[HN Gopher] When NASA Used an RC Tiger II to Drill into Space Sh...
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When NASA Used an RC Tiger II to Drill into Space Shuttle Tires
Author : latchkey
Score : 142 points
Date : 2023-11-11 06:47 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tankhistoria.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tankhistoria.com)
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I bought a 1/16 King Tiger in 2013, intending to gut it and put a
| small Linux computer in it. Had some progress (took a while to
| understand the motor controllers were really bad i2c, couldn't
| read values out, only write), but ultimately didn't get far.
|
| Alas I never turned it into a mobile webcam, which would have
| been amsuing during covid - a lone computer-tank wandering the
| office.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I'm imagining it with a little speaker that plays a theme song
| which pauses whenever it stops moving, one tuned to the correct
| mix of triumphal amusing attention seeking [0] versus annoying
| a human into disabling it.
|
| Just remember to stop before making it able to recharge/replace
| its own batteries. For safety reasons.
|
| [0] https://open.spotify.com/track/2vH4H9RThw2wxCTdZEGV2p
| mft_ wrote:
| I've had this on my Amazon list for ages now, but have never
| quite found a reason to make the purchase:
| https://amzn.eu/d/0jSspfR
| maxlin wrote:
| Lol. I want to have a reason to buy that. It's obviously been
| built to try to cover a lot of use cases, being capable of
| returning to charger remotely, working as a low-end camera
| plaform for temporary surveillance / notifications of
| movement, mic/speaker etc
| numpad0 wrote:
| I never understood why omni/mecanum wheels hadn't replaced
| every wheels on everything ever. It's so cool, functional,
| and cool. Apparently it's something every real roboticists
| know from having handled it, that they don't work on slopes.
| So it stays on my bucket list too.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| That's... a lot of ads to wade through before you get to a
| picture of the actual tank-drill-contraption
| Terr_ wrote:
| Works pretty well with JS disabled by default :P
|
| As an alternative: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/modern-us-
| tire-assault-vehicl...
| btown wrote:
| The picture: https://cdn-0.tankhistoria.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/11/32...
| stavros wrote:
| Thanks, some of the pictures didn't even load for me.
| kolinko wrote:
| Completely unreadable on mobile, but iPhone's reader view did
| the job
| psyclobe wrote:
| Can they fit any more ads on that page
| haunter wrote:
| Tamiya's site deserves a link, simple old internet style
|
| https://www.tamiya.com/english/e-home.htm
|
| Of course the actual shop site is more modern
| https://www.tamiyausa.com/
| maxlin wrote:
| God that second page. Some crazy tiling background that serves
| pretty much as a militarily camouflage pattern and hides that
| there is even a popup on top that you need to close or none of
| the links work
|
| Recommend checking it in an incognito window to add to one's
| shitty UX collection
| hatsunearu wrote:
| Delightful seeing the pretty modern Bronco in such a clean
| style website:
|
| https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/58705/index.htm
| foota wrote:
| This is probably a bad idea, but like.... couldn't they shoot
| them?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Totally, with like a high powered dart gun that shoots
| hypodermic darts
| tleilaxu wrote:
| The bullet would act as shrapnel and pling off into something
| expensive.
| haunter wrote:
| What about an air gun pellet? Surely they are small enough
| (.177)
|
| On the other hand they might be too small to penetrate the
| thick rubber.
| Max-q wrote:
| But why, they already found a perfectly good method
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Now you're thinking like a real rsearcher:
|
| "NASA Develops New Caliber Bullet And Design For
| Penetrating Shuttle Tires For $50M"
|
| "NASA Awards $50M Contract For Remington To Develop New
| Rifle For Shuttle Tire Woes"
|
| "NASA Awards $10M Contract For Gun Range"
| mjevans wrote:
| If the tire doesn't explode (seems like none happened to) then
| the drill method leaves the rest in good condition for failure
| and life analysis.
| chiph wrote:
| There's the chance of a ricochet, possibly into the body of the
| shuttle or bystander. Or they miss, hitting whatever was on the
| far side of the shuttle. I think it would also be not as
| controlled a release of air as they'd want - the drill bit
| shown is much smaller than a rifle bullet. And a bullet would
| add it's own energy to the mix.
| forkerenok wrote:
| NASA's own page about the topic:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/cv-990-landing-systems-re...
|
| Way more readable.
