Burt Rutans - "Water Wheel"

[MrTim]

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[MrTim]

Forgive me for saying this, but to me it looks like it's just a decorative fountain.....? (Not a very good one, in my opinion, just a fancy, futuristic-looking water powered sculpture. To go with the decor of Rutan's fancy, futuristic-looking house.)
I think Popular Science just put the photo in to stir up interest, and Rutan played along. (And they are all still probably laughing about the reaction it's gotten after all these years.)
If it's operation was based on the evaporation of water, the large holes in the sides of the wheel would be a definite drawback.... And being indoors would seem to reduce temperature differentials drastically too.
The water to make it turn is most likely pumped in through the support pipe. (Or it could also come from the whitish structure behind the wheel. That seems to be attached to the wall in the background.)
There also appears to be a fireplace back behind the wheel too.
Oh well, who am I to argue....?

[Jonathan]

I have to agree with MrTim that that appears to be the most likely situation. About the water line, I based that on what appears to be a body of water within the wheel, which I assumed must be at or slightly below the water line to exist there. Unless of course the water came from a pump whose outlet is above it.

[Joel Wright]

What Burt is up to latelyApr 7, 7:33 PM (ET)

By LESLIE MILLER


WASHINGTON (AP) - The government announced Wednesday that it has issued the first license for a manned suborbital rocket, a step toward opening space flight to private individuals for the first time.

The Federal Aviation Administration gave a one-year license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., headed by Burt Rutan. Rutan, who hopes to make affordable space travel a reality in a decade, is best known for designing the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986.

"This is a big step," FAA spokesman Henry Price said.

The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch. SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings and twin vertical tails. It reached 12.9 miles in a trial flight; the license will allow the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up.

The license is a prerequisite for the X Prize competition, an international space race that will give $10 million to the first company or person to launch a manned craft to 62.5 miles above the Earth, and then do it again within two weeks. The craft must be able to carry three people.

The FAA is considering two other applications, Price said. One is an X Prize contestant.

Twenty-seven contestants from seven countries have registered for the X Prize competition.

The prize, announced in 1996, is sponsored by the privately funded X Prize Foundation in St. Louis. Supporters include Dennis Tito, the American who spent $20 million to fly in a Russian craft as the first space tourist; pilot Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh; former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn; and actor Tom Hanks.

Rutan declined to comment. The company states on its Web site that its goal is to show that private space flight can be done, and at a low cost.

"We look to the future, hopefully within 10 years, when ordinary people, for the cost of a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the black sky above the earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration of the aerodynamic drag on entry," the statement says.

Before launching the spacecraft in the X Prize competition, Scaled Composites must give the prize sponsors 90 days notice, Price said. The company can launch its rocket before that, he said, but it must be in an area that isn't risky.

Scaled Composites is located in the Mojave Desert.

FAA inspectors carefully examined the space vehicle to make sure it's safe, said Price.

"There's no sure thing in anything when it comes to rocketry," he said. "We want to do what we can with the knowledge we have to make sure the launch is as safe as possible for the public."

The company also had to demonstrate that it was adequately insured for a launch and that it met environmental standards, Price said.

A suborbital flight reaches space but doesn't travel fast enough or high enough to complete an orbit.

---

On the Net:

Scaled Composites: http://www.scaled.com

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov

X Prize: http://www.xprize.com

[BZ]

Burt Rutans - "Water Wheel" (link)

Anybody else attempted to extrapolate this machines method of imbalance?
Information of its design is sparse... if not non-existent.

Looks like "evaporation" wheel. One would think there would be more condensation on the wheel however it was probably dry for photo op.

Here's my crude design for a closed evaporation wheel to achieve 1 RPM (Revolution Per Month)


However if it only takes 540 calories (a little over 2 BTU's) to evaporate 1 gram of water (water in a vacuum evaporates with even less energy)......

Merely pipe a fireplace boiler to a heating pool (like Rutan appears to have done) providing alot of BTU's a wheel might evaporate many grams of water and turn several times a day?

