Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: Submarine Questions? (was "Hey, looky, rocket fuel as ballast!")

[Coalbunny <coalbunny@vcn.com>]

Alec, I found the same problem a number of years back.  I wanted to 
build a scale model of a Gato class sub and contacted the General 
Electric, Electric Boat division that had them plans (back then).  They 
refused to send me any info saying they were still classified.  I asked 
about rebreather info, and they refused saying that's still classified.

I got ahold of the contact number for the program manager of ALVIN, and 
called him and asked.  He told me all about the rebreather, backups, and 
he was literally loaded with awesome info.

The point is, don't rely on the military for anything unless you just 
want to wage a war.  Go to the civilian sector.

I did ask a navy submairiner about electric propulsion back in late 
80's, told him what I wanted to do and asked about batteries.  He said 
lead acid are no gos because of the hydrogen.  I asked, "why not vent 
them"?  He said, "ever here of Hiroshima?"  "You mean a hydrogen bomb?" 
 "Yep!"

VERY discouraging.
Carl


Alec Smyth wrote:

> Here's a site for "big ones". Before finding PSUBS, I was on a listserv
> discussion list on the web page www.ronmartini.com. I'm not sure whether
> they still have the list. Anyway the problem is that it was 100% focused
> on military subs. I once posted some basic question about sub design,
> which would have been innocuous on PSUBS, and lo and behold was
> immediately being accused of being a spy. Nobody believed for a moment
> that an individual could really be building their own sub, and instead
> they all assumed I was a Chinese or Korean agent. There were people
> calling for me to be investigated for posting a question about sub
> design. It was altogether very disagreeable, and I bailed from the list
> in disgust, although I realize it's not that they're bad people -- in
> their world I guess they have to be guarded. In spite of the bad
> experience, I'd say it's a great resource if you have any interest in
> military subs.
>
> Alec  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Buchner [mailto:buchner@wcta.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 9:46 AM
> To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
> Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: Submarine Questions? (was "Hey, looky,
> rocket fuel as ballast!")
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 10, 2004, at 05:29 PM, Gail Paleka wrote:
>
>
> > Can anyone tell me what other websites exist where people can ask 
> > questions about submarines?
>
>
> Big ones or little ones?
>
> There are links at the psubs.org site, for sure: mostly on the 
> "Sources" page, I think. And the "Museums" page, too.
>
> I would suggest also looking at the U.S. Navy's home pages for the 
> various submarines and the submarine service in general... If you're 
> after general information resources, I'd recommend a look at 
> howstuffworks.com and some of those "ask a scientist"-type sites.
>
> Here's some links out of the "info" part of the "submarine" part of my 
> bookmarks. Warning: most of them haven't been checked recently, or 
> sorted very carefully. But there might be something good there. Sorry, 
> I couldn't figure a way to copy them with their labels...
>
> http://www.stanford.edu/~erlee/seament/smp_refs.htm
> http://www.yesmag.bc.ca/how_work/submarine.html
> http://www.howstuffworks.com/submarine.htm
> http://www.oxydex.com/precision_design/u-boats_engineering.html
> http://www1.submarine-school.com/submarine-school/default.html
> http://www.heiszwolf.com/subs/tech/tech01.html
> http://www.airspeedpress.com/newoxyhacker.html
> http://www.avweb.com/articles/pelperch/pelp0013.html
> http://www.coralspringsscuba.com/miscellaneous/usn_manual.htm
> http://arioch.gsfc.nasa.gov/302/html/tm4322.htm
> http://members.spree.com/sip/gnip/nemo/submath.html
> http://www.herbalife-scandinavia.com//sub.htm
> http://www.scubatow.com/
> http://www.heiszwolf.com/subs/plans/plans.html
> http://www.plansfordummies.com/

--
Spotted Owl...it's what's for dinner.