections?
Andy
One that has to transport them across several states to get them to teh launch site.
Solid fuel is simpler but completely uncnotrollable.
I used as pure grunt because its cheap and simple. Shame they couldn't even get a couple of fireworks right.. The controlled stuff is done with liquid fuels.
Don't bother with firthshit tho. Kill fill the arrogant c*ut.
And which congressman has Air Products in his area?
Aren't they shipped by rail (at least for part of the journey)? AIUI, the diameter is the fault of the Romans and/or the size of a horse's arse, but perhaps the length of the sections is determined by what they could get through curved railway tunnels.
Solid fuel boosters are a bit light-the-blue-touch-paper, of course.
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