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Before humans went into space, animals were sent. We talk about some animal and human astronauts, a little about rockets and a side trip to using nuclear explosions for thrust.
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At the end of world war II, nuclear weapons had been used for war. By 1949, the USSR had successfully tested their own atom bomb. Everyone scrambled to build rockets that could launch their terror weapons at any part of the globe, especially at each other. The same rockets being built for war were used to reach into space.
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After world war II, the world became very interested in super sonic flight, and high altitude research. Along with a side trip to how jet engines work, we take a look at rocket planes—the first manned vehicles to reach the edge of space.
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We follow the development of airplane engines and rockets from the wright Brothers through the end of world war II. By the end, the stage is set for an arms race, and the space race.
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The early history of flight is strewn with the wreckage of many strange devices… and the people who invented them. From foolish feathered folk flinging themselves from a far, to the powered and controlled flight pioneered by the Wright brothers, we take a look and how we learned to make the sky our playground.
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We take a look at the very beginning of rockets, including the somewhat obscure origins of gunpowder. The cherry on the top of our explosive cake is a story about how one man tried to build a huge gun that could launch things into space.
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This week we begin a look at air and space travel. We start our look with the stone age, when we began to learn what we’d need to know in order to fly.
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Brother Phil and I were on the porch the other day, and the topic swung round to the amazing mechanical strength of spider web. He bumped into something about some piece of clothing that had been made from the stuff. After talking about it for a while, it hit me that I didn’t actually know what I was talking about. Thus, for the last episode of 2020, we dig into the topic of regular silk, spiders, and spider silk.
Happy holidays, and we’ll see you again on January 14, 2021.
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Today we look at the history of photography, and how the camera helped create the modern computer.
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Around the 1950s, many labs were attempting to figure out how to manufacture transistors. Even more exciting was the idea that many electrical components, entire circuits could be put on one crystal. There were several methods attempted to solve the problems that occurred, until one day, in 1955, a lucky accident suddenly made everything much easier.
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