|
Post by TOMAHAWK on Feb 25, 2005 21:52:56 GMT
Anybody care to speculate on how the cylinder can smack into Horsell Common , create a big pit , and yet the occupant still survive
It has been stated that maybe it had retro rockets that fired, and then dropped off before landing, now this causes me a problem :
ok gun fires unpowered "shell".. which has a retro rocked pack strapped to the front, which slows the cylinder down to allow it to reenter earth atmosphere.
Right .. as we all know the shuttle GLIDES in unpowered, but that has wings and heat resistant tiles , now a cylinder won't have the aerodynamic effect to slow down ..like the shuttle, if anything it probably will start to tumble..given that the desc of the cylinder doesn't include any fins or wings, so basically if you cut the wings off a shuttle and tried to reenter that it would be uncontrollable.
Also IF they used a rocket pack to slowdown and then ditch it ....and rely on chance to slam into the earth, hopefully on land ... then why didn't they build into the design of the shell ...landing legs and landing rockets, allowing it to make a controlled landing
Quite simply ...an uncontrolled hollow cylinder 30yards across, with no heat protection ..is not gonna make it through the atmosphere, never mind slamming into the ground .
LOOK at the Shuttle disaster ...a piece of foam damaged an area of tile on the wing.....and look what happened
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 22:19:56 GMT
The fact that it created a crater when it hit indicates it hit hard. Remember, Wells was interested in writing a commentary on human society and the human condition, including speculation on human evolution. The "scientific romance" was just the vehicle he used to get there. I doubt he was all that concerned about scientific plausability.
However, I believe there is a way to protect the Martians and fragile objects from a "hard" impact: Suspend them in water, in a tank inside the cylinder. Being suspended in water, you're not smashed against the side of the cylinder upon landing.
It works even better if you can fill the lungs with oxygenated fluid, like the deep-diving suit in the movie "The Abyss". And this technology should certainly not be beyond the capacity of the Martians. If the lungs are not filled with fluid, there's the danger of the lungs being crushed by the force of crashing down. I'm not sure what the actual G-forces are, or how much the Martian body can withstand during a momentary impact. I understand the human foot can withstand momentary impacts over 1000 Gs (which doesn't mean the human chest cavity could) but the Martians are more fragile.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 22:30:35 GMT
Quite simply ...an uncontrolled hollow cylinder 30yards across, with no heat protection ..is not gonna make it through the atmosphere, We don't know what the cylinder was coated with. If it were coated with an ablative "heat shield," like that on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules, then certainly it could have survived passage thru the atmosphere. We also don't know what extra coating it might have had which burnt off in its passage thru the earth's atmosphere. It could have been covered in some sort of insulating foam, for all we know.
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 25, 2005 22:32:20 GMT
Quite simply ...an uncontrolled hollow cylinder 30yards across, with no heat protection ..is not gonna make it through the atmosphere, never mind slamming into the ground . Actually it's by no means "quite simple" , bits and peices of the shuttle made it down, all over texas and florida, and the cylinders were quite a bit larger and more solidly built than the shuttle was...(the screw top was -2 feet deep- Where did you get the "unprotected" bit? it's not like it didn't show effects of re-entry.. the entire surface was covered with slag from re-entry, indicating an ablative surface of -some- kind... not to mention the cylinder really only needed to be protected at the tip, like the heat sheilds on the space capsules - that end would be burried, out of sight, Besides, uncontroled is a guess, just because they -look- like falling stars, doesn't mean they're falling like one. The green color of the falling stars, matches the green flame of the martian's powerplants, so it's easy enough to argue that they came down on some form of powered descent.
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 25, 2005 22:42:05 GMT
The fact that it created a crater when it hit indicates it hit hard. Not nesc, it indicates that it hit hard enough to displace it's volume in earth, althoug that displacemet could have been produced by means other than sheer impact, while the earth was moved, it wasn't moved -that- much, a straight orbital fall should have blasted out a much larger hole, probably the size of meteor crater in arizona, the fact that the hole is limited enoug to let nearby bystandsers survive the impact, indicates that it came in in a controled manner. I also wouldn't call the martians nesc "fragile" their skin is describe as leathery, and one easily took a hard fall after emerging from the cylinders, they're able to move about albeit awkardly in 3x their normal gravity, without a skeleton, their bodies might be more resistant to compression, than the human frames, and this is before you keep in mind the conditions they come from, adaptions to the low presure and cold tempatures on mars could offer them some aditional resitance to shocks as well.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 22:42:10 GMT
The outer surface of the cylinder clearly was not bare metal. "The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-colored incrustation."
