NASA to take MARTIAN FLYING SAUCER for a spin NASA is promising a bit of live Martian flying-saucer action on Tuesday with a "spin-table" test of its Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) – the future Mars payload delivery tech which may one day combine airbags and parachutes to safely place kit on the Red Planet's surface. From 1700 to 1800 GMT, you'll be able to …
Dunno, but it's right there on the El Reg standard units page. Odd really because only length (50m) and width (25m) are set in concrete (ha ha), depth can vary as long as it's at least 2m minimum.
If the pool is deep enough then just one Olympic sized swimming pool can have the same volume as NASA's LDSD balloon!
Since when was an "Olympic sized swimming pool" a valid Register unit of measure?
Since early 2011. More to the point why were the rest of the stats given without understandable units of measure?
...264bn over the Pacific, blasted it to 398bn...
"...1.5 metric tons to 2 to 3 metric tons" (357 jubs to 476 to 714 jubs).
Better because brontosaurs and boobs!
Helium is a very precious and limited resource. No lives would have been put at significant risk using hydrogen. The Hindenburg did not suffer a hydrogen fire, the hydrogen went straight up at high velocity, unburned and well out of harm's way. The fire was a reaction between iron oxide and aluminum dust in the outer fabric skin.
The Hindenburg's hydrogen burned nicely when it passed through the raging hull-material fire. It might not have been the cause of the Hindenburg fire and it didn't produce the visible flames in the Hindenburg fire, but hydrogen definitely burned - you don't heat hydrogen to 1000F and expose it to fresh oxygen without it combusting.
Do some research on what we need helium for in modern technology and look at the stock pile of limited resources on Earth. Then you will understand why spaffing it into space is a dumb idea. It's an element - which means we can't make it again (unless you have atomic fusion). It's also light - which means unless you trap it and store it, it goes into space never to be reclaimed.
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