Did you guys get to go into the vacuum chamber across the street that’s the size of an ICBM? When I worked there, it was being used as a wind tunnel to simulate Martian atmospheric conditions to study erosion and dust devils and a little bit of rotorcraft stuff.
@@ahgflyguy Alas, our itinerary "only" included the Vertical Motion Simulator, Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, ArcJet, and ARMADAS. We could have easily spent double the time at each without getting bored, and I really wish we could have explored all the buildings labeled fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, but our guides worked hard to keep us on schedule. Rumor has it, they had to chase Scott down on more than one occasion because various bits of space history caught his eye and he wandered off... 😂
It was so cool getting to see Ames with you! I was trying to find which cables carried which fluid, NASA had a stream a while back that claimed water flowed through the orange lines but I think you're right that they carry air as those beefy hoses would be the much higher pressure line than the water above.
Scott's ability to assimilate, process, comprehend, and convey information is impressive and enduring. Thanks for another fascinating video! "Slate green panels to help people feel calm about ending the world..." sounds right out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.
I spent a summer working at the Mars Surface Wind Tunnel across the street that tapped into the vacuum pumps from the Arc Jet Facility. I got a tour of it as well-very cool place! That was back when Shuttle was still flying.
This is really interesting. As an engineer in thermal protection, I have manufactured a few parts that went through the arc jet at Ames. We made some experimental parts for Dream Chaser and we got to see the photos of what they looked like after the test. I have never seen footage of the facility itself, so thanks for that.
*No need for tiles at all. just drill lots of micro holes. then pump out dry ice out of those holes to form a cold co2 insulating boundary layer. you dont even really need a pump. the heat of re-entry will cause melting of the dry ice and high pressure dry ice co2 to come out of the micro holes to form the insulating boundary layer.*
Recruiter: "We're designing a machine to test tile materials. Would you like to be on the team?" Scientist: "Meh. Sounds boring." Recruiter: "Basically, we're building a giant plasma torch, and we're gonna burn stuff with it." Scientist: "I'm in." Recruiter: "It pays-" Scientist: "Don't care. I'm in."
the fact that nasa was like "hey scott, come on over were gonna show you around this testing facility." is a very good reason to like nasa. they are an educational institution along with being a pioneering and testing firm. they made a lot of today's aero and space possible.
The Air Force also gives tours of their similar facilities (provided they don't have any classified test articles around at the time.) I got to see several of them when I worked at AEDC. They have wind tunnels, jet engine testing facilities (several of these,) upper-stage rocket motor testing facilities, arc heaters that used multiple times as much power as the nearby town, guns for testing aircraft canopies (i.e. the "chicken gun,") and a light gas gun that can fire projectiles the size of a naval round at roughly orbital velocity.
Same here! When I was younger, I used to think lasers were cool so more powerful lasers must be more cool (to play with). Now, 20 years later, a big ol' NOPE! I work at a prototyping shop and we have a 4kW laser (TruLaser 2030) that will happily cut through 1/2" steel. These folks have 4, 50kW lasers? Yikes!
You aren't wrong. It's likely a ytterbium fiber laser. 200kw out of 4 fiber pipes is downright scary. I've seen a 4kw one and it slices and dices 1/4 inch steel plate like a hot knife through warm butter. 😮
The molten material at the end, is one of the neatest things, I have seen in my life. Thanks for showing this fantastic tour. I felt like a kid in 4th or 5th grade, going to the natural history museum. What wonders!
I had a friend who was a little eccentric and had a big optics table like the one in your video with all of the mirrors, prisms, and such - I think he was creating laser holograms with it. When operating, it floated on a cushion of air to eliminate any ground vibration.
I remember getting to tour the NASA Houston test facility for Shuttle heat protection. That was pretty impressive stuff, where they were passing high pressure, high velocity steam over a huge bank of electrodes to electrolytically rip the steam into oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
Noice! Yeah, I saw her at 0:37 and was like “hey!” (I follow her channel and it’s very cool, but I just finished watching JetLag Australia, so she was top of mind)
To be a bit more explanatory, the meteor lava is flowing back to the base due to the base drag vacuum (low pressure area). It's easily seen on the motor side of any of the liquid fueled rockets, and the reason why they have so many blankets/shields around the motors, as well as our amateur solid motor ones, with anything other than minimum diameter. That lava is just a wee bit more dense! Thanks Scot, Joe, and Tim for a nice view.
I got to see this live one summer. I was working nearby in the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory and someone asked if we wanted to go see a test. HELL YEAH I WANT TO SEE A TEST!