I would be surprised to find that Wells actually conceived of having the cylinder covered by an ablative heat-shield, but in fact that sounds like a startlingly prescient description of one! Since an ablative heat shield is designed to melt and come off in thin layers, it would indeed have a "scaly" appearance upon landing.
|
|
|
Post by McTodd on Feb 25, 2005 22:49:59 GMT
I doubt Wells thought in terms of ablative shields, I imagine he was thinking more about the appearance of large meteorites that have survived atmospheric entry and so wanted there to be some resemblance between those and the cylinder.
I've always been amazed that no-one in Woking was jolted awake by the landing. The Narrator lived only 2 or 3 miles away from the Common after all, and there was a lot less noise polution in those days (no cars, late night TV, radio, Playstations, local criminal scum, my bloody neighbour upstairs running around like a fecking elephant at 2.00 in the morning not that I object oh no and what about when he's working out on his bleeding home gym? blah etc.)...
|
|
|
Post by Gnorn on Feb 25, 2005 22:54:31 GMT
McTodd, wanna talk about it?
-Gnorn
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 25, 2005 22:55:31 GMT
I would be surprised to find that Wells actually conceived of having the cylinder covered by an ablative heat-shield, but in fact that sounds like a startlingly prescient description of one! Since an ablative heat shield is designed to melt and come off in thin layers, it would indeed have a "scaly" appearance upon landing. Doesn't have to be -that- precient, easy enoug to see what something looks like when it's been exposed to extreme heat over a long period of time, or figure out what kind of construction would resist it. Fireplaces, Chimneys, Boilers, Furnaces, Iron works, etc... Well's concern for the lower classes might well have lead him to become familliar with the conditions they worked in, (inspiring the morlocks for example) and the machenery they worked with, well before the days of OSHA.
|
|
|
Post by Gnorn on Feb 25, 2005 23:01:05 GMT
Anywho, what gives? The story wouldn't be quite that interesting if all that Ogilvy found was a heap of broken and melted metal with some burnt and splattered martians about it.
-Gnorn
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 23:10:43 GMT
Not nesc, it indicates that it hit hard enough to displace it's volume in earth, althoug that displacemet could have been produced by means other than sheer impact, while the earth was moved, it wasn't moved -that- much, a straight orbital fall should have blasted out a much larger hole, probably the size of meteor crater in arizona, the fact that the hole is limited enoug to let nearby bystandsers survive the impact, indicates that it came in in a controled manner. <snip> without a skeleton, their bodies might be more resistant to compression, "An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away." There were no bystanders when the first cylinder hit; I think you're thinking of the following morning when the crowd gathered around the pit. I dunno how much the Arizona crater meteorite weighed, nor how hard it hit. Remember the cylinder is hollow, so will weigh considerably less than a meteorite of the same dimensions. I again suggest the cylinder was covered with a thick layer of foam, which slowed it down in its passage thru the atmosphere. If the foam layer was thick enough (possibly several times the diameter of the cylinder) it would have enuff wind resistance to act as a sort of parachute. The green color left by the cylinder's passage thru the atmosphere is what you see in meteorites which contain copper. Presumably whatever ablated off the surface of the cylinder before it hit contained copper. I don't think there's any justification for believing the Martians had the ability to slow their passage with rocket propulsion or anything similar. If they had that capacity, they would not have subjected themselves to an uncontrolled high-velocity crash landing. The fact that it left a long trail in the atmosphere indicates it came in at an oblique angle, which is what you'd want if you were depending on atmospheric braking to slow your descent. If you just came in at an angle perpendicular to the ground, there would be almost no atmospheric braking, and you would hit... VERY hard. I believe the only control the Martians had in landing was orienting the capsule so it would enter the atmosphere point first (presuming it was bullet-shaped). Orienting the capsule could have been done as we have, with gas venting to the outside of the capsule at various points, or they could have done it with internal gyroscopes, which I fancy as more in line with what Wells describes of their technology.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 23:17:14 GMT
