Re: Better Cold Equations


"Jasper Janssen" <jasper@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:r66gn3hfqir6mkjm9tbdpoblbiu795j0v0@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 03:58:04 -0600, "Ken from Chicago"
<kwicker1b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Wayne Throop" <throopw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1198986153@xxxxxxxxxxxx
: "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
: During an emergency you don't have time for last-minute rechecking, or
: fixing of onboard alarms. Time is of the essence to get the mcguffin
to
the
: target population.

Oh yes, a five second delay would be horribly crucial. Suuuure it
would.
Yet another case where it's more important that the ship should blow
up sooner rather than arrive later. I mean, if there's no pre-flight
checklist at all, did anybody check that the correct amount of fuel was
loaded? Etc etc.

Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw

How many preflight checklists on an airplane include check mass of plane?
Do

All of them. At least on passenger planes. Mass of plane, and in
particular distribution of mass, varies significantly with the amount and
distribution of passengers and luggage and how fat they are. Fuel is
shuttled between tanks to maintain balance, and the amount of fuel loaded
will be exactly as much as neededf for the flight plan, to be expected
delays, plus the internationally mandated safety limit, and not a gallon
more.

Part of the problem is that we're thinking of space travel as a rare event
instead of routine like car, bus, truck, train travel. Do freight train
engineers check for mass of train?

I suspect they do. You pretty much need to, to confirm that your brakes
and propulsion are in spec for the train weight.

So when an emergency delivery of food,
water, medicine, donor organ, etc. is required, checking for stowaways is
not top priority--when time is crucial. A basic check of the train (and
its
fuel car) might be done but easily avoided.

A helicopter flight carrying an organ from a donor to a recipient probably
does do a full pre-flight check, actually.


Jasper

Again, helicopter flights are much rarer than say a car trip. If you kid
calls from school due to a shootout, are you really gonna check the trunk
for a stowaway before racing off to the school to (hopefully) pick the kid
up?

-- Ken from Chicago


.

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