I know right. If you watch the last starship flight, the eddys were so strong on the up wind side of the ship during reentry that sparks and bits of materials hovered around for seconds before dissipating. I was amazed then and now more so - at these speeds the currents must be super prominent.
It's crazy. It uses an actual artillery cannon charge to compress helium that launches a tiny projectile at truly hypersonic velocities. A small BB sized piece of aluminum can do damage comparable to a 50 cal. 😮
Her look of panic at 8:05 is like a combination of an _introvert realizing they're stuck in a small room with strangers_ and "oh, god, they might touch my experiments and I hate confrontation..." 😆
I in TIG stands for "inert" if I'm not mistaken? (Serves to _protect_ the metal from any gases it could react with) Well please note that atomic oxygen is very much opposite of inert! 5:05
@@u1zha Argon is the main shielding gas used for TIG, they do use argon in this system aswell. But yeah there are also plenty of reactive gasses present.
There is one facility at the University of Illinois which is using inductively coupled plasma to do similar experiments but it can't even come close to reaching the power levels this does. Imagine what thickness of steel the jet from this could blow through...
I do believe that footage of the metorite achieving change of state might be one of the most mind altering slo-mo shots i’ve seen , im glad that it was shared!
fun one for you scott. worked around one of the air vortex stabilized arcjets and I was told they can judge the electrode erosion because as they erode, the rate at which the arc orbits around will change.
Nice to see they are still using the Rockwell Retro-encabulator in the laser lab. To this day no device has been conceived which can surpass its performance in reducing sinusoidal deplaneration.
You're probably right. I would imagine that no one has thought about that kind of surface for re-entry velocities since most of the thinking has always been aerodynamic surfaces being smooth. Wouldn't that be something if a surface type like a golf ball could be more efficient!
Wouldn’t that make it more aerodynamic which is the opposite of what is needed when slowing down? They want to slow down, not keep going fast, right? 🤔
It's cool to see you make such a good video of that facility. I spent 6 years in the machine shop making parts for that facility. I've reworked so many electrodes in my time there. It was fun
0:12 I used to work at a steelmaking meltshop which has a 60MW electric arc furnace. It could melt about 82t of scrap steel (and 3t of fluxes) at a rate of about 2-and-a-bit tonnes per minute, or 35kg/70lb per second. Just for a sense of scale.
Just for some context of the power of those lasers they shoot at the target heat shields: A pretty standard industrial fiber laser used for metal cutting/engraving is 50 watts. Those lasers are 50 kilowatts. That's a spicy laser blasting those shields.
Scott, i just appreciate so much how i never have to scratch my head and go huh? when you're explaining a thing. So many other youtubes just leave me in a confused mess, thanks!
We all saw the historic photo of a space shuttle miniature sample in this tunnel with a plasma glow all around. Now we know how it is done. Just curious how different the current setup from the one used in 60th.
Wpw 200kw+ out of 4 fibers, 50kw of laser down a pipe is insane. The large optics at the end are collimators for the fiber. Ive seen what happens when a 4kW laser fiber breaks... it turns to a fuse burning with a blue white plasma.😮
Going up into space seems to be a much easier task compared to coming back down again safely. The sheer size of space flight test facilities alone is astonishing. Thank you for taking us onto another interesting tour.
I'm sure wind tunnels exist that are capable of extended re-entry speeds, but nobody gets to use those unless your project involves blowing up hypothetical battleships
Excellent review!!! In my opinion you and your channel at it's best. It would be great if you could become an accepted public liaison to NASA and had access to review all of NASA's facility's.
I once got into a "discussion" with someone online about NASA's Apollo legacy infrastructure, they couldn't quite grasp that I was talking about more than just a couple of launch pads and the VAB. Wish I'd had Scott to explain it to them.
A kilowatt pulsed laser might SEEM like a reasonable power measurement... ...said no one ever. That kw is average power. the instantaneous power of a pulse is probably in the Mega or Gigawatts. Example: You can get pulsed fiber lasers with single digit watts of average power that will etch steel.
Yeah, for reference, a regular laser pointer is less than 5 milliwatts. That is 1/200th of a watt, while a kilowatt is 1000 watts. A regular laser pointer is also dangerous for your eyes, but reflections off non mirror-like surfaces should be safe.