I also wouldn't call the martians nesc "fragile" their skin is describe as leathery, and one easily took a hard fall after emerging from the cylinders, they're able to move about albeit awkardly in 3x their normal gravity, without a skeleton, their bodies might be more resistant to compression, than the human frames, and this is before you keep in mind the conditions they come from, adaptions to the low presure and cold tempatures on mars could offer them some aditional resitance to shocks as well. Surely the Martians have a skull. Otherwise, yes, they probably have little or no skeleton. But even if they had no bones to break on impact, that doesn't mean they would survive being squashed like a bug upon impact. I hope you're not trying to compare the Martian falling the few feet from the lip of the opened cylinder to the pit's floor to the impact of an uncontrolled meteoric crash landing! And no, they certainly are not more resistant to physical impact damage than are we; rather the reverse. Being evolved in a lighter gravity, they certainly would be more susceptible to damage from falls than are we. Wells repeatedly states thruout the novel that their bodies are more fragile than ours.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 23:24:07 GMT
Doesn't have to be -that- precient, easy enoug to see what something looks like when it's been exposed to extreme heat over a long period of time, or figure out what kind of construction would resist it. Fireplaces, Chimneys, Boilers, Furnaces, Iron works, etc... This is precisely the opposite of what's needed. Fireplace brick is very refractory; it reflects and withstands heat quite well. For an ablative heat shield, you need materials which will absorb heat, melt, and flake off, taking the waste heat with them as they do so. Yeah, coating the cylinder with fire brick would allow it to withstand atmospheric passage quite well-- and would bake the Martians inside quite thoroughly.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 25, 2005 23:28:15 GMT
I doubt Wells thought in terms of ablative shields, I imagine he was thinking more about the appearance of large meteorites that have survived atmospheric entry and so wanted there to be some resemblance between those and the cylinder. The meteorites I've seen have had a pitted, pocked, extremely uneven and slightly-melted look, like pumice with the surface slightly melted. Very different from how Wells described the cylinder, as quoted above. Have you seen meteorites which looked like Wells' description? Maybe there are such, I'm no expert on meteorites.
|
|
|
Post by Topaz on Feb 25, 2005 23:30:57 GMT
Wells, of course, left all this deliberately vague, as he does in any situation where he either doesn't have a grasp on a particular technology (most often due to the point in history when he wrote the book), or when he doesn't feel it's necessary to the storyline or the image he's trying to portray. This leaves room for his fans to fill in the blanks as best they can. Something we can do rather well, given 107 years of technology between him and ourselves! What follows is my own guess. Your mileage may vary! First off, a gun launch is possible. Assuming it's powered by expanding gasses (as opposed to a railgun, etc.) and that the working fluid is hydrogen (to keep with the book), we're basically talking what's called a 'Light Gas Gun.' Aviation Week did an article on US military experiments with these back in the '90's sometime. It was felt that such a gun could be made with a low-enough peak G loading so as not to damage the electronics of the day, so they were talking about launching small satellites with it. I finally found a link to information on this project: www.astronautix.com/lvs/sharp.htmThe other possibility is a staged-combustion gun, where the propellant charges are spaced along the length of the gun. Each is fired behind the projectile as it passes. This, theoretically, can have 'softer' acceleration than even the LGG above. The germans were building a very large one of these to bombard London during WWII. It was going to be the "V-3", after the V-1 cruise missile and the V-2 IRBM. If I'm not mistaken, the uncompleted Iraqi 'supergun' (1990) used this principle as well. www.astronautix.com/lvs/v3.htmIn either case, however, the launch system provides no guidence during or after launch, so the payload (the cylinder) would need to have its own auxilliary propulsion system to fine-tune the trajectory, and cancel out any disturbances from the atmosphere or variances in the operation of the launching gun. It's a necessity - you can't launch from a gun with perfect trajectory control, especially if you have to fly through an atmosphere on the way up to space. You'd also want to have some kind of reaction control system (RCS) for attitude