jdlessl

Comment Threads

• bellinghman commented on Interdependency
  Indeed - C-Stoff and T-Stoff (the latter being your oxidiser) were hypergolic, and getting either where the other had been was disastrous. Also, your aircrew having to wear rubberised suits when handling your aircraft was not terribly desirable under combat conditions....
• Charlie Stross commented on Interdependency
  Spam nuked. Thanks....
• Charlie Stross commented on Interdependency
  Ajay: I elided the humidity requirement. As long as it's under 100% relative humidity, we can cool ourselves by sweating. 100% rh and temperatures averaging over our core body temperature for too long, however, are a problem, and if we go over 42 celsius for a significant length of time we tend to die -- a whole bunch of the enzymes our metabolic processes run on are denatured by heating above this temperature. It takes a while to bring a compact object mostly consisting of water into thermal equilibrium with its surroundings, especially if it's got a built-in evaporative cooling...
• bellinghman commented on Interdependency
  Yes, the humidity is the killer. I have sat more than once in a sauna with the air temperature reaching 100C, and indeed 60C is cold for a sauna. Dump that ladle full of cold water on the coals, and within seconds it's intolerable, even though the actual thermometer temperature may have dropped slightly....
• bellinghman commented on Interdependency
  The problem as those temperatures is usually not so much how hot the dry air is so much as that touching any surface that has reached the same temperature will be distinctly painful. That's why saunas tend to be surfaced with wood, which has a relatively low heat capacity and a pretty low heat conductivity. With care, you can sit on a wooden bench with only a towel between you and it. However at 120C I can imagine that you're getting to the point where the inside of the respiratory tract starts getting overly heated....