@@LaughingOrange Right. But the point I was making is that pulsed fiber lasers have VERY short activation times. Picoseconds are normal. Femtoseconds exist. That's how those little desktop units can etch steel. The average power is very low. But the instantaneous power is enough to vaporize the steel before the heat can be conducted away. A desktop laser might be 'only' 1 watt, but it spends most of it's time in the off state. Each pule of that laser might be a Megawatt, just for an instant.
Idea: Just build the heatshield using the cooling system they have for the test arm, it obviously survives over and over again in the same environment lol :p
So the air is heated with electricity then ejected at high speeds? Do you think the arcjet would be a promising propulsion method for near future nuclear powered spaceships?
There seems to be more to said about the support arms... What are they made of? Cooling them with water would avoid them heating up from radiant heat, but surely plasma, which is made from highly ionised gas, would physically destroy the material that the arm is made if?
Scott, it was an honor climbing into a test chamber with you. Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this tour. It was amazing.
Did you guys get to go into the vacuum chamber across the street that’s the size of an ICBM? When I worked there, it was being used as a wind tunnel to simulate Martian atmospheric conditions to study erosion and dust devils and a little bit of rotorcraft stuff.
@@ahgflyguy Alas, our itinerary "only" included the Vertical Motion Simulator, Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, ArcJet, and ARMADAS. We could have easily spent double the time at each without getting bored, and I really wish we could have explored all the buildings labeled fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, but our guides worked hard to keep us on schedule. Rumor has it, they had to chase Scott down on more than one occasion because various bits of space history caught his eye and he wandered off... 😂
@@ahgflyguy Are you referring to THE Martian rotorcraft?
@@charliem989 No, this was over 20 years ago. This was separate from the work done by JPL.
Shhhh, Scott’s wife might see this…😳
"I'm Scott Manley, Fry safe".
🤣 God, I’m pathetic!
Absolutely dying at this, mate! 😂
😁😁😁😁😁🤣
Perfection!
You nailed it LMAO
It was so cool getting to see Ames with you! I was trying to find which cables carried which fluid, NASA had a stream a while back that claimed water flowed through the orange lines but I think you're right that they carry air as those beefy hoses would be the much higher pressure line than the water above.
It was a lot of guesswork based on what I saw and read, I could be wrong
Check out periscope films, they have one video of all the lifting body shuttle designs in the chamber.
What a cool tour! If you guys came across any samples of something called 3MDCP while at Ames, I made that!
Was gonna say this is the perfect Scott Manley video to follow up the BPS space heat shields tangent.
0:47 I spotted you man 😂
Just imagine the chaos if Electroboom was invited
How is this comment from 18 minuets ago when the video is less than a minute old
@@timohearn4454magic
Comment 26 min posted 8 minutes
"Child's play" - styropyro
Oooh man, you’re absolutely right! He’d give us THE FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!!!
Scott's ability to assimilate, process, comprehend, and convey information is impressive and enduring. Thanks for another fascinating video!
"Slate green panels to help people feel calm about ending the world..." sounds right out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.
"they're waiting for you, Scott... in the test chamber."
HL3 confirmed...
Dude that is the PERFECT camera for showing off that chamber. It feels so immersive!
I spent a summer working at the Mars Surface Wind Tunnel across the street that tapped into the vacuum pumps from the Arc Jet Facility. I got a tour of it as well-very cool place! That was back when Shuttle was still flying.
This is really interesting. As an engineer in thermal protection, I have manufactured a few parts that went through the arc jet at Ames. We made some experimental parts for Dream Chaser and we got to see the photos of what they looked like after the test. I have never seen footage of the facility itself, so thanks for that.
*No need for tiles at all. just drill lots of micro holes. then pump out dry ice out of those holes to form a cold co2 insulating boundary layer. you dont even really need a pump. the heat of re-entry will cause melting of the dry ice and high pressure dry ice co2 to come out of the micro holes to form the insulating boundary layer.*
@@esecallum How much dry ice would you need for a 14 ft diameter capsule traveling at 18,000 MPH?
@esecallum no need. Atmospheric Aerogel Drones get the job done
Recruiter: "We're designing a machine to test tile materials. Would you like to be on the team?"
Scientist: "Meh. Sounds boring."
Recruiter: "Basically, we're building a giant plasma torch, and we're gonna burn stuff with it."
Scientist: "I'm in."
Recruiter: "It pays-"
Scientist: "Don't care. I'm in."
Scientists...the ultimate pyromaniacs
the fact that nasa was like "hey scott, come on over were gonna show you around this testing facility." is a very good reason to like nasa. they are an educational institution along with being a pioneering and testing firm. they made a lot of today's aero and space possible.