adjustments. Otherwise any residual pitch, roll, or yaw coming from the launch would cause the cylinder to tumble all the way to Earth. You'd also need to be able to align the vehicle for entry into Earth's atmosphere, since it's not a stable shape on its own. So, with the above, it's fairly safe to assume that the cylinders had some kind of propulsion package, either at the nose or at the tail. The egress hatch is obviously at the tail, so let's say that either the propulsion system is at the nose (and exausts through the heat shield) or it's on the tail and is discarded before entry. The RCS can either be integrated with the propulsion package if that's at the nose, or separate if the it's discarded. The cylinder shape is not terribly stable for atmospheric flight, so you'd want to retain the RCS system all the way down to landing - and it'd need to be fairly robust to work inside the atmosphere. Wells absolutely implies that the cylinders 'hard land', creating the crater in the process. Just won't work in the real world, though. I'll have to do the calculations later, but even if the drag of the atmosphere had slowed the cylinder down to 200-300mph, I'm going to guess that the impact would produce several hundred G's lasting nearly a second. That'd be fatal to anything like the Martians. Pack 'em in water and they still have to endure the G's, otherwise they'd keep going when the cylinder stopped! The formula is simply [change in velocity] versus [distance]; no more, no less. Those are the only factors you get to play with. Floating in water (and even filling the lungs) will prevent impact injuries, but you wouldn't prevent any crushing of internal tissues due to G forces alone. The brain is a delicate organ, and even though it's not hollow, subject it to enough G's and it's going to crush, right inside the body. Even a simple concussion wouldn't be prevented by floating in water: it happens when your brain bounces of the inside of your skull. So some kind of soft landing is required, but still fitting the description in the book. In one way, Wells has a pretty good idea with the crater - it's an instant fox-hole. While this doesn't protect the first landing craft initially, once the fighting breaks out it's a pretty nice defense against small-arms fire. Also, the partially buried cylinder is somewhat protected against small artillery. The Martians can assemble their equipment unobserved and untouched, especially once the 'pit defense' heat-ray is up and rigged. So we keep the pit and we don't land on legs, both for the practical reasons of defense and because it fits the book. Here's where the landing system that Bayne and myself worked out comes in. The idea is to come up with a system that produces the crater (with the cylinder partially buried in it at the end), and still allows for a 'soft' landing. We decided there must be some kind of retro-rocket system to soften the landing, with the RCS providing attitude control. This could be the same propulsion system used for trajectory adjustment during the flight, which would save a lot of weight at launch. Weight is critical, even for the Martians. When the vehicle is relatively close to the ground, it fires a rocket or missile ahead, aimed at the landing zone. This penetrates the ground and detonates, excavating the crater and throwing a large quantity of earth up into the air. The cylinder, still under braking, flies into and comes to rest in this crater. The debris in the air settle down on the cylinder, partially burying it (and completely burying all the propulsion system I've described here. This all has to happen in quick, coordinated succession, but the Martians evidently have automation and that implies sophisticated computers. As for the cylinder itself, Wells was remarkably prescient in his description of the slightly "yellowish" metal used for its construction. It's a nice description of titanium, which would be the perfect material to use for the cylinder. Even titanium needs some protection against an atmospheric entry at interplanetary speeds, so I'd guess the front and lower surfaces of the cylinder would have some sort of ablative heat-shield, as Lensman describes. Ablative as opposed to the 'tile' system on the US Shuttle because it does not have to be reusable. This could even be the 'oxide' the Narrator describes. The nose and lower surface of the cylinder are buried in the ground after landing, so it's something an earthly spectator would be expected to see, and not something a nineteenth century philisophical writer would be expected to comprehend, even if he did see it. The cylinders would have to be a fairly sophisticated spacecraft, rather than the 'dumb tube' implied by Wells. Fortunately, he's vague enough about it that it leaves us room to 'engineer' something plausible.
