Rutherford performed his most famous work after he had moved to the UK in 1907 and was already a Nobel laureate. In 1911, he theorized that atoms have their positive charge concentrated in a very small nucleus, and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model of the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering in his gold foil experiment. He is widely credited with first “splitting the atom” in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen and alpha particles, in which he also discovered (and named) the proton. This led to the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner, performed by two students working under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, in 1932. After his death in 1937, he was honoured by being interred with the greatest scientists of the United Kingdom, near Sir Isaac Newton‘s tomb in Westminster Abbey. The chemical element rutherfordium (element 104) was named for him in 1997.

–from Wikipedia 2011

Achievements

For the first time, in situ analysis of the atmosphere of another planet was performed and the data sent back to Earth; the analysis included chemical composition, temperature and pressure. The measured ratio ofcarbon dioxide to nitrogen of about 13 corrected the previous estimates so much (an inverse ratio was expected in some quarters) that some scientists contested the observations. The main station detected no radiation belts; relative to Earth, the measured magnetic field was 3000 times weaker, and the hydrogen corona was 1000 times less dense. No atomic oxygen was detected. All the data suggested that water, if present, had leaked from the planet long before. This conclusion was unexpected considering the thick Venusian clouds. Because of the negligible humidity, the sugar lock system, employed on Venera 4 in case of a water landing, was abandoned in the subsequent Venus probes.

-from Wikipedia 2011

He was more distinguished as a man of science than as a politician or administrator. His classical work, La Pression barometrique (1878), embodies researches that gained him the biennial prize of 20,000 francs from the Academy of Sciences in 1875, and is a comprehensive investigation on the physiological effects of air-pressure, both above and below the normal.(1) Central nervous system oxygen toxicity was first described in this publication and is sometimes referred to as the “Paul Bert effect”.(1, 2) He showed that oxygen was toxic to insects, arachnids, myriapods, molluscs, earthworms, fungi, germinating seeds, birds, and other animals.

1. Bert, Paul (1943) [First published in French in 1878]. Barometric pressure: Researches in Experimental Physiology. Columbus, OH: College Book Company. Translated by: Hitchcock, Mary Alice; Hitchcock, Fred A.

2. Acott, Chris (1999). “Oxygen toxicity: A brief history of oxygen in diving“. South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal 29 (3): 150–5. ISSN 0813-1988. OCLC 16986801.

–From Wikipedia

BSAC Formed

The British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) was founded by Oscar Gugen, Peter Small, Mary Small, and Trevor Hampton on this day in 1953. The club peaked in the mid 1990s at over 50,000 members declining to over 30,000 in 2009. It is a diver training organization that operates through its associated network of around 1100 local, independent diving clubs and around 400 diving schools worldwide.

Supersonic land speed record

ThrustSSC holds the World Land Speed Record, set on 15 October 1997, when it achieved a speed of 1,228 km/h (763 mph) and became the first car to officially break the sound barrier.

The car was driven by Royal Air Force fighter pilot Wing Commander Andy Green in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, United States. It was powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines, as used in the British version of the F-4 Phantom II jet fighter. The car was 16.5 m (54 ft) long, 3.7 m (12 ft) wide and weighed 10.5 tons (10.7 t), and the twin engines developed a net thrust of 223 kN (50,000 lbf), a power output of 110,000 bhp (82MW),^[2]burning around 18 litres per second (4.0 Imperial gallons/s or 4.8 US gallons/s). Transformed into the usual terms for car mileages based on its maximum speed, the fuel consumption was about 5,500 l/100 km or 0.04 mpg U.S.

–from Wikipedia

Royal George Salvage

In 1839 Major-General Charles Pasley, at the time a Colonel of the Royal Engineers, commenced operations. Pasley had previously destroyed some old wrecks in the Thames to clear a channel using gunpowder charges; his plan was to break up the wreck of Royal George in a similar way and then salvage as much as possible using divers. The charges used were made from oak barrels filled with gunpowder and covered with lead. They were initially detonated using chemical fuses, but this was later changed to an electrical system using a resistance-heated platinum wire to detonate the gunpowder.