The Air Force also gives tours of their similar facilities (provided they don't have any classified test articles around at the time.) I got to see several of them when I worked at AEDC. They have wind tunnels, jet engine testing facilities (several of these,) upper-stage rocket motor testing facilities, arc heaters that used multiple times as much power as the nearby town, guns for testing aircraft canopies (i.e. the "chicken gun,") and a light gas gun that can fire projectiles the size of a naval round at roughly orbital velocity.
I had a visceral reaction when you entered that LEAF room. It gives "the backscatter will blind you and that's just the start" vibes
Same here! When I was younger, I used to think lasers were cool so more powerful lasers must be more cool (to play with). Now, 20 years later, a big ol' NOPE! I work at a prototyping shop and we have a 4kW laser (TruLaser 2030) that will happily cut through 1/2" steel. These folks have 4, 50kW lasers? Yikes!
Just the size of those mirrors has some terrifying implications
You aren't wrong. It's likely a ytterbium fiber laser. 200kw out of 4 fiber pipes is downright scary. I've seen a 4kw one and it slices and dices 1/4 inch steel plate like a hot knife through warm butter. 😮
The molten material at the end, is one of the neatest things, I have seen in my life. Thanks for showing this fantastic tour. I felt like a kid in 4th or 5th grade, going to the natural history museum. What wonders!
Looks like a forbidden orange creamcicle
10:42 “This is a vortex of lava, trapped in the leeward side” is such a metal thing to say
Came home from a company event, tired with all the people, and lava vortex is just the thing I needed to look at and relax. Thank you!
When a lava lamp just isn’t calming enough !
Yes... the meteor lava vortex was absolutely the highlight of this video.
I had a friend who was a little eccentric and had a big optics table like the one in your video with all of the mirrors, prisms, and such - I think he was creating laser holograms with it.
When operating, it floated on a cushion of air to eliminate any ground vibration.
So a William Osman ,Tibees, Everyday Astronaut crossover video incoming?
looked like jeremy fielding there as well
and Joe Barnard!
As well as Jay from The Plasma Channel.
I remember getting to tour the NASA Houston test facility for Shuttle heat protection. That was pretty impressive stuff, where they were passing high pressure, high velocity steam over a huge bank of electrodes to electrolytically rip the steam into oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
Was that Tibees in the background?
That's what I was thinking!
It was! So nice to see her there. Joe Barnard was there as well. (Edit: typo)
Yup, looks like they got all the cool youtubers
Foreground closeup at 09:00
Noice! Yeah, I saw her at 0:37 and was like “hey!” (I follow her channel and it’s very cool, but I just finished watching JetLag Australia, so she was top of mind)
Thanks Scott for reminding us about how awesome NASA is
To be a bit more explanatory, the meteor lava is flowing back to the base due to the base drag vacuum (low pressure area). It's easily seen on the motor side of any of the liquid fueled rockets, and the reason why they have so many blankets/shields around the motors, as well as our amateur solid motor ones, with anything other than minimum diameter. That lava is just a wee bit more dense! Thanks Scot, Joe, and Tim for a nice view.
Lava Vortex is the name of my Rush cover band...
LMAO!!! That's freaking greatness!
Who knew your band name could look so awesome?
I got to see this live one summer. I was working nearby in the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory and someone asked if we wanted to go see a test. HELL YEAH I WANT TO SEE A TEST!
Well it's a plasma cannon. It's a plasma cannon, isn't it? I feel alright calling it a plasma cannon.
Wow, I never really considered the idea of lava getting caught up in an eddy like that...
I know right. If you watch the last starship flight, the eddys were so strong on the up wind side of the ship during reentry that sparks and bits of materials hovered around for seconds before dissipating. I was amazed then and now more so - at these speeds the currents must be super prominent.
The tour was miraculous Scott, thanks for setting it up. But what’s more miraculous, is how fast you’ve gotten a video out about it haha. 4 days?? 😅
"Hypersonic gun range"
My god, even 13 year old me would of been STOKED to see that.
It's crazy. It uses an actual artillery cannon charge to compress helium that launches a tiny projectile at truly hypersonic velocities. A small BB sized piece of aluminum can do damage comparable to a 50 cal. 😮
Her look of panic at 8:05 is like a combination of an _introvert realizing they're stuck in a small room with strangers_ and "oh, god, they might touch my experiments and I hate confrontation..." 😆
Exactly what I thought hahahaha
Did you mean 9:05 and she looks like Tibees.