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 25, 2005 23:44:08 GMT
There were no bystanders when the first cylinder hit; I think you're thinking of the following morning when the crowd gathered around the pit. Nope, I'm thinking of the impact of the 5th Cylinder, which the narrator and curate survived, despite being just a few doors down, from the point of impact. As for the impact, yes it's a hole, and the displaced earth can be seen from a half mile, but it sounds as if you're reading as if it was -thrown- a half mile, the gap between the edge of the cyinder and the edge of the pit seems to be fairly narrow, and steep, as can be seen when the narrator describes how he's almost tossed onto the top of the cylinder. The general figure I've heard is that it was boxcar sized, a lot -smaller- than the cylinder was (though the impact speed is unknown, but both at least started at interplanetary speeds) and that one dug out a hole a mile across, and deeper than the Empire state building is tall.. If they had some method of slowing themselves down, then by definiton the "uncontrolled high-velocity crash landing" wasn't and the crater, and near burrial of the pit was an intentonal result, giving the martians a foxhole in which to shelter themselves... Remeber, the energy of the crash has two components, velocity and -mass- so even a low velocity impact could have dug a big hole, if the cylinder was massive enough the deceleration spread out over the distance the cylinder dug itself in, instead of instaneously when it hit. I'm not arguing against atmospheric braking, they obviously used it, but I don't think it's -all- they used, especially give the color of the streak, and it's duration -all- the way in. What it comes down to, is that from decent read, the amount of damage the cylinder does is a bit overrated in the common wisdom compared to -real- impacts. Therefore the speed of descent is similarly overrated leading to the conclusion that -somehow- the martians reduced thier speed on entry. If someone had some figures for the density of earth, and the mass of a 30 x30 yrd cylinder, mebbe with the same density as a ship, or aircraft, or motor vehicle, then one should be able to figure out the energy require to displace the earth, and working backwards from there, the incoming velocity.
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 26, 2005 4:25:01 GMT
Nope, I'm thinking of the impact of the 5th Cylinder, which the narrator and curate survived, despite being just a few doors down, from the point of impact. <snip> I'm not arguing against atmospheric braking, they obviously used it, but I don't think it's -all- they used, especially give the color of the streak, and it's duration -all- the way in. What it comes down to, is that from decent read, the amount of damage the cylinder does is a bit overrated in the common wisdom compared to -real- impacts. Therefore the speed of descent is similarly overrated leading to the conclusion that -somehow- the martians reduced thier speed on entry. You've completely lost me. First you say that the crater is too small for something that large, as compared to the Arizona Meteor Crater, and now you say the amount of damage the cylinder does is overrated. I don't think that the following is one bit "overrated" for a hollow metal cylinder some 30 yards (90 feet!) in diameter, with walls nearly two feet thick coming in not at merely orbital speed, but interplanetary speed (or would be before atmospheric braking): ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "It can't be midnight yet," I said, and then came a blinding glare of vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Book 2, Chapter 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath the original foundations-- deep in a hole, already vastly larger than the pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed under that tremendous impact--"splashed" is the only word --and lay in heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward; the front portion, even on the ground floor, had been destroyed completely; by a chance the kitchen and scullery had escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Book 2, Chapter 2 I honestly don't see how anyone could read that passage an not think of a huge meteor crashind down. The description of the earth "splashing" is particularly indicative, as that is exactly what happens when a meteorite hits. As for the green glow, that merely indicates the heat shield has copper in it, and that it was burning off all the way down, which is another indication it hit with a fairly high speed. Copper burns with a green color, which is not that uncommon in meteors. The most spectacular meteor I've ever seen during a meteor shower left a green streak 1/4 of the way across the sky. IIRC when I had the pleasure of seeing an Apollo command module close-up at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas (USA), the matrix of the heat shield was held in a metal honeycomb. If we assume the Martians' heat shield matrix was held in a honeycomb of copper, brass or bronze, then it wouldn't be surprising to see a "bright green glow" all the way down, if it hit with meteoric speed-- and from the above description, it certainly did. There may be other explanations for the green glow, but that seems to be the most obvious to me. If the Martians figured out how to fire some sort of green-flame retro-rocket as they entered the atmosphere, as you seem to be suggesting, then they did a remarkably poor job of controlling their descent. If they could have controlled their descent, then at the very least they could have landed close together, reducing the effort and danger they were exposed to when they crawled from the first cylinder to the second, under the shield of the incomplete Tripod body. As for your speculation that they deliberately landed hard enuff to create a "foxhole" and partially bury the cylinder: Wouldn't it have been smarter to come in for a slow and soft landing, obviating the danger of having to sit still and helpless for many hours before the cylinder cooled enough to open? In fact, wouldn't it have been smarter to select a landing site well away from any inhabited area? The latter could easily be detected by a lack of any lights at night. If the Martians had the technology you suggest, then I don't think they used it in a very intelligent manner. More importantly, I think it's clear that Wells intended to suggest the Martians were using the same spaceflight technology to get from Mars to Earth which was suggested by Jules Verne in From the Earth to the Moon. Comments by others in this forum indicate to me that's the consensus of opinion.