[VANDUGEGS]

I believe this wheel, to be no more then an interesting piece of Â…Â…Art?
It is possible to use water for a moving machine.(Air under Water)
You must stop thinking of circles and use other shapes.
Just my view.

D Vandusen Sr

[Techstuf]

Hmmm.....and all this time I thought it was simply a rather 'transparent' showcase of the principles of liquid mass displacement, neutral buoyancy, inertia, dynamic leverage..........and the near instantaneous transfer of weight over distance...etc. ad nauseum.

A quote from the PopSci article I have reads as follows:

"The transparent plexiglass water wheel is started or stopped by hand. It lifts water from the lower pond, dumps it into the upper pond. The resulting overflow pours into a plexiglass compartment near the wheel's outer edge, giving it a propulsive push. This exposes more water surface area to the air and dispersing or absorbing warmth. Rutan won't say how the wheel continues turning: "It's like a magician giving up the secret of his trick."

The wheel has six segmented and partitioned compartments. Water flows into an inlet port of a bottom compartment as it extends about two inches into the pond. As the wheel turns, the water flows inside the compartment, then runs into a smaller section near the wheel's center."

So, which is it then? A complex man simply 'obsessed' with the number six.....or a man obsessed with/possessed of much more than this.

Given that the man is certifiably brilliant in various sciences, I would posit that one might be excused for making serious study his obsessions, even as some here are given largely to that of Bessler.

After all, a man this obssessed (see end of message) with the number six and all it's geometrical expressions, certainly has deeply compelling reasons.

Conversely, so too did this man and others probably have compelling reasons to make statements like the following:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Watchmen- ... sage/12996


Hardly a world event of any real magnitude occurs without GOD warning his prophets.....such warnings are usually followed by a reasonable period to allow for repentance or evacuation by GOD'S children before recompense is implemented.


Take inventory of your obsessions and choose wisely those which placate your motivations.....time is of the essence. And remember, it is of the Holy Spirit of the Most High by which the enslaved peoples of the world will be set free, not by the 'spirited' work of men and their machines.


If Bessler is truly animated and watching from on high, rather than taking his scripturally appointed rest period....I doubt highly that he smiles down upon the amount of devotion to his legacy. I am instead quite sure that he would much rather see his 'devotees' release themselves and become more productive at this late hour.


P.S. I choose to revisit the forum with an infrequent though unpopular message not of my own inspiration but with true compassion for my fellow men.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan Hansen said in prophecy:
"And yes, I do see an earthquake coming, which cannot be measured or
stopped by man."
Except it can be measured, it was 9.0:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/

[Techstuf]

GOD bless your use of His gift to you, Jonathan.


Indeed the quake was 'measured'.



I thank GOD that He does not use the 'Richter scale' in measuring both the depth of compassion and feeble thumping of one's heart.

[BZ]

You must stop thinking of circles and use other shapes.
Just my view.

D Vandusen Sr

Wheels and 'Spin' are the basis of Natural Law.

Universe is based on the Helix, Spirals, Orbits and Ellipses which produce 'Wheels within wheels'.

One word: SPIN.

Your body is made of about 4.67x1027 hydrogen atoms, 1.75x1027 oxygen atoms and 7x1026 carbon atoms. The 2.29x1028 electrons in your body have either a spin of +1/2 or -1/2 as they spin around the 7x1027 atomic nuclei which make up your body. Inside the nucleus of the 50 million million cells in your body nucleotides spin themselves into the helical DNA that makes you... you. The Earth you stand on spins you about its axis at over 1600 km/hr. The Earth in turn spins at 107 km/hr in an arch 149.6x106 km from the Sun. Our sun is just a G2 class star, one of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The sun spins at 220 km/hr around the center of our galaxy about 18 kiloparsecs up the Orion arm. Thinking about all this at once should make your mind... spin.

http://matt-massie.com/archives/000127.html

[coylo]

P.S. I choose to revisit the forum with an infrequent though unpopular message not of my own inspiration but with true compassion for my fellow men.

