MOONBOWS

 

Arne-kaiser, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Moonbows are the same as rainbows except that the moon, instead of the sun, is the source of light.  They are very rare due the fact that all conditions have to be exactly right in order for them to be visible.  The only two places on earth where there is any reasonable chance of finding one on a regular basis are at Cumberland Falls near Corbin, Kentucky or at Victoria Falls in Zambia.

Due to the low level of illumination, the human eye usually perceives the moonbow as pure white.  However, if a time-lapse photo or a photo with high-speed film is taken, the full colors of a normal rainbow will be visible in the picture.

THE SAGA OF THE APOLLO 13 CAPSULE

View image | gettyimages.com

Oldsters among us as well as connoisseurs of Tom Hanks movies will recall the saga of the Apollo 13 lunar mission of 1970, which was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion 200,000 miles from earth (which is a bad place in general to have explosions on your vessel). Through incredible ingenuity, resourcefulness, and courage on both the part of Mission Control and the Apollo 13 astronauts, the crew finally was able to return safely to earth four days later after orbiting around, but not landing on, the moon. The only injury suffered was that of astronaut Fred Haise, Jr., who developed a dehydration-provoked urinary tract infection resulting from the necessity to ration drinking water severely after the explosion.

You would think that this mission would have been a source of pride for NASA, considering the heroic rescue of the astronauts against overwhelming odds. However, NASA was embarrassed by the fact there was an explosion in the first place and a failure to complete the mission's objective to land on the moon. NASA therefore refused to allow the display of the Apollo 13 capsule within the United States. As a result, the main part of the capsule itself (named "Odyssey") resided for many years in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris, while some 80,000 sub-components were sent all over the world for research or for display. Finally, however, NASA relented. The Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, Kansas's leading aerospace museum--and one definitely worth visiting) acquired the Odyssey through the Smithsonian Institute and, after a 12-year long quest for the 80,000 sub-components and a subsequent restoration, now has it on display.

Astronaut John Swigert was a last-minute addition to the crew after one of the other astronauts had to be scrubbed for medical reasons. Swigert, in his rush to get ready, failed to file his tax returns prior to embarking on the mission. When the capsule splashed down on April 17, the crew was transported to nearby American Samoa, where Swigert was handed a 1040 form with orders to complete same.

For the official NASA description of the events which occurred on the Apollo 13 mission, please click here.

THE PRODUCTION OF SPAGHETTI

COPYRIGHT BBC

You may recall the infamous April Fool's prank promulgated by the Daily Telegraph in London in 2008 which introduced the world to the Olympic sport of Poodle Grooming. However, this was not the first time that British media has tested the gullibility of its customers on April 1.

For another prime example, one only has to watch the BBC's broadcast of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957. In this report, the BBC filmed pastoral clips of Swiss spaghetti farmers harvesting their crop from their orchards and preparing the freshly-picked noodles for the annual spaghetti festival. The viewers also learned that the dreaded spaghetti weevil posed a major threat and that Swiss production was of course eclipsed in volume by that of the major spaghetti farms of the Po Valley in Italy.

Approximately 8 million Brits watched the program on April 1, 1957. The relative novelty at that time of television in Britain, the lack of familiarity with pasta by most Brits in the 1950s, and the narration of the program by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby all contributed to many viewers believing the story to be true and calling the station for information on how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

THE GLORIOUS FLYING TEAPOT

Twin brothers Francis Stanley and Freelan Stanley started manufacturing steam-driven automobiles in 1897 and formed the Stanley Motor Carriage Company in 1902.  Their vehicles were popularly known as "Stanley Steamers" or "The Flying Teapot." The engine had only 15 moving parts, and the car had no clutch, transmission, or gearshift lever. It was not picky about fuel, and the driver could heat the water into steam using either kerosene or gasoline (and probably many other flammable substances) with equal aplomb. The brakes were not always the greatest, but the operator could also slow down by throwing the car into reverse.

Despite the common perception that a steam car would look like a huge boiler being hauled around at snail-like speeds, the Stanley Steamers resembled other autos of the era, except that there was no exposed radiator.  At a time when many cars could not exceed 40 mph (60 kph), a standard Stanley Steamer could hit 75 mph (121 kph) in both forward or reverse.  The Stanley brothers eagerly participated in racing, and their vehicles racked up spectacular wins, with one of its cars achieving the world land speed record in 1906 of 127.6 mph (205.4 kph). The following year, another Steamer reached an estimated and unofficial 150 mph (240 kph) before it crashed at Daytona.

The Stanley brothers intentionally kept production low, to a peak of about 1,000 units a year.  They personally interviewed potential customers and would not sell a car to anyone they believed was not worthy.  They had an admirable warranty, which simply consisted of fixing anything broken on the car free for the life of the vehicle.

The brothers maintained a policy that they would personally attend the funeral of anyone killed in or by one of their vehicles.  This philosophy lapsed after they sold their company in 1917, but lamentably, they followed it one more time in 1918, in differing roles, at the funeral of Francis Stanley, who died in a Steamer.

