Notes on the Week

Nothing special should be expected from me today, at least not here.

I'm feeling just a little bit brain-damaged.

Ever have one of those days when you thought you'd go take a drive, maybe get a soda and get something to eat, nothing special, and all of a sudden the next thing you know, you emerge from sedation in the hospital with your leg in traction and there's a tray of something in front of you which you figure is probably meant to be thought of as food. And after all, isn't something to eat the reason you went out for that drive? And there it is, food. Just ignore the hospital, they'll be sending you home soon enough.

Well, it wasn't quite that bad, no leg in traction and no wrecked vehicle, no hospital visit, but... I'm feeling a little bit brain damaged. All I can seem to remember is the sound of a drinking straw running out of beverage, slurppppp, and that I was left with a sensation that I should be ashamed or embarassed or perhaps very very angry, but the fact was, I was mostly hungry and there was a really tasty burger in front of me. I suppose that even in shock, if the food's good enough, you can wolf it down.

---

Moving right along, a quick thought back to the previous entry, where I gloated a bit over peoplesdirt.com getting shut down. What a nasty website that was, and the worst part of it was the screeds and the hate, or so some might think.

But upon further reflection -- I do that a lot, you know, I reflect -- what seems worst to me is that element of anonymized slander and libel aimed at people who had no idea at all what had happened to them.

That's one of the lowest forms of cowardice known to humanity, that of destroying your unsuspecting victims in the court of public opinion, and possibly that's not even the worst of it. What sort of a person turns public opinion into a court trying someone on the basis of false accusation? Imagine all of the lawsuits the unwitting victim could launch on the people who repeated the slander in such a widespread way as to forever damage a reputation, perhaps to the point of scandal rendering a person unemployable, or perhaps in this case, not admissible to any decent university, or perhaps to no university at all.

And considering that they were able to lay a "burn" on both their victim, and the people they hoodwinked into being their bully-squad, the instigator can just laugh and laugh and laugh... until the people getting sued figure out that their own best bet is to search endlessly until they find out who it was that played them all for fools, and put them in the docks at court.

---

Moving right along once again, let me offer my condolences to the security guard slain at the Holocaust Museum, allegedly at the hands of an alleged White Supremacist.

The media are having a bit of a feeding frenzy over this issue. I can't quite figure it out; the District has a very high murder rate, and this was just one more. No celebrities or political figures were harmed. The media are making a celebrity out of the man himself, and of his odious beliefs. Stop doing that.

That being said, I decided early this morning that I would go down to the park and do some reading, take my walk while it's still cool, etc.

Driving past the Melvin J Berman Hebrew Academy, it was very busy indeed, no big surprise considering the hour. But every time there's any such media flap, or some significant event such as when Israel was bombing in Lebanon, the security folks at Berman get very much up on edge. Why they think that they would be a target, I am not at all sure. Then again, why would the security people at the Holocaust Museum expect to come under attack?

---

After the fact, it occurs to me that perhaps the people at Berman might not appreciate anything the least bit out of the ordinary.

---

Some years ago, while I was on the Board of Directors of the Aspen Hill Civic Association, Inc., a gentleman approached us with a petition. I was happy to sign it, as it was a petition trying to promote model rocketry as a way to interest kids in math and physics. I seem to recall he was trying to get both State and County sanction for this educational sport.

Many long years ago, I was a devoted member of the National Association of Rocketry, a highly respected organization nearly half a century old.

I got into model rocketry fairly young, I was in 8th grade as I recall.

Rocketry can be approached in a few different ways, but it really truly is all about math and physics. You have to learn things about mass, acceleration, velocity, and how all of these things relate. You have to learn about balance, center-of-gravity, air resistance, and how to use all of these to create a rocket that will not only fly, but will fly straight and safe to where you want it to go, which is generally speaking as high as it possibly can be made to go.

Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of engineers and scientists have fond memories of doing this in highschool or college, or even in middle-school. And thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of engineers learned that math can be not merely fun, but essential, if you don't want to run screaming around the launch field with a rocket chasing you.

Besides, it's great practice in fabrication, especially back in the day when everything was made of paper or balsa-wood, and if you wanted it to fly straight you had to cut and sand and finish the fins, and had to do it right.

One of the first things you learn through experience is that if you build a heavy rocket, you had better have large and broad fins or you would not have enough surface area to provide stability at the relatively low speeds in the first moment after engine ignition.

If you do not have a large enough tail surface area, you may have no stability to speak of once you leave the launching guide rail.

That means that your rocket could be pointed just about anywhere... and you don't want that to be the case when the first stage is jettisoned and the mass of the rocket is thus reduced by about half, and the overpowered second-stage engine ignites and boosts the rocket to its top speed.

Unfortunately, the bunch of kids in the local park that's right down the hill from the Berman Academy mostly had not learned that yet.

---

Overpowered rocket after overpowered rocket, many a bit top-heavy with payload, were sent aloft with seriously deficient tail surface area. Small fins look "cool" and evidently these guys preferred "cool" to "predictable".

One rocket, a two stage job with an egg in the nose cone, made it just up over the top of the tree line and started to nose over as the first-stage engine burned through the top of the fuel. This causes a flame to be forced into the second-stage engine, igniting it, but it also decreases the efficiency of the exhaust. As the thrust dropped, the air speed slowed, efficiency of the tail fins disappears and so does steering control. At this point in time, the rocket was still moving pretty fast, but when it dropped the first stage and lit the second stage, this rocket took off like, well, a rocket... parallel to the ground, about 30 feet up. I found it later, about a quarter of a mile from the launch pad... and it travelled that distance in a bit under a second.

Many successful launches were made, going quite a way straight up, and with most of these being easily recovered.

Many launches were also made which went streaking into the woods at pretty close to the speed of sound.

And now, long after the students went home, I'm sitting here wondering if this might have got a bit on the nerves of the security staff up at the Berman Academy, who were already on edge.

---