Blue Mountain
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
I've highlighted what I feel to be your fundamentally erroneous assumption.
I've highlighted what I feel to be your fundamentally erroneous assumption.
Because their moms won't let them play with fireworks in their basement bedrooms.
Regarding the "rockets need atmosphere to push against" business. It seems to me that for modest expense, a garden shed scientist could set up an experiment to show that the entirety of the world's scientific community is lying and that the heroic truth seeker is correct.
One could get a vacuum pump/bell jar set up, like any school science department would have.
Place a Catherine wheel firework inside, along with some sort of r/c way of igniting it.
Remove the air from the bell jar using the vacuum pump and then ignite the firework.
The fibbers at Nasa, ESA et al would have you believe that the firework would spin regardless of nothing to push against.
Of course, this would be shown to be a lie and the entire "history" of space exploration would be exposed as a decades-long international con job.
I wonder why they don't try something like that.

Regarding the "rockets need atmosphere to push against" business. It seems to me that for modest expense, a garden shed scientist could set up an experiment to show that the entirety of the world's scientific community is lying and that the heroic truth seeker is correct.
One could get a vacuum pump/bell jar set up, like any school science department would have.
Place a Catherine wheel firework inside, along with some sort of r/c way of igniting it.
Remove the air from the bell jar using the vacuum pump and then ignite the firework.
The fibbers at Nasa, ESA et al would have you believe that the firework would spin regardless of nothing to push against.
Of course, this would be shown to be a lie and the entire "history" of space exploration would be exposed as a decades-long international con job.
I wonder why they don't try something like that.
Mythbusters already did that
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/its-rocket-science/
Cool! Hadn't seen that one. The irony is that rockets actually work more efficiently in a vacuum. I can't wait to share that with someone who claims rockets don't work in a vacuum, then watch him make some excuse for why he still isn't wrong.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand the International Space Station is visible with the naked eye, isn't it? How would these nuts explain that away?
I went searching for the Stundie thread that I was recalling and it appears that the idea that rockets fly by pushing against the atmosphere, and thus won't work in a vacuum, is distressingly widespread in some circles.
Rockets, propellers, they're pretty much the same thing, right?

"That video PROVES they don't work in a vacuum! See all that smoke the fuse emits before the "rocket" ignites? It's pushing against the smoke!!!"
So we could fart our way into orbit?
(Sadly returns 2500 pounds of beans to Costco.)![]()
Ah, but if you were up there doing a spacewalk and were equipped with a directional anal nozzle, couldn't you fart your way around the place?
Ah, but if you were up there doing a spacewalk and were equipped with a directional anal nozzle, couldn't you fart your way around the place?
RCS? Rectal Control System![]()
For some reason Fred Hoyle is running around in my mind.
Is he wearing pants?