/sci/ - Science & Math

Lightning protection dumbass

>>2151290
That makes no fucking sense. Lightning doesn't protect you. It fucking kills you.

>>2151304

bumpin for plausible answer

>>2151290

/thread

Look they, have one of the same white towers with the spiral thing around it on the top of the shuttle control tower. Whatever it is, the atlas needs 4 of em, and the shuttle only needs 1. : /

>>2151383
you have your answer quit trolling. Atlantis lives in a hanger until it is launched therefore it is safe from lightning.

>>2151278
lightning rods

though I'm really not sure how useful they are. why would they erect the Falcon in a storm? They can put it back in the hangar in about an hour.


(most self descriptive captcha yet: Deform Title)

>>2151408

It's to protect the tower on the launch pad.

>>2151408
>Falcon
dumbass, that's an Atlas V.

The Falcon 9 has basically the same pad layout and lightning protection, though. (And it just had a successful hot-fire test! All systems go for Tuesday's first COTS flight!)

I'd have no trouble believing they were just lightning towers if it weren't for the fat white columns with the spirals around them. That looks nothing like any kind of lightning rod I've ever seen.

>>2151564
well obviously the white columns are insulators. so the lightning will travel along the cables to ground instead of straight down the tower.

They are minarets.

Believers climb up and shout from them when it is time to launch. (Five times a day.)

>>2151591
LOL

I wish it were true. It would make launches that much more awesome. You'd need some serious, serious hearing and blast protection, but that would be one hell of an experience! Imaging standing where this photo was taken, for example.

>>2151585
Why would you need 200-foot tall insulators at the tops of your lightning towers? And no insulators to protect the lower part of the towers. That doesn't make any sense at all.

>>2151695

I guess you want to take every precaution when protecting when is essentially a big cylinder full of highly explosive chemicals.

Lightning rods.

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/estatics/u8l4e.cfm

It's the temporary framework to direct the energies that are needed to open the Gate.

When the system discharges through it, the wires will flash into plasma, which is then pinched to create the boundary for the relativistic torus.

>>2152330
It looks like there are small lightning rods on top of the white cylinders. But you don't insulate a lightning rod against the air. So I've got nothing on the white cylinders.

>>2151695

You don't need insulation on the bottom half of the towers. The lightning isn't going to hit the bottom of the towers when the top of them is closer to the lightning strike.

>>2152665
That doesn't make any sense. Are you trying to protect the middle of the lighting rod from getting hit in the middle... of the lightning rods?

Since the OP's question is settled, I'll pose another one.

What is /sci/'s opinion of ion engines? Are they the future of space flight? Last time I checked they were making progress improving impulse.

>>2152686
Ion engines are useful, but only for long duration missions. Since they have low thrust, they have a long acceleration period, but if you accelerate for long enough, you can get moving at high speeds. This is useful if you're going to the outer planets or if you're trying to send an unmanned payload to just about anywhere.

>>2153034
But like I said, their impulse is improving.

>>2153046
Impulse as in specific impulse or impulse as in thrust? If you mean specific impulse, yes, there are new designs with higher specific impulse. This means they're more fuel efficient. If you mean thrust, that's only really achievable with bigger power systems. The more thrust you want, the more power you need. The more power you need, the more massive the power system. The more massive the power system, the more thrust you need.
Personally, I think that nuclear engines are the way to go in the future. They have higher specific impulse than current chemical rockets, and they have fairly high thrust.

>>2152685

You're protecting the bottom half of the tower from damage if the top is hit. If the top wasn't insulated from the bottom, a strike at the top would run down the outside of the tower and damage any sensitive stuff at the bottom.

they're lightning rods. I went on a tour of cape canaveral earlier this year. it was awesome.

to those saying shit about the things being stored in a hangar, or not being put up in a storm, you know these things sit on the pad for days, sometimes weeks at a time, right? and it's florida, there are storms every fucking day or something.