Dreams and Nerdy Jokes
posted by Jen | 6:24 PM
Last night, I had a dream that it was Yuri's Night at the museum and I was trying to direct volunteers to their respective stations, but an overly helpful volunteer kept sending them off to random places before I could talk to them. I woke up feeling like I'd just had a nightmare. I couldn't go back to sleep for 10-15 minutes. I think my retirement from YN coordinatorship is a good decision.
Wayne Hale made a joke in the press conference tonight that made crickets chirp in the press room. I, however, being a dorky engineer thought it was pretty funny. You will need a few technical terms to even begin to understand this joke:
gap filler - a paper-like substance placed in the gap between Shuttle tiles
laminar boundary layer - describes air flowing smoothly around a surface
turbulent boundary layer - describes air flowing turbulently around a surface
tripping a boundary layer - causing a transition from laminar to turbulent airflow around a surface
Mach - a number describing the speed of an object that is related to the speed of sound and other fluid characteristics. The speed of sound is Mach 1. In orbit, the Space Shuttle is generally going around Mach 25.
He was talking to some engineers that were working on the possible aerodynamic effects of the protruding gap filler that was photographed on Discovery. They were explaining to him that they didn't have a whole lot of good data to make a judgment on how the gap filler would affect the airflow around the bottom of the Shuttle during entry. After explaining this, they told him that they thought the boundary layer would trip at around Mach 21.5. That estimate could be off by as much as +/- 3 Mach numbers though. The engineer finished the conversation by stating "So, we could be tripped already."
I think you have to be an aero person to appreciate it.
Wayne Hale made a joke in the press conference tonight that made crickets chirp in the press room. I, however, being a dorky engineer thought it was pretty funny. You will need a few technical terms to even begin to understand this joke:
gap filler - a paper-like substance placed in the gap between Shuttle tiles
laminar boundary layer - describes air flowing smoothly around a surface
turbulent boundary layer - describes air flowing turbulently around a surface
tripping a boundary layer - causing a transition from laminar to turbulent airflow around a surface
Mach - a number describing the speed of an object that is related to the speed of sound and other fluid characteristics. The speed of sound is Mach 1. In orbit, the Space Shuttle is generally going around Mach 25.
He was talking to some engineers that were working on the possible aerodynamic effects of the protruding gap filler that was photographed on Discovery. They were explaining to him that they didn't have a whole lot of good data to make a judgment on how the gap filler would affect the airflow around the bottom of the Shuttle during entry. After explaining this, they told him that they thought the boundary layer would trip at around Mach 21.5. That estimate could be off by as much as +/- 3 Mach numbers though. The engineer finished the conversation by stating "So, we could be tripped already."
I think you have to be an aero person to appreciate it.
2 Comments:
You know, I'm pretty much as nerdy an aero person as they come... and that only brought a slight smile to my face. No wonder you could hear crickets when Mr. Hale spoke to the press..
I don't see the joke.
Eh?
chirp, chirp
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