quote:
Pvednes wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Psst...1. Chlorofluorocarbons
2. It's the chlorine, released by the decomposition of CFCs in the stratosphere that catalyses ozone depletion.
3. Atmospheric gases are not sorted by molecular weight.Perhaps you should join the Cato Institute. You and Stephen Milloy would get on well.
[Edit: Oh and for the record, freon-12 was the haloalkane in question.]
SLAP!
It would appear that the designs i linked to are a smidge out of date. Here are some newer ones.
http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm
My favorite part:
Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, where air resistance and debris would limit the useful lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of missions would require people to assist in deploying a large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled so that it could not land on autopilot? 1 Why go through all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, where things will fall on it during launch?
