Ya gotta love engineers!
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:42 pm
During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, NASA decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.
After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.
The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.
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Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.
British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.
Horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just one sentence,
"THAW THE CHICKEN!"
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An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you got this beautiful bicycle?"
"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this georgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."
The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."
After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.
The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.
________________________________
Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.
British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.
Horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just one sentence,
"THAW THE CHICKEN!"
_______________________________
An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you got this beautiful bicycle?"
"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this georgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."
The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."