Word: saile
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Drum & Sail. The heaviest part of OSO is a nine-sided drum containing batteries, radio equipment and position-control apparatus (see diagram). Mounted on a shaft running through the center of the drum is a semicircular "sail" covered on one side with solar cells to make electric power out of sunlight. While OSO was getting its final push from the launching rocket's third stage, both drum and sail were spinning rapidly. After it was fully in orbit, three arms carrying spherical tanks of high-pressure nitrogen swung outward, and small nitrogen jets reduced the spin to a steady...
...spider. When it went into orbit, some of the eyes searched for the sun. and nitrogen discharged from a bottle in the drum moved the drum's axis until it was perpendicular to the sun's direction. Next, a motor on the central shaft started turning the sail so that its solar cells pointed steadily...
...gets gyroscopic stability from the spinning drum, while the solar cells on the pointing sail are always in the right position to develop maximum power...
Mounted on the sail, and pointed accurately at the center of the sun by a special set of eyes, are five of the 13 observing instruments that OSO carries. An X-ray spectrometer measures the wave length and strength of X rays coming from the sun. A photomultiplier tube looks for powerful gamma rays that are believed to come from electrons and positrons annihilating each other in the sun's churning gas. A dust counter watches the sun to find out whether microscopic dust particles are coming from its direction...
...Sail a Crooked Ship. The last movie made by the late Ernie Kovacs is a sort of shaggy seadog story in which Comedian Kovacs plays "a unsussessful crinimal" with a big cigar and a tiny brain...