Message posted by Peter Merlin (Member since 11/13/2003) on March 03, 2023 at 17:09:03 PST:
Of course, they did not actually "shoot a manhole cover into space." The welded cap at the top of the emplacement shaft was blown off and never recovered, but it (or fragments of it are undoubtedly somewhere on the test site. Robert Brownlee, the analyst who made the initial velocity estimate did so based on a calculation for vacuum conditions. He didn't take the atmosphere into account mathematically, nor gravity or the cap's material strength. This was not a mistake. He had only been asked to calculate values for the shock wave striking the cap, nothing more. Deputy division chief William Ogle kept pressing him to say how fast the cap was traveling when it separated. "My calculations are irrelevant on this point," Brownlee responded, "Those numbers are meaningless."
In Reply to: Operation Plumbbob scientist discusses using nuke to launch manhole into space posted by Ty on March 03, 2023 at 7:30:13 PST:
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