…or, how my mind works, part 857…
Today, on Earth Day as it happens, after arriving home from some errands that included garage sale stops and halting traffic to get out and allow or otherwise assist the crossing of a busy road by a mama duck with a “waddling” of ducks in tow…all in a row (sorry, for that one, I can’t help myself….but hey, reuse of stuff rather than shopping at the store AND helping wildlife in the same outing is not bad, even if my puns are.) we sat down for some lunch. Today, Elizabeth made schnitzel! Rather tasty!
Now schnitzel, while German in origin does not relate to space travel…at least not directly so, although I am certain that many German scientists have enjoyed it with their beer. But today, for me, it did….at least in a science fiction sense. While eating, our dogs were doing their usual obligatory watchful and hopeful eye in hopes that something would be dropped–accidently or on purpose. Most people call this begging. And perhaps it is….but being the well trained humans that we are, it usually works, and they know it. This made me think of the times in the past that I have spoken a bit of German to them–no, I do not speak German, but being an historian of science and technology with a military history interest and such, it is inevitable that I would pick up a few words here and there. Now, you may ask yourself, why speak the few bits of random German to the dogs? This is a fair question, and if you are hoping for a deeply profound or noble explanation, I am sorry to disappoint you…..I simply get amusement from seeing the bewildered cock of the head and facial expression as if to say, “What the hell did you just say?!!!?!” But in all fairness, I don’t do it often, and I am always considerate enough to explain the word after using it…..thus giving them an opportunity to learn bits of scientific or historical jargon.
One such word that I had used a few years ago was “Pillenwerfer.” This word is basically translated as “pill thrower” and it refers to a type of decoy used to throw off sonar searches for submarines. It was basically a canister with a chemical such as calcium hydride that would react with seawater and make a lot of noisy bubbles in hopes that the allies would follow that and not the U-boat that was attempting to escape. I first learned of this word at the age of 8 or 10….often I learned of such things due to my unusual upbringing that involved being in a lot of surplus stores (I’ve written about this before, go find it if you want another laugh.) but this time, I learned the word from reading “The Enemy Below” by D.A. Rayner from 1956. This was also made into a movie in 1957 starring Robert Mitchum. Both are great and I recommend them. However, as always, the movie falls short in some ways. One notable scene in the book that was omitted or minimized in the movie involved the gyrocompass being broken during a depth charge attack. Not merely broken…the rather heavy and rapidly spinning rotor broke free of its gimbals and proceeded to skitter around the control room whilst the crew did all they could to avoid being hit by the shrieking spinning metal wheel. The author made this seem downright terrifying–at least for an 8 year old, and I still remember it to this day, almost 50 years later. This is a pivotal point in the story no matter how you portray it, but the movie could have been more graphic with it too.
Now, for those of you who also grew up with Saturday morning cartoons, you probably remember the Tasmanian Devil chaotically spinning and blasting through everything as he entered and exited the scene. (much as one could imagine that gyroscope rotor doing) Now the sound used for that, is very much like that of an inertial starter. Likely this is what the sound effects people used. An inertial starter consists of a motor, or in earlier versions, a hand crank, that is geared to a heavy flywheel. This wheel is spun up to a high speed–the faster the better as it directly relates to the amount of energy stored…..when ready, a lever is moved to cause a clutch to engage the geared output of the starter to the engine in order to crank it over to start. These were commonplace on large reciprocating aircraft engines and in some industrial applications as well. These starters make a distinctive sound and if you’ve ever used one or heard them used, you will remember it.
It also just so happens that in the 1977 film, “Star Wars” the sound of an inertial starter was mixed in with some other noises to create the sound known to millions of movie goers as that of the hyper-drive failing to engage when the Millenium Falcon is being chased.
So now you know how I chose connect schnitzel to spaceflight while eating lunch. Not that any of this matters in the world…..but at least you got a book recommendation out of it and perhaps a few new rabbit holes to go explore.