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 26, 2005 5:35:17 GMT
Yes, people have the impression that it did an enourmous amount of damage, and it -didn't-, i.e. they form an mental picure of the damage that is more than what the book actually describes...
Just because you have something that's huge coming crashing down, doesn't mean it's moving at metoritic speed, as would happen in an "uncontrolled" landing.
The earth -splashed- but it didn't -explode- the way bolide impacts do, yes it blew a good sized pit, but if it had come in uncontroled there should have been rocks raining down all over Woking after the impact.
They probaly would have had to cool down anyway, and they needed to cover to assemble their machinery, it took them the better part of a day, even after the cylinder opened to get the heat ray deployed, and another day to assemble the fighting machines, they didn't even begin to move in force untill the third cyilinder had landed.
Which would have made their march on london even longer and given england's famous weather, detecting the uninhabited areas wouldn't be as easy as you think.
They did land close together, the 2nd and 3rd cylinders came down within a distance that the narrator tranversed on foot, fairly easily, even given a torential downpour, and his state of exhaustion, the fighting machines were able to cover it in a very short period, to assist in opening the 3rd cylinder, the other shots appear to be more spaced out, landing on "the front lines" as it were...
I also don't think the martians were in any particular danger, when they emerged from the pit, had they been so, they would have hit the troops with the heatray first, before moving the machines out. As it was, they took it for a low speed test "crawl" first, before opening it up, (I don't hold to the "incomplete tripod" reading, the fact that a second -complete- machine emerged from the pit, makes the idea that the -first- one still required assembly absurd, plus the book doesn't say the machine actually -reached- the 2nd cylinder, before it stood up)
|
|
|
Post by Lensman on Feb 26, 2005 6:12:49 GMT
(as it is the shuttle is in fact lined with "bricks" they -don't- burn off or cook the crew on re-entry) Reality check: The shuttle tiles are not "bricks". They are hi-tech tiles of an advanced ceramic which is a mind-boggling heat insulator. To demonstrate this property, NASA tours have a tile put in a kiln until the tile glows white-hot; it's removed with tongs, and within seconds you can hold the tile by the corners with your bare fingers, while the center of the tile still glows white-hot. Try that with a brick and you'll burn off your fingerprint pads! Sure, the Martians could have used something like Shuttle tiles. But from the description in the book, they didn't. And if they had, they wouldn't have had to wait for many hours before the cylinder cooled enuff to open. As far as your hypotheses about an elaborate series of devices for the Martians' to appear to create a meteor crater: That simply cannot be reconciled with the description of the 5th cylinder's landing, as I've quoted above. Using a boring machine to dig a pit would not cause the tremendous crash, nor would it create the splash effect. Your overly elaborate hypotheses also fail the test of Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is the preferred one. Actually, after reading over the description of the 5th cylinder's crash, I withdraw my suggestion of using a huge layer of foam to create an erstwhile parachute effect. Considering the force of impact described in the text, it's clear the cylinder wasn't slowed more than could be explained by normal atmospheric braking using a heat shield.
|
|
|
Post by lanceradvanced on Feb 26, 2005 6:38:50 GMT
Your overly elaborate hypotheses also fail the test of Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is the preferred one. So does an uncontrolled crash, as it would have resulted in the ahnilation of the martians and their machinery, atmospheric braking alone, simply would not have produced a surviable landing for the martians or their machines, and would have created a far -larger- impact crater than they did. Ergo, they must have had something else to assist their landing, or they would have been a thin martian paste across several square miles of countryside. I lean towards simple purely mechanical means, like a "ramming" tip or "armor peircing" (fluted to thow the dirt out more easily) and an extensive "crush zone" in the construction, like a modern car, to explain it, a dry ice jacket for cooling might help, but that's at the far edge of my ideas. If the martians were coming in "uncontroled" they could have skipped the figting machines completly, a cylinder sized mass slamming in from martian orbit would have the effect of a medium sized nuke, in and of itself. Yes they hit, and they did hit hard, enough to cause a crash and the earth to tossed up around them, but -not- as hard as if they were just coming in at free-fall from mars, atmospheirc braking alone, simply doesn't cut it.
|
|