Moon Flight Birds
Created | Updated Jul 24, 2004
Human fascination with flight is nothing new. Seeing a bird in flight is more than enough to stir the imagination. It is surely observations like this that have inspired many people to develop contraptions that would enable this lofty goal.
It was with this dream of flight that inspired the adventurous, if not the technically minded, to strap a pair of wings to their arms to see if it could be done. As modern people are aware these attempts led to a form of flight that should be attributed more to gravity then wings.
Over the span of history many designs have been formulated, some even reached development and testing. Gliders were probably the first to be developed but this did not satisfy the dream of rising into the air like a bird and returning safely to the earth.
The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics who got word of the contest to create the first powered human flying machine. They systematically designed scale prototypes for testing and refined their ideas into full scale. Understanding the balance and delicate nature of their machine they decided to undertake the physical testing of the dream themselves.
With this thought we may travel back into the future. Knowing that the main reason human winged flight is not possible is due to the power to weight ratio. This is to say the densinty (weight) of the human body is too much to be overcome by our muscles (power).
Birds have developed special traits that enable flight that seems effortless. One specific advantage they have is hollow lightweight bones. The tradeoff is that they are much more fragile, this is then compensated by the ability to fly away from danger rather than confront it. Humans have developed with our own specialties, since we can't fly we use our oversized brains to figure out how to escape a predicament.
There are no good ways to increase our human power without raising the overall weight of the person. Similarly, we cannot realistically reduce weight without losing power nor change the effect of gravity on the human body.
Here things get interesting; we cannot change the gravity on Earth (hopefully) but we could go to a place where the gravity is much less! Our own Moon has one fifth the gravity of Earth, thus dramatically changing the power to weight ratio to favor human flight!
At this point you're probably saying, "Let's build some wings and go to the Moon!" There is another problem that must be accounted for. Wings work in the presence of an atmosphere, it is the resistance from the air that makes it work. Due to the very low gravity of the Moon, it does not have any air at all. This means one couldn't just hop out of their spacecraft and 'wing it', as they say, on the Moon.
This problem is not insurmountable, in fact it is in line with mankind's thoughts of venturing to Mars. By first developing a sustainable projection on the Moon, humans would gain much in the arena of space travel.
With a pressurized air dome people would be able to 'walk' about, breathing air while experiencing low gravity. The more adventurous (probably the majority of those willing to travel to the moon) would, if time allows, be able to strap on the old fashoned wings and fly!!!
A publicly accessible Moon base would have many interesting things to do. Just taking a walk would be an experience. The ground would have to be covered to keep dust out of the air but would also need to be soft to help absorb any falls. Since a person could probably jump 10 to 20 meters into the air this would be a good feature.
The dome itself would need to be fairly stout to protect against lunar meteorites or Lunarites that could breach the covering. A hardened building or underground bunker would be an important safety measure. They would likely be similar to hotels in layout and price, imagine the honeymoon suite!
{For those interested in assisting this Entry I have included some things that I think would be good references:
Icirus, hang gliding, the Wright brothers, flugtag, Chs. Lindburg, Amelia Airheart, Howard Hughes, space flight, moon landing, etc
Any help would be appreciated}
It was with this dream of flight that inspired the adventurous, if not the technically minded, to strap a pair of wings to their arms to see if it could be done. As modern people are aware these attempts led to a form of flight that should be attributed more to gravity then wings.
Over the span of history many designs have been formulated, some even reached development and testing. Gliders were probably the first to be developed but this did not satisfy the dream of rising into the air like a bird and returning safely to the earth.
The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics who got word of the contest to create the first powered human flying machine. They systematically designed scale prototypes for testing and refined their ideas into full scale. Understanding the balance and delicate nature of their machine they decided to undertake the physical testing of the dream themselves.
With this thought we may travel back into the future. Knowing that the main reason human winged flight is not possible is due to the power to weight ratio. This is to say the densinty (weight) of the human body is too much to be overcome by our muscles (power).
Birds have developed special traits that enable flight that seems effortless. One specific advantage they have is hollow lightweight bones. The tradeoff is that they are much more fragile, this is then compensated by the ability to fly away from danger rather than confront it. Humans have developed with our own specialties, since we can't fly we use our oversized brains to figure out how to escape a predicament.
There are no good ways to increase our human power without raising the overall weight of the person. Similarly, we cannot realistically reduce weight without losing power nor change the effect of gravity on the human body.
Here things get interesting; we cannot change the gravity on Earth (hopefully) but we could go to a place where the gravity is much less! Our own Moon has one fifth the gravity of Earth, thus dramatically changing the power to weight ratio to favor human flight!
At this point you're probably saying, "Let's build some wings and go to the Moon!" There is another problem that must be accounted for. Wings work in the presence of an atmosphere, it is the resistance from the air that makes it work. Due to the very low gravity of the Moon, it does not have any air at all. This means one couldn't just hop out of their spacecraft and 'wing it', as they say, on the Moon.
This problem is not insurmountable, in fact it is in line with mankind's thoughts of venturing to Mars. By first developing a sustainable projection on the Moon, humans would gain much in the arena of space travel.
With a pressurized air dome people would be able to 'walk' about, breathing air while experiencing low gravity. The more adventurous (probably the majority of those willing to travel to the moon) would, if time allows, be able to strap on the old fashoned wings and fly!!!
A publicly accessible Moon base would have many interesting things to do. Just taking a walk would be an experience. The ground would have to be covered to keep dust out of the air but would also need to be soft to help absorb any falls. Since a person could probably jump 10 to 20 meters into the air this would be a good feature.
The dome itself would need to be fairly stout to protect against lunar meteorites or Lunarites that could breach the covering. A hardened building or underground bunker would be an important safety measure. They would likely be similar to hotels in layout and price, imagine the honeymoon suite!
{For those interested in assisting this Entry I have included some things that I think would be good references:
Icirus, hang gliding, the Wright brothers, flugtag, Chs. Lindburg, Amelia Airheart, Howard Hughes, space flight, moon landing, etc
Any help would be appreciated}
