ROCKET SCIENCE

[Santilli]

Too funny not to share! Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist!!

Scientists at NASA built a gun specifically to launch standard 4 pound 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 a gun was sent to the British engineers.
When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow.

The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the US scientists for suggestions.

(You're gonna love this . . .)

NASA responded with a one-line memo -- (below)



"Defrost the chicken." (True Story)

 

[timwhit]

http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp

 

[LunarMist]

Urban legend?

 

[Handruin]

Check out Mythbusters 1x12 Chicken Gun, Octopus Egg Pregnancy, Killer Washing Machine.

 

[Chewy509]

Check out Mythbusters 1x12 Chicken Gun, Octopus Egg Pregnancy, Killer Washing Machine.

I remember the MythBusters episode on that! Yes, frozen chickens are much more deadly than defrosted ones!

 

[LunarMist]

Are high-speed frozen chickens a common problem in the real world?

 

[sechs]

I remember reading this for the first time, when someone forwarded it to me about fifteen years ago....

 

[Chewy509]

Are high-speed frozen chickens a common problem in the real world?

Maybe in Alaska or Siberia? But not where I am...

 

[Howell]

Beware the death dive of the high altitude chicken!

 

[Howell]

However fake the story is, the only way to respond with one line with such certainty is when it once happened to you. That is what amuses me.

 

[time]

I remember the MythBusters episode on that! Yes, frozen chickens are much more deadly than defrosted ones!

I can't tell if you're being ironic. :dunno: They found that beyond a certain (undefined) speed, there was no difference between frozen and unfrozen chickens.

 

[Howell]

I think that if MB had done the experiment well they would have found that the focused energy of a frozen bird penetrated deeper into the carriage. The frozen bird almost left the safety cage and the frozen pumpkin actually left.

The results fell prey to an ill-defined hypothesis.

 

[time]

Are you sure you watched the same program? They did further tests apart from the aircraft windshields.

The results were what I would have expected. Once sufficient velocity is reached, it doesn't matter how 'squishy' something is. Think about water. Diving into it at low velocity is harmless, but at high velocity it's about the same as concrete.

Remember conservation of energy. Frozen or thawed, the chicken weighs the same, and the energy has to be dissipated somewhere.

 

[Howell]

Are you sure you watched the same program? They did further tests apart from the aircraft windshields.

Remember conservation of energy. Frozen or thawed, the chicken weighs the same, and the energy has to be dissipated somewhere.

I'm not sure; I watched the link Handy posted. What did you watch?

I would agree that the two chickens have the same kinetic energy but also important is the application of energy. What they did not test is pressure. I'm certain a frozen rod of chicken would penetrate deeper into a barrier than a bag of chicken.

And although that is a contrived example, I believe the lack of deformation of a frozen chicken would produce pressures more similar to a rod of chicken than a bag of chicken. Even so, the academics only care about the bag of meat scenario probably due to the general lack of frozen airborne fowl.