What makes the Boeing B-52 so hard to shoot down? Why doesn’t it just get smacked out of the air?
The B-52 is a big ol’ lumbering plane with 8 engines putting out a lot of hot exhaust. The North Vietnamese found out in the 1960s how easy…
Why don’t we use the Tesla turbine?
It was elegant. Simple—Just smooth disks stacked together—spinning from the force of steam or air flowing between them. Not one fancy blade to break. Not one complicated component—The…
If I shine a flashlight at Mars, does a small amount of the light actually reach it?
Let’s say you had a very nice flashlight with a 5 degree beamspread and a 1 watt visible beam. At 60 million km to Mars at close approach,…
Why is it that a 747 starts off slowly then halfway down the runway, it’s full throttle? An A380 is full throttle from the start.
Apparently, a lot of pilots are not aware of the origin of this practice. This was not done until the 747 was introduced. Prior to the 747, when…
Why is the Martian soil considered toxic, and how does that affect growing food on Mars?
Sadly, if Mark Watney really had to try and survive by growing potatoes in his own shit, he would still be on Mars – and very dead. What Andy Weir…
Is it true that the Space Shuttle smelled quite bad when ground crews got aboard after a flight to clean and unload?
I worked as a Flight Crew Systems engineer for Lockheed Space Ops and then United Space Alliance, supporting over a hundred missions. Because some of my group took…
How can US Navy carriers that were built 3-4 decades ago be better than Chinese Navy carriers built just 2-3 years ago?
Love this question and I’ll throw my hat into the ring here. The question, for the benefit of the uninformed, is the following: Why is this ship that…
If a nuclear powered aircraft carrier was sunk in deep sea water, would the reactor be cooled enough by the sea, or would it explode?
The only time a nuclear reactor actually exploded was in Chernobyl. It happened because the operators broke a cardinal rule on thermal spectrum nuclear reactors: You NEVER, EVER…
For how long do I have to aim a laser at the moon to see a dot?
There are two possible questions here. The first is simply how long would it take for a laser to travel to the moon and back. The moon is…
What is the scariest flag to see flying on a ship?
The signal flag Lima “I have contagious disease onboard”. Not influenza, but yellow fever, cholera, plague, Ebola or something as nasty. Almost as bad are signal flags Alfa – Juliet…