Pasley’s operation set many diving milestones, including the first recorded use of the buddy system in diving, when he ordered that his divers operate in pairs. In addition, a Corporal Jones made the first emergency swimming ascent after his air line became tangled and he had to cut it free. A less fortunate milestone was the first medical account of a diver squeeze suffered by a Private Williams: the early diving helmets used had no non-return valves; this meant that if a hose became severed, the high-pressure air around the diver’s head rapidly evacuated the helmet causing tremendous negative pressure that caused extreme and sometimes life-threatening effects. At the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1842, Sir John Richardson described the diving apparatus and treatment of diver Roderick Cameron following an injury that occurred on 14 October 1841 during the salvage operations.(1)

Pasley recovered 12 more guns in 1839, 11 more in 1840, and 6 in 1841. In 1842 he recovered only one iron 12-pounder because he ordered the divers to concentrate on removing the hull timbers rather than search for guns. By 1843 the whole of the keel and the bottom timbers had been raised and the site was declared clear.

1. Richardson J (January 1991). “Abstract of the case of a diver employed on the wreck of the Royal George, who was injured by the bursting of the air-pipe of the diving apparatus. 1842″. Undersea Biomed Res 18 (1): 63–4. PMID 2021022

Sound Barrier

The sound barrier, in aerodynamics, is the point at which an aircraft moves from transonic to supersonic speed. The term, which occasionally has other meanings, came into use during World War II, when a number of aircraft started to encounter the effects of compressibility, a collection of several unrelated aerodynamic effects that “struck” their planes like an impediment to further acceleration. By the 1950s, new aircraft designs routinely “broke” the sound barrier.

Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m). Yeager’s flight recorded Mach 1.07, however, he was quick to point out that the public paid attention to whole numbers and that the next milestone would be exceeding Mach 2. Yeager’s X-1 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. Yeager was awarded the MacKay and Collier Trophies in 1948 for his mach-transcending flight, and the Harmon International Trophy in 1954.

– content from Wikipedia

The three spacesuits for the Voskhod 1 cosmonauts were omitted; there was neither the room nor the payload capacity for the Voskhod to carry them. The original Voskhod had been designed to carry two cosmonauts, but Soviet politicians pushed the Soviet space program into squeezing three cosmonauts into Voskhod 1. The only other space flight in the short Voskhod program, Voskhod 2, carried two suited cosmonauts — of necessity, because it was the flight on which Alexei Leonov made the world’s first walk in space.

As part of its payload Voskhod 1 carried a ribbon off a Communard banner from the Paris Commune of 1871 into orbit.

Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first manned mission in the American Apollo space program, and the first manned US space flight after a cabin fire killed the crew of what was to have been the first manned mission, AS-204 (later renamed Apollo 1), during a launch pad test in 1967. It was a C type mission—an 11-day Earth-orbital mission, the first manned launch of the Saturn IB launch vehicle, and the first three-person US space mission. The crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele, and Lunar Module Pilot R. Walter Cunningham.

The mission was the first manned test of the redesigned Block II Apollo Command/Service Module. It flew in Earth orbit so the crew could check life-support, propulsion, and control systems.^[2] Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a technical success, which gave NASA the confidence to launch Apollo 8 around the Moon two months later. However, the flight would prove to be the last space flight for all of its three crew members. It was also the final manned launch from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida.

– Wikipedia 2011

Dr. Chris Lambertsen held the first closed-circuit oxygen SCUBA course in the United States for the Office of Strategic Services maritime unit at the Academy on 17 May 1943.(1)

1. Butler FK (2004). “Closed-circuit oxygen diving in the U.S. Navy”. Undersea Hyperb Med 31 (1): 3–20.PMID 15233156

See the Rubicon Research Repository Naval Academy Collection

– Wikipedia 2011

The SR-71 was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from theLockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was responsible for many of the design’s innovative concepts. During reconnaissance missions the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outrun the missile.

The SR-71 served with the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1998. Although 12 of the 32 aircraft built were destroyed in accidents, none were lost to enemy action. The SR-71 was unofficially named the Blackbird, and called the Habu by its crews, referring to an Okinawan species of pit viper. Since 1976, it has held the world record for the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft, a record previously held by the YF-12.

– Wikipedia 2011