Sweet vid, my brother is designing the next generation of stings that hold the test articles and I’m waiting for a tour of my own!
basically a BIG water cooled TIG torch
Plasma cutter comes closer.
@@samuraidriver4x4 Almost perfect example
I in TIG stands for "inert" if I'm not mistaken? (Serves to _protect_ the metal from any gases it could react with) Well please note that atomic oxygen is very much opposite of inert! 5:05
@@u1zha Argon is the main shielding gas used for TIG, they do use argon in this system aswell.
But yeah there are also plenty of reactive gasses present.
The copper alloy rings are made of copper tungsten alloy. Streight copper would vaporize far too quickly. 😮
There is one facility at the University of Illinois which is using inductively coupled plasma to do similar experiments but it can't even come close to reaching the power levels this does. Imagine what thickness of steel the jet from this could blow through...
I do believe that footage of the metorite achieving change of state might be one of the most mind altering slo-mo shots i’ve seen , im glad that it was shared!
Tibees was there. Cool. Loong braid.
Thanks for sharing Scott, quite cool.
Wonder what that DC power supply looks like; Directly off the grid?
You are soo consistent, each video is wildly interesting
Wow. Never knew that facility existed. Makes sense though. Neat!
fun one for you scott. worked around one of the air vortex stabilized arcjets and I was told they can judge the electrode erosion because as they erode, the rate at which the arc orbits around will change.
Green being a favourite colour for control gear might have legacy in corrosion inhibitors used in the paint.
Huh... thats cool... got one of those sitting beside my welder
Plasma cutter is basically that with the metal being cut used as the electrode
Scott, terrific report on an amazing lab. thank you.
Nice to see they are still using the Rockwell Retro-encabulator in the laser lab. To this day no device has been conceived which can surpass its performance in reducing sinusoidal deplaneration.
Side-fumbling was practically eliminated as well, very impressive.
I didn't understand, what are they using?? Hahaha
@@snjert8406 It's pretty much impossible to explain in a single comment, but this is a decent overview at least: watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w
@snjert8406 I tried to post a link, but youtube doesn't like that. Look up "retro encabulator" and it should be the top result.
Fricking megawatts of electricity ✅
Hypersonic ✅
Lasers ✅
Lava vortices ✅
Holy crap this is a badass machine!
There needs to be an Arnold Schwarzeneggar action movie where the bad guy's head winds up inside this thing.
"Vortex of lava" is one of those unambiguously terrifying phrases.
"vortex of lava"... well that's a new addition to my vocab!, very cool video, thanks for going to the trouble of putting this all together.
Wow! Thats all really phantastic! Thank you very much for this report and grandios footage!
Great to see you with Tim & Tibees
Thanks Scott, pretty cool story about how we test units going to space and coming back to earth.
Dang if I had known you all were doing a tour Monday I would've lobbied harder to show off the robot I'm here working on
This facility is nuts!
Saw a LOT of familiar faces there!
If you want to learn rocket science, listen to Scott, Tim, and Felix(?). I watched this video3 times, damn, very informative.
Thanks Manley.
Awesome video Scott. Thank you. I look forward to seeing everyone else’s content.
Just came from Joe Barnard's video haha, awesome work!
I love that facility. I've done lots of training at their rescue site. Was that Tim Dod and Jeremy Fields? Fun to see multiple you tubers together.
Tibees, I see you!
It was very cool to see familiar faces including Toby. 🙂
They need to try golf ball dimples 😆
You're probably right. I would imagine that no one has thought about that kind of surface for re-entry velocities since most of the thinking has always been aerodynamic surfaces being smooth. Wouldn't that be something if a surface type like a golf ball could be more efficient!
Wouldn’t that make it more aerodynamic which is the opposite of what is needed when slowing down? They want to slow down, not keep going fast, right? 🤔
@@XJapa1n09oh, right. True.
Thanks for changing the thumbnail back to the original one with the nasalization font, that thumbnail was way cooler!
Very very interesting Mr. Scott!
My Ex could perform this test saving billions just gotta feed her Chipotle and taco bell in the same day.
The coolest space motor/engine that never saw space.
It's cool to see you make such a good video of that facility. I spent 6 years in the machine shop making parts for that facility. I've reworked so many electrodes in my time there. It was fun
09:01 I see Tibees 🥰 love her. Great vídeo Scott
0:12 I used to work at a steelmaking meltshop which has a 60MW electric arc furnace. It could melt about 82t of scrap steel (and 3t of fluxes) at a rate of about 2-and-a-bit tonnes per minute, or 35kg/70lb per second. Just for a sense of scale.
