Subject:
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Re: Wings [was: Re: Building big]
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Jun 2001 13:16:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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142 times
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In lugnet.space, William R. Ward writes:
> "Jesse Alan Long" <joyous4god2@yahoo.com> writes:
> [...]
> > The second question is where are the wings on your space craft? I apologize
> > for not being able to appreciate some of the larger space craft but I was
> > one of those people who thought that the Star Destroyer and the Super Star
> > Destroyer in the Star Wars saga resembled a hybrid of a battleship and a
> > wedge of cheese. Almost every builder has millions of attennas and tons of
> > bulky areas on these ships and none of these people realize that there is
> > friction in outer space and were these systems to be really existent in
> > space that about half of the ship would disintegrate while travelling in
> > space. I am simply saying that you need some wings on your space craft.
> [...]
>
> Actually, this is false. Space is a vacuum - there is no air, only a
> few stray molecules of gas or cosmic dust. As a result, there is no
> friction and thus no need for wings or streamlined shapes on space
> craft. Also, there is very little gravitational pull, so the lifting
> power of wings is useless.
My spacecraft have wings if they're intended to enter the atmosphere, such
as my Sparrow, http://www.frontiernet.net/~ghaberbe/sparrow.htm .
If they are strictly space (no atmospheric travel), they won't have wings,
but they will have things that look like wings, but are field vanes. I got
the idea from a recent WiReD article, the field vanes interact with field
properties in space. Depending on the applied charge, one side of the vane
will repel, the other will attract, giving a craft manueverability similar
to a winged craft flying through an atmosphere.
The alternative is to use thrusters and flywheels to change attitude,
orientation and velocity, which is harder to do, and doesn't look as spiffy.
I reserve this for lower tech spacecraft, such as my OTV
http://www.frontiernet.net/~ghaberbe/otv.htm .
George
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Wings [was: Re: Building big]
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| "Jesse Alan Long" <joyous4god2@yahoo.com> writes: [...] (...) [...] Actually, this is false. Space is a vacuum - there is no air, only a few stray molecules of gas or cosmic dust. As a result, there is no friction and thus no need for wings or (...) (25 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
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