On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 11:14:59AM -0400, Al Kozakiewicz wrote:
[a vacuum-filled Hindenburg]
> Absolutely. However, the weight of a structure that size that could
> withstand the forces of a vacuum would well exceed the forces of
> buoyancy!
Just so. I got to see a very large vacuum chamber that had collapsed:
the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center's space environment chamber, which was
something like 5 meters diameter and 8 or 10 meters long. I drove to work
one morning, and it had changed shape from a vertical cylinder to something
like a crushed Coke can. This chamber was _heavily_ braced on the outside,
instead of being designed for flight. Oooopsie!
It even glowed on the inside when it was working, as one end had Damn Big
Muckin' Arc Lamps to simulate solar flux; the other had big loops of tubing
to carry LN2 to simulate the 3K cosmic background temperature.
--
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mikea@mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin
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