Fair enough, but I can see some people taking objection to your reference that these unfortunate victims deserved this fate as a punishment from God!
The post was inappropriate considering families are grieving for lost ones at this time.
I'd assume most of the victims were poverty stricken' and they deserved a better life rather than to be dealt this crap!

[Techstuf]

I suspect your image of our Creator will suffer even greater contortions in the coming days........Alas, such was foretold. Your perspective is appreciated, even if seemingly a bit skewed by the personal prejudicial concept of a limited, uncaring Creator.

Your use of the term: 'Some people' does not mitigate the fact that you include yourself among them in your following statements. Also, you seem to indicate that my post carried an "I told you so" connotation or other some such lack of empathy for those caught by the tragedy. In my limited opinion, I feel my statements were appropriate considering the audience for which they were intended. You are certainly free to judge my level of empathy or (apparently to you) lack thereof, for those poor souls.

Sad fact is.....GOD'S prophets will always be "damned if they do...damned if they don't" in the eyes of those for whom His truth is too hard to accept.

It is not easy to carry foreknowledge of world events....much less being compelled to give voice to such to a largely disinterested and jaded world. It is at times like these that I prefer to take heart in the knowledge that at least a few heed the call and are spared from disaster.

Man is a poor judge of motives.....including his own. This is nothing new.....But judging the motives and actions of Almighty God by one's own imperfect sensibilities is a fool's gambit which is older still.


GOD bless

[VANDUGEGS]

BZ

I am always interested in more information, for I think of it as pieces to an unsolvoled puzzle that may or may not help in its design.
As for my mind spining, I have only scratched, its surface.

As for archs, it takes longer to go from one end to the other, witch gives one more time to think.

D Vandusen Sr

[Michael]

BZ please read up on physics and the other sources you quote. You wrote;

>Universe is based on the Helix, Spirals, Orbits and Ellipses which produce 'Wheels within wheels'
Your body is made of about 4.67x1027 hydrogen atoms, 1.75x1027 oxygen atoms and 7x1026 carbon atoms. The 2.29x1028 electrons in your body have either a spin of +1/2 or -1/2 as they spin around the 7x1027 atomic nuclei which make up your body. Inside the nucleus of the 50 million million cells in your body nucleotides spin themselves into the helical DNA that makes you... you. The Earth you stand on spins you about its axis at over 1600 km/hr. The Earth in turn spins at 107 km/hr in an arch 149.6x106 km from the Sun. Our sun is just a G2 class star, one of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The sun spins at 220 km/hr around the center of our galaxy about 18 kiloparsecs up the Orion arm. Thinking about all this at once should make your mind... spin.

First of atomic and electron spin is just a catch phrase and it does not mean that there is actually anything spinning. The Niels B. atomic model of atoms spinning is an antiquated one and is untrue. As well if you are quoting that reference from the bible it has nothing to do with machinery. It is a coded reference for the earth.

Reg.

Mike

[Michael]

Techstuff you wrote:

.GOD'S prophets will always be "damned if they do...damned if they don't"

GIVE ME A GODDAMMED BLOODY BREAK! (Oh excuse me, did I blasphemy? God dammit!)

You believe in a Jesus right? Okay, the message of Jesus was;

1. God is the god of the living, not of the dead and the deceased.
2. Call no one your father except god.
3. All I can do (Jesus) you can do and more.
4. Love your neibour as yourself.

He condemed religious groups that praised the name of god and in doing so elevated their own status.

Show me where Jesus said when I am gone do the exact opposite of what I've been saying.
1. Build churches in my name.
2. Worship me.
3. Listen to me or prepare for destruction.

Show me how doomsayers and religious groups are fufilling any part of these first points. They definately do the later.

If anyone as an adult needs religion to give them a sense of morality they have problems.

Reg.

Mike