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From: throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Discrepancies (Dune and Ringworld)
Message-ID: <73@rtp47.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Jun-85 15:34:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtp47.73
Posted: Sat Jun 22 15:34:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Jun-85 08:17:14 EDT
References: <2039@iddic.UUCP> <483@gitpyr.UUCP> <389@ttidcb.UUCP>
Organization: Data General, RTP, NC
Lines: 35

Heavens!  Marc Guzman has proven that space capsules cannot possibly be
cooled to livable temperatures!  I always thought those pictures from
space must be faked! :-)

For those who tuned in late:

>>> Rick Coates
>>>Stillsuits wouldn't work.  [...] it allows cooling by evaporation
>>>while trapping the moisture. Thermodynamics does not allow this.

>> Mike St. Johns
>>Sorry to disabuse you, but all Thermodynamics says is that you can't get
>>something for nothing.  [...] the stillsuit includes some form of
>>"pump" which operates as the wearer walks.

> Marc Guzman
>[...] stillsuits definately can't work. The "engines"
>for the "pump" are obviously human muscles which will generate heat.
>And because, as we all know "... 2) You can't break even ...", the wearer
>will produce more heat than they can remove;

Now then, substitute "spaceship" for "stillsuit" and "fuel cells" for
"human muscles", and we see that clearly NASA must have been pulling the
wool over our eyes.  :-)

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one way to get
rid of heat.  The stillsuit is wildly improbable, given current
materials science, but more improbable yet is the "ornithopter".
Neither, however, are "impossible" in the sense that they violate
physical laws.

As a peripheral issue, if one is going to pick nits this small, why
isn't FTL travel pointed out as a much larger "discrepancy"?
-- 
Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC
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