| unwind wrote:
| Also it leads with _a picture of the thing_ which is a million
| times better than the OP ad hellscape. Official public pages
| ftw. Thanks.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I thought I was the only one, but that website is really a
| nightmare for attempting to actually convey information
| lttlrck wrote:
| Much much better. Though it doesn't mention it was a Tamiya
| which adds to the charm.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| They have a collection of LSRA pictures too:
|
| https://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/LSRA/index.html
|
| That first one below the contact sheet sure looks exciting!
| starkparker wrote:
| The tech brief with more details:
| https://books.google.com/books?id=Qp_Z-mvBehwC&pg=RA6-PA74&l...
|
| Vol. 2, pages 72-74 with a classic HP workstation ad between.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| >possibly permanent hearing loss -- to anyone within 100 ft.
|
| This is so scary to me. We all ride in cars or busses with
| tires and the pressure and power of even an average tire is
| incredible. I'm a little surprised the tweel concept never took
| off or other alternatives. Tires are dangerous and fragile and
| if possible would be great to replace.
| skykooler wrote:
| While this is true, the Space Shuttle tires held three times
| the pressure of tires in a bus, so sound levels in the event
| of an explosion would be much higher.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > However it was, for the time and size, quite a faithful
| rendition of a Tiger II. Its lower hull was made of metal, as was
| its suspension swing arms and some of the running gear.
|
| Sounds like a nice kit in its own right.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Tamiya makes the good shit.
| gambiting wrote:
| Side comment - can I just observe how modern web has become an
| absolute hellscape of ads? The article was very interesting but
| literally in between every paragraph there's a giant ad, at least
| for me every time it's for the same thing - some random garbage
| from Temu. When the site opened I had three full-screen ads that
| I had to dismiss to read the article, and two more popped up as I
| was scrolling down. It's just.......too much.
| haunter wrote:
| I'm more surprised that you are browsing without an adblocker.
| 0 ads and popups on my side
| gambiting wrote:
| Mobile chrome. Not sure if there is even an option for an
| adblocker here. I used to just have a PIA VPN always enabled
| with the built in ad killer, that worked well system wide but
| it kept tripping up my bank apps so I stopped using it.
| haunter wrote:
| On Android you can use Firefox which have extensions so you
| can use uBlock Origin
|
| On iOS you can use Adguard Pro which works with all
| browsers (I use this)
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-pro-adblock-
| privacy/id...
| greggsy wrote:
| NextDNS is an ok option - there's semi decent ad lists, and
| I rarely go over the free 300k requests per month tier on
| mobile. You can also set it to ignore wifi networks if
| you've got PiHole or whatever at home.
|
| Not for everyone I guess, but I haven't perused the privacy
| policy in great detail.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Yeah I'm on iOS Firefox - never going to happen to get an
| ad blocking browser
| LorenzoGood wrote:
| Brave IOS
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I use 1Blocker on IOS -- it works pretty well, but not as
| well as uBlock origin.
| HankB99 wrote:
| I have an adblock browser installed. Google defies any
| attempt to make it the default but it shows up in the
| options on the Chrome browser. When a site is too obnoxious
| I reopen it in the adblock browser for some relief.
| philistine wrote:
| Sounds like your problem is Chrome. Firefox and Safari
| are not owned by ad companies. Consider using them
| instead.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Vivaldi mobile native adblock works pretty ok
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Nextdns gives you dns with custom blacklisting. It's very
| lightweight, no battery drain and you can allow certain
| domains if anything breaks.
|
| Not as powerful as UBO but you can use it on almost any
| device.
|
| Highly recommended
| Kovah wrote:
| I was wondering why there was so much "empty space" in between,
| then I noticed Brave blocked 23 requests, probably all tracking
| and ads. smh
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It's awful. I don't know what the threshold was for me, but
| after I saw enough comments like yours with replies to " _just_
| use Pi-hole, " I finally gave it a shot.
|
| I'm happy to report that it is indeed possible to enjoy the web
| again, even noxious sites like this--you can finally walk down
| the street now that the sea of garbage is gone.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Even for technical people setting up a pihole seems like a
| goat rope.
|
| Did you find a tutorial or something that made it accessible?
| appplication wrote:
| It also only sort of works because as soon as you leave
| your WiFi it's no use, unless I fundamentally misunderstand
| it.
|
| I'm sure it's a great product, but it doesn't seem to
| _solve_ the ad problem.
| beAbU wrote:
| I consume hn mostly on mobile. Websites like TFA are almost
| impossible to peruse. I made it about half way through, looking
| for a picture of the damn thing before I gave up and came here
| looking for a link to an alternative article.
| dmd wrote:
| This is the internet experience of the vast, vast majority of
| people. Fewer than 1% of people use an adblocker. (Why don't
| you?)
| swayvil wrote:
| It's just the more businessy sites that are fucked like this.
| The first page of google and such.
|
| There's still a vast ecosystem of casual sites that are quite
| nice.
|
| You just gotta avoid the hell-gaze of Mammon.
| allenrb wrote:
| Even on my iPhone (who'd test against that rare platform?) I
| got repeated strange delays and redraws. Granted, it's an XR
| which is hardly the latest model, but... your page is unusable.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Part of it has to do with their ad provider. Ezoic is TERRIBLE.
| maxlin wrote:
| This is so cool. Wonder why they wouldn't just use telephoto
| lenses an some small caliber gun for this though
| dave8088 wrote:
| This comment hurts my head.
| maxlin wrote:
| How come? If the idea is to be capable of inspecting the
| tire, then puncturing it if it's deemed a time bomb, why
| wouldn't this do the same?
| mtreis86 wrote:
| The tire is risky in the first place because people are
| around, making shooting a gun off a bit tricky in terms of
| safety.
| maxlin wrote:
| A gun is not a bomb. It is a reasonably precise tool. If
| the point is to puncture a wheel, and there is one guy at
| NASA who isn't bloody blind, I really don't see how this
| becomes less safe from the tire exploding anyway.
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| I'm sure that there exists a real reason, but I choose to
| believe that it's because NASA is made of engineers, and
| engineers are by nature not practical people. They want
| to design a solution, not find a solution.
|
| If they'd asked the technicians then they would've landed
| on Steve with his target rifle, or just a plate with a
| few spikes in it to drive the wheel over. Y'know, simple,
| straightforward, and absolutely no drawings required.
| maxlin wrote:
| Might be true lol. NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome with
| the first part of "if it's not even invention, it's a
| worthless solution"
| klyrs wrote:
| NIH doesn't describe this. They bought a model tank from
| a hobby shop and strapped a drill to it. For an
| organization plagued by accusations of excessive costs,
| this is downright cheap. NIH would involve a purpose-
| built rover to the tune of millions of dollars.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| If you read the article you'll find that the device
| successfully punctured many tires WITHOUT any explosion.
| nabilhat wrote:
| Take it from someone who grew up among gun-happy USA-ians and
| stupidly fooled around with guns in their youth: Don't shoot
| tires. Not even an old economy tire left from the target car
| someone dumped in the abandoned gravel pit. Eventually you may
| hear a _zip_ going the other way, and it might break your buddy
| 's car window behind you and he'd be super mad and want you to
| pay for it. [0]
|
| All rounds that don't embed _will_ hit something downrange, for
| somewhat arbitrary values of "downrange" expressed in terms of
| angle and retained energy. A core principle of firearm safety
| is that you only get to pick a round's first target, the round
| picks the rest. And that's why airports and space centers are
| generally considered by experts to serve poorly as firing
| ranges.
|
| [0] it's some kind of miracle that we survived to adulthood
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I think because they wanted to let the air out gradually so
| they could inspect the tire afterwards, they weren't interested
| in tearing a big hole in it from a high velocity projectile.
| They even started with a hollow drill bit, but decided that
| wasn't needed.
|
| They used the camera on the tank to pre-inspect the tire before
| deflating it, which would have given them close ups and angles
| of view that wouldn't be possible with just a distant telephoto
| lens.
|
| And for only $3000, it was probably much cheaper to build this
| than to put in place all the range safety procedures they would
| have needed to shoot it.
| holoduke wrote:
| Completely offtopic, but how the hell do you think to earn money
| with these amount of ads. If will turn people away instantly.
| Cant believe these sites have a strong retention. Also which
| adnetworks are willing to accept so many ads simultaneously.
| galgot wrote:
| Werner would be proud.
| dylan604 wrote:
| A few years ago, I had a work assignment that had me with full
| pit access to the Indy 500. I can't remember which tire
| manufacture had the deal, Firestone maybe??, but all cars ran on
| the same manufacture's tire. They were extremely friendly with
| sharing information, and it was with a bit of pride, but they
| told me that there hasn't been a wreck due to tire failures in a
| _really_ long time. The tires have become that good. After every
| tire change, the pit crews take readings from the tires, and set
| them aside to be examined later.
|
| Unfortunately for NASA, I think this _really_ long time was after
| the designs of the shuttles. But you gotta think that some racing
| slicks on the shuttle would have been pure awesomeness
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(page generated 2023-11-11 23:01 UTC)