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10/10/2005: Your Tax Dollars At Work
Actually, for the record I endorse this research over the plan to send people to Mars; it's cheaper and probably will produce more science (of course, the plan to send people to Mars isn't about science, which can be done more inexpensively, more safely, and more efficiently with unmanned probes, but about commercial exploitation and national self-esteem).
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to pop a water balloon in space? Now you can find out. Includes video files (MPEG and QuickTime formats).
Of course, they might have done this aboard the International Space Station, I suppose, instead of aboard a DC-9 flying a "Vomit Comet"-like parabolic trajectory; after all, what else is the ISS doing for us right now?
[While "researching" this one, I think I stumbled across what might be the best Internet domain name I've seen in several years: "iflyvomitcomet.com", which was apparently assigned to a Purdue-based research project which looks pretty interesting. Alas, the domain name has since been retired, it appears; entering http://www.iflyvomitcomet.com/ into my browser brings up a "domain not found" error. If I had the money to burn, I'd buy the domain and point it to the Purdue website; we shouldn't let such a gem of a domain name be lost forever....]
Len on 10.10.05 @ 08:26 AM CST
