Paris

Ok exams are over, I now have internet at home, and I have a little free time...so I can finally post something here.  A couple of weeks ago we went to Paris to visit SNECMA, a french jet engin manufacturer's construction and test site.  It was pretty cool, where else to they have the ability to move two tonnes of water per second every time they fire up one of these rocket puppies. The best part of the trip is the EADS-Astrium visit where they have the Arianne launcher assembly line before they send them off to Kuru.  Giant tubes being built one after an other..just massive things that are tossed into the atmosphere.  The sheer volume of fuel needed is staggering: 1 stage alone consumes 700 tonnes in about 9 min!  That's more fuel you would consume in your entire lifetime in your car.  That's what it takes to get a couple of satellites cruising around the planet at 7 km/s.  Unfortunatly we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside 

the site..who knows what secrets we might uncover.  But we did go air plane museum which had quite the selection of space harware:

Arianne 5.  One massive tube full of explosive gasses...good times for us pyros!  Actually this is one of the most efficicent launchers out there for Satellites with a 98% success rate with the lowest orbit placement errors in the business aside from the space shuttle..but that's unfair cause they've got pilots manning the thing.  They launch every month and a half or so.  

The space craft that Gagarin flew in.  The balls you see around it, are oxygen containers.  They still design those today, and you can see them on the Arianne engines.  Not too sure why.

Armstrong was the first man on the moon, but the Russians had robots up there already collecting rocks.  One of my profs was the lead engineer for this bath tub on wheels.  

The Russian version of the space shuttle.  It only flew once. Then they realized that their Soyus craft was way more efficient.  Still is today..kinda makes you wonder why the US continues with the shuttle.  

Voyager I- This guys was sent in the late 70'; got to Pluto in the mid 90's and we only lost contact with it about 10 years ago.  It's probably either destroyed or out beyond our solar system.  Pretty cool huh, it even comes complete with a little map on how to get to earth and shows what we humans look like.  There was big debate over this as NASA depicted a naked male and female...didn't go over well with the McCain types.

A couple of Geostationary Satellites, the one shaped like a barrel is an old design from the early 80's, and the other is based on a common european platform.  These guys fly at about 30 000 km above our heads, and have a period around the earth of 24 hours.  These are generally used as com relay and TV broadcasting.  These guys are a hot political topic as there isn't an unlimited amount of GEO space up there, but they play a crucial communication role.  

The Gang in front of the Bourget Museum..I think we were all excited just to get out of the bus!

 

Ooops..not space harware, that just my buddy Fred from Zambia who just discovered a rubix cube...poor guy could not put it down. Ok now for some cool space stuff.

Anyway that was the trip..got a chance to catch up with one of my coudins which was pretty cool.