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Into The Tunnel: The secret life of wind tunnels
The secret life of wind tunnels
The NASA Ames low speed open wind tunnel is a cavern: A vast 120 foot wide yawning gulf, its ceiling studded with lights, it makes humans look puny & insectile. What is the wind tunnel but a connection between two islands surrounded by sea, metaphorically at least: One is the land of simulation and iterative design, the engineer's playground where the trees are stick-&-cloud abstractions and the faceted ground is perfectly uniform. It was to be the first orbital rocket ever launched from continental European soil, and despite its untimely destruction a few seconds after clearing the pad, it is was a welcome first try: In a world where private access to space has been dominated by a single innovative company at the other side of the Atlantic, a flock of competitors now claw at the heavens.
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