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Darth Fluffy

NP comic Tuesday December 14, 2021

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I think you might be thinking of road flares— the ones you ignite and then place on the ground or (at risk of personal injury) hold in your hand and wave around. Signal flares are the ones that you hurl/shoot up in the air (as with a flaregun) so that they can be seen from miles away.

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22 hours ago, mlooney said:

I know that explosives (other than Thermobaric and other "fuel/air" types) will work with out air, due to them having their own oxidizer, but will flares?

What ijuin said; they are basically rockets, optimized for being a bright, fairly steady display. We are assuming 'flares' is standard rescue flares for being noticed by search and rescue.

There are other types of flares. I don't know if road flares self-oxidize or not. I would guess that they do, but it is just a guess. IR decoy flares probably self oxidize, because if you need to use them, you don't have leeway for them failing to light, and altitude, hence available oxygen may vary greatly. Illumination flares are designed for low altitude, to illuminate the ground, but like road flares, I don't know if they self-oxidize. They stay aloft by means of a parachute, so on the moon would drop like a rock.

Sky rocket fireworks would work, but any stabilization that depends on air would not, so fins or a tail that drags in the air is no good. A weighted tail might work. Any spin stabilization that depends on aerodynamics would not, but the rocket could be designed to spin itself.

Although I assumed flares fired from a flare gun, which the linked page also seems to go with, any of these that would burn on the moon might be useful if someone on Earth was trying to locate you with a powerful enough telescope. If they commandeered the Hubble, this might make you easy to spot.

Even a fuel/air type, if for some reason you had it with you, would be minimally effective on the moon. The fuel is dispersed by explosive, and that initial charge will still disperse the fuel, even though the fuel won't burn. The truly creative might think of a use for this, maybe gumming up windows.

Mayhem on the moon.

So much of the Sci Fi of my youth is no longer apropos, just because the places are not as they were imagined to be. No Green Hell Venus, sorry.

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19 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Thanks for posting.

I was always planning on sharing the official NASA rankings and reasons behind them. That's the last part of the exercise - scoring, seeing how well you did.

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1 hour ago, AFNB said:

I was always planning on sharing the official NASA rankings and reasons behind them. That's the last part of the exercise - scoring, seeing how well you did.

Based on, "The guns are not needed for defense on the moon":

Things you might need for the task:
 1 -  1 Two 100lb tanks of oxygen
 2 -  6 50ft of nylon rope
 3 -  8 Parachute silk
 4 -  5 A solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter -
 5 - 10 Signal flares
 6 -  2 20L of water
 7 -  3 A stellar map
 8 -  4 Food concentrate
 9 - 12 One case of dehydrated milk

Things you might need on arrival:
10 -  7 A first aid kit, including an injection needle

Things you might need when you get to Earth, also by weight:
11 - 15 A box of matches
12 - 14 A magnetic compass
13 -  9 A self-inflating life raft
14 - 11 Two  - 45 caliber pistols

Probably not needed:
15 - 13 Portable heating unit

Score:

0,4,5,1,5=15
4,4,4,3,3=18
4,2,6,3,2=17

15,18,17=50   Fair

Guess I'm not working for NASA.

 

20 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

No.  The last part of the exercise is arguing about why the test was wrong

Well, I misread the scenario, I thought it said you were on the light side, but it only said the mother ship was on the light side. So the portable heating unit might be necessary, but you would know before you left the crash site. If you were on the dark side and needed a heater, it is a pretty important item, not getting why they only give it a 9.

I really don't see the point of personal propellants, they seem like more of a hazard than a benefit. A unit that was designed for travel, sure. Shooting off a gun or gas bottle to throw yourself? Not so much. Crack your face plate, and you're done. (Damn, where's the duct tape?)

Previous gripes about too little information have already been mentioned.

They seem to have missed the point that flares would fly much higher.

Still a fun exercise.

 

 

 

 

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On 12/17/2021 at 2:47 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Score:

0,4,5,1,5=15
4,4,4,3,3=18
4,2,6,3,2=17

15,18,17=50   Fair

Guess I'm not working for NASA.

At least you survived.

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