Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!skipper!shafer From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: New Shuttle Computers Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 91 22:16:27 GMT References: <1991Mar7.010752.10632@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Mar9.044834.27802@cimage.com> <430@daisy.WichitaKS.NCR.COM> <1991Mar18.231328.24932@ncsu.edu> <66172@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Sender: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal. Lines: 32 In-reply-to: jadahlin@acsu.buffalo.edu's message of 19 Mar 91 01:54:42 GMT In article <66172@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> jadahlin@acsu.buffalo.edu (jason a dahlin) writes: [In response to a bunch of stuff about CD-ROM and skipping] My question is this... does anyone know if cd-rom is effected by magnets or magnetic forces? I don't know about magnets, although I'd expect the answer to be "No". However, according to Norman Bushnell (Feedback, New Scientist, 23 Feb) CDs outgas. "If the discs are stored under low pressure, gas will seep out of the plastics materials used in making them. The gas forms bubbles in the plastics which make it impossible for the laser in the player to read the disc. "`It happened mainly with early discs,' says Bushnell. `But you can still have a CD that plays perfectly, take it on a plane journey in your baggage and find afterwards that it no longer plays. Not a lot of people know that. It's not something the record companies like to talk about.' Surprise, surprise." Since the baggage holds of most modern airliners are kept at about 6,000 to 8,000 ft pressure altitude, this implies it doesn't take much of a delta-P to do the trick. -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot