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I hate to uh "pour cold water on this", but if you follow the link to the NASA site: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html http://www.sti.nasa.gov/t
by marshray 15y ago
I hate to uh "pour cold water on this", but if you follow the link to the NASA site: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html
What it actually says is "HMA incorporated elements derived from ORBITEC’s propulsion work into its design for fire suppression, and the improvements significantly enhanced the performance of HMA’s UHP systems. For example, the company studied how to better manage the flow of a liquid to create an energetic blanket of fine water droplets."
It does not actually justify the claim that the vortex flow of propellant has anything to do with the firehose optimizations.
Science people are always so hypercritical when it comes to surprising claims made by non-scientists. They shouldn't give a free pass to Discover magazine and NASA to make such a stretch.
- hartror 15y agoI would expect controlling of propellant flow into a combustion chamber has many lessons that can be applied to other fluid dynamics problems. And it says right there that is what they did: "HMA incorporated elements derived from ORBITEC’s propulsion work into its design for fire suppression." Sure it probably isn't the vortex itself by the sounds of it but there are plenty of other problems they would have had to solve to get the working engine design. So there is no stretch as I read it, though I appreciate your skepticism as often these things are blown out of proportion by the media.