Just for some context of the power of those lasers they shoot at the target heat shields:
A pretty standard industrial fiber laser used for metal cutting/engraving is 50 watts. Those lasers are 50 kilowatts. That's a spicy laser blasting those shields.
All of this when they could’ve just asked for my mixtape.
That camera work was insanely good!
Now we know what Scott Manley has on his Christmas wish list!
I've wanted to know how these have worked forever!! Thanks for finally making a video on these Scott :D
Spectacular, thanks for sharing. Great camera work too
They're waiting for you Scott...in the test chamber.
He's a highly-trained professional.
ThanX for this Scott truly amazing and mind bogged by this clip 😮
Minor nitpick, the plural of vortex is vortices. Just had to be that person. 😅
Vortexussy
Scott, i just appreciate so much how i never have to scratch my head and go huh? when you're explaining a thing. So many other youtubes just leave me in a confused mess, thanks!
Something about your video caused Alexa to start playing random farts.
Oh great, now I want a plasma wind tunnel.
That was worth watching, thank you
Amazing and all, but I can't stop thinking what the people working there are nerding about in their spare time. 😀
Great article!
It's weird seeing you in a room with a crowd where I recognize 2/3rds of everyone there. 😂
So cool! Thanks Scott
We all saw the historic photo of a space shuttle miniature sample in this tunnel with a plasma glow all around. Now we know how it is done. Just curious how different the current setup from the one used in 60th.
Wpw 200kw+ out of 4 fibers, 50kw of laser down a pipe is insane. The large optics at the end are collimators for the fiber. Ive seen what happens when a 4kW laser fiber breaks... it turns to a fuse burning with a blue white plasma.😮
Awesome content as usual!!! Thank you sir
What kind of handheld tripod are you using to hold your camera on this tour? It works incredibly well! I need one, whatever it is!
I wondered how they tested that stuff! You wouldn't want just Boeing it up there and see what happens.
lmfao
That would be more or a SpaceX'ing than a Boeing. Hardware-rich development process, and all that... (see IFT-4)
Would love to hear the questions CNCKitchen asked !
"You made lava?"
"I was expecting it....."
Sadly few got that joke, next time use more Gorbachev in your accent :).
Going up into space seems to be a much easier task compared to coming back down again safely. The sheer size of space flight test facilities alone is astonishing. Thank you for taking us onto another interesting tour.
Props to those who know.
I'm sure wind tunnels exist that are capable of extended re-entry speeds, but nobody gets to use those unless your project involves blowing up hypothetical battleships
Excellent review!!! In my opinion you and your channel at it's best.
It would be great if you could become an accepted public liaison to NASA and had access to review all of NASA's facility's.
I once got into a "discussion" with someone online about NASA's Apollo legacy infrastructure, they couldn't quite grasp that I was talking about more than just a couple of launch pads and the VAB. Wish I'd had Scott to explain it to them.
A kilowatt pulsed laser might SEEM like a reasonable power measurement...
...said no one ever.
That kw is average power. the instantaneous power of a pulse is probably in the Mega or Gigawatts.
Example: You can get pulsed fiber lasers with single digit watts of average power that will etch steel.
Yeah, for reference, a regular laser pointer is less than 5 milliwatts. That is 1/200th of a watt, while a kilowatt is 1000 watts. A regular laser pointer is also dangerous for your eyes, but reflections off non mirror-like surfaces should be safe.
@@LaughingOrange Right. But the point I was making is that pulsed fiber lasers have VERY short activation times.
Picoseconds are normal. Femtoseconds exist.
That's how those little desktop units can etch steel. The average power is very low. But the instantaneous power is enough to vaporize the steel before the heat can be conducted away.
A desktop laser might be 'only' 1 watt, but it spends most of it's time in the off state. Each pule of that laser might be a Megawatt, just for an instant.
Idea: Just build the heatshield using the cooling system they have for the test arm, it obviously survives over and over again in the same environment lol :p
The laser control room looked very Star Trek
How do they prevent debiris from the test article from damaging the equipment downwind?
So the air is heated with electricity then ejected at high speeds? Do you think the arcjet would be a promising propulsion method for near future nuclear powered spaceships?
Without the vacuum , they essentially have a Pauling Furnace .
There seems to be more to said about the support arms... What are they made of? Cooling them with water would avoid them heating up from radiant heat, but surely plasma, which is made from highly ionised gas, would physically destroy the material that the arm is made if?
You think the Slo Mo guys could get a chance to get some video during a test?