alt text:
We’re right under the flight path for the scheduled orbital launch, but don’t worry–it’s too cold out for the rockets to operate safely, so I’m sure they’ll postpone.
Explanation: https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2950:_Situation
tl;dr references
These are all infamous disasters now used as case studies for how NOT to do things
- Ocean liner: Titanic
- Airship: Hindenburg
- Reactor: Chernobyl
- Bridge: Tacoma Narrows
- Rocket (alt text): Challenger
More details at the link
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D’oh! I always get those two mixed up… Too many "Space Shuttle C_____ Disaster"s…
There should have been a submarine that is also Titanic, somewhere underneath
That won’t be till decades later
The other events are already decades apart, aren’t they?
Surprisingly, if you google “hydrogen airship revival”, you will find that there are many companies trying to build airships.
Since the non-flammable helium has less lifting capacity and is non-renewable and expensive, they are trying to use hydrogen safely. Good luck…
Armchair pseudo-scientific thinking like this was why Mythbusters became so popular. They even devoted at least one episode to this very myth. Spoiler, hydrogen wasn’t what made that particular lead ballon unsafe.
I didn’t particularly like that episode because they didn’t do another control test and just called it a day
The problem wasn’t hydrogen, it was the thermite the hull was made out of. Helium blimps blew up the same way soon after
I think you accidentally put helium twice in your second paragraph. Just wanted to let you know in case you want to fix it for readability.
Fixed. Appreciated.
You bet :)
I don’t think airship travel is viable due to inability to properly steer them outside of very specific conditions, regardless of the filling. I would love to be proven wrong if it were somehow economic for shipping, but I have no high expectations.
Happy cake day 🍰
Hello and welcome to Well There’s Your Problem, a podcast about engineering disasters… with slides.
Unpopular Counter-point: a large number of engineers are also morons.
it’s normally upper managers sand baging. Everytime we have a new product they don’t involve anyone later stages in pipeline and keep the engineering team in a sealed space lab IN Mars. Then release the product half baked because the eng team quit or got dissolved to work on other more important projects. Then demand the sustainability team to develop it. So now it’s in limbo for 2 years but noo we must go to market now. Now it’s all trash but marketing cleans it’s image. Never fails to happen. Worst is new management come and say new product v2 but we are doing it all from scratch and ignore previous team mistakes. Like why?