The company produced its last car in 1924.  Although its products were superior to gasoline-driven cars in many ways, the high cost of  a Steamer ($3,500 vs. $500 for a Model T Ford), the introduction of electric starters on previously hand-cranked gasoline cars, a loss of performance due to increased body weight with the later models, and the fact that a driver had to warm the Steamer up for 20 minutes before using it all proved to be fatal to sales. Not even the fact that it had a cool steam-powered horn which sounded like a railroad locomotive whistle was able to save it.

The surviving brother went on to establish the Stanley hotel in Colorado, where he remained until his death at the age of 91 in 1940.  A stay at this hotel in 1974 by Stephen King was the inspiration for the haunted Overlook Hotel in his novel The Shining.

If you want the easy-to-use instructions on how to start, drive, and maintain The Flying Teacup, look at the owner's manual here. To see one of several videos of Jay Leno operating one of his Steamers, click here.

By Stephen Foskett (Wikipedia User: sfoskett)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) ,
 via Wikimedia Commons

HITLER'S MESSERSCHMITT BLUNDER

Public domain USAF Museum Wikimedia Commons

The first practical jet airplane was the German Me-262, which was placed into service in 1944. As a fighter aircraft, it was light years ahead of all of its competitors and was absolutely lethal against heavy bombers, such as B-17s and B-24s, which had virtually no defense against it due to its high speed and powerful 30 mm cannons and/or rockets. In fact, United States Army Air Force General Carl Spaatz in September of 1944 was considering abandoning all bombing raids over Germany due to the threat posed by this new Messerschmitt. Such a decision could have had a profound negative effect on the prosecution of the war.

American fighter pilots, including ace Chuck Yeager, quickly learned that the only chance they had to destroy an Me-262 was to hover near a German airstrip and nail the jets when they were either on the ground or when they were at a reduced speed during takeoffs and landings. 

Unfortunately for the Germans, and fortunately for the rest of the world, Hitler decreed that only one out of every fifty Me-262s could be employed as a fighter. The rest had to be used as bombers, a role for which they were not nearly as well-suited. As a result, only very few of them ever had an opportunity to wreak havoc on Allied aircraft.

My father, who was in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Europe during WWII but almost never discussed his experiences there, did describe one time an incident when a Me-262 strafed his convoy. The pilot was so skilled that he put rounds in each vehicle except for the three ambulances in the middle which had red crosses painted on their tops.

Several years ago, the visionary group Legend Flyers manufactured four or five new Me-262s for enthusiasts (very wealthy enthusiasts, as the price per plane probably exceeded $2 million by a wide margin). These were very close duplicates of the WWII product except for the substitution of more reliable landing gear and General Electric J-85 jet engines in place of those based on the original German design. To see one of these aircraft in flight, click here.

A few of the original 1,400+ Me-262s which were built by the Nazis still survive in museums.

THE DELETERIOUS EFFECTS OF PASSING GAS

One of the major by-products of the internal-combustion engine is water vapor. In the 1930s, German aeronautical engineers devised a scheme to collect, condense, and retain the water from the engine. Further, they strove to have collected at any given moment the exact same weight of water equivalent to the weight of the fuel burned.

Can you figure out why they would want to do this? The answer is below. You just have to scroll through the picture of the cats to get to it.

The answer is, of course, for use in dirigibles. The dirigible was a rigid bag of lighter-than-air gas (the Germans used highly-inflammable hydrogen) holding suspended below it a passenger gondola and an engine (or engines) with propellers to shove the whole thing forward. If the weight of the fuel burned by the engines was not replaced, the whole contraption would eventually get lighter and fly too high. It was much easier, safer, and less expensive to compensate for the lost weight of the fuel with an equivalent amount of water rather than trying the alternative of bleeding off hydrogen--especially since there would often be the risk of sparks from static electricity present.

The below photo of the dirigible Hindenburg illustrates why one would want to avoid as much as possible messing with the hydrogen and static electricity. The Hindenburg, by the way, did not have a water-recovery system and had to rely upon dropping water ballast that had been loaded prior to flight. It also purged 1 million to 1.5 million cubic feet (28 million to 42.5 million liters) of hydrogen gas per each flight across the Atlantic.

If you wished to see how long it takes to disable by fire a dirigible filled with hydrogen, click here. 

THE SWIMMING DEAD

From USFWS

They are in fact in real life animated rotting corpses which engage in homicidal frenzy and are obsessed with only one thing. It is not, however, eating brains--it is sex. 

Salmon from the Pacific migrate from the ocean into the stream in which they were born in order to spawn. The journey is not a pleasant one. The male salmon's jaw grows into a tooth-filled hooked weapon, called a kype, so that he can go medieval on other male salmon. Their color changes from a bright ocean silver to red or random streaks of purple or black. Their flesh and muscles deteriorate and fall off as they encounter rocks and waterfalls. By the time a salmon makes it to its spawning area (if it gets that far), much of its body will be moldy and rotten and the spines will be sticking out of its fins. These gangrenous tattered beings are piscatorial versions of the ghouls so vividly depicted in movies and TV, and their decay rivals the special effects from Hollywood. They usually do not survive past this first spawning.

It is for good reason that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes them in this video as "Zombie Fish--The Swimming Dead."

From USFWS