Space shuttle's landing strip

A pre-orbit abort is possible up to the time altitude and velocity combine to mandate commit-to-orbit. The "fly around like a 737" anology isn't quite applicable - its more akin to flying an unpowered brick with stubby wings. Kinda like a "smart bomb", only with landing gear instead of fuses; its gonna go where its pointed once its turned loose, subject to minor guidance corrections to refine what otherwise is an entirely ballistic trajectory.

timber-

I saw a quote from Shakespeare about circling the earth in forty minutes.

I can't remember the exact words. It's from Midsummer Night's Dream.

Isn't 40 mins. about right?

No. Not even close, in fact. Look it up - mebbe you'll learn something.

space shuttle
You are right, Spendius. It's from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2, Scene 1.

Oberon sends Puck off on an errand of mischief, to find a magic flower whose juice when placed on a sleeping person's eyelid will make him or her fall madly in love with the first creature it sees. Puck replies:

I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.

Puck's trip took 40 minutes - the Space Shuttle takes more than twice that to complete an orbit.

It's not far out considering it's over four hundred years old and with an unthinkable idea. Why do you think he chose "forty minutes".It struck me as an odd choice from a man with so much of it to play with.

Spengler says that the whole of Shakespeare is suffused with the feeling of the Faustian springtime and he was dead right and of all the books I've read nobody else got that close to Shakespeare but you might need some idea of those feelings to appreciate it. They exist in the Shuttle crew. They do litotes quite well.

I only said "about right". Had he said 70 minutes you would still be picking at it. Putting a girdle round the earth is the main thing. His audience would hardly know the difference between 40 and 80 minutes and 40 might signify something to somebody. He might even have changed it from night to night.

Do you know if he uses "minutes" anywhere else?

Assuming that by "he" you refer to Shakespeare, yes. By my count, Shakespeare in his works used the word "minutes" at least 16 times (I haven't checked his correspondence):

twice in Henry VI, Pt III - Act 2 Scene 5, twice in Richard III - Act 5 Scene 5, once in King John - Act 4 Scene 1, once in Henry IV Pt I - Act1 Scene 2, twice in A Midsummer Night's Dream - the aforementioned instance in Act 2 Scene 1 and again in Act 2 Scene 2, once in All's Well That Ends Well - Act 2 Scene 2, once in A Winter's Tale - Act 1 Scene 2, once in Hamlet - Act 1 Scene 1, once in Othello - Act 3 Scene 3, once in The Rape of Lucrece - Stanza 43, once in Sonnet 14 - XIV, once in Sonnet 60 - LXXVII, once in Sonnet 126 - CXXVI, and once in The Passionate Pilgrim - Sonnet 15, XV

There may be more, those are just the ones I came across through cursory search, and without including cognates of the word "minutes"

Oh, BTW - the typical nominal orbital period for The Space Shuttle is a bit more than 90 minutes.

"Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this."

Bob Dylan. To Ramona.

Thanks timber. I'll have a looksee.

What are "cognates" of the word minutes in the late 15th century?

Shakespeare concordance:

http://www.languid.org/cgi-bin/shakespeare

Cool site, Noddy - thanks. Interestingly - to the suitably depraved few as are so disposed as to pursue such minutiae as the occurrence frequency in Shakespeare of the word "minutes" and its cognates - is that the singular form of the word, "minute" produces many, many more hits than does the plural form, "minutes.

Just to sorta steer this thread back towards its topic, it should be noted The Space Shuttle's Orbiter, due to its limited maneuverability, high approach speed and sink rate, lack of "go-around" capability, and considerable weight, requires absolutely exclusive landing time access to a runway of length, width, and pavement thickness/strength significantly greater than are common - runways typically found only at major military installations. Even assuming a commercial airport had a runway of suitable length and width, and could completely clear its scheduled approach and departure traffic during a Shuttle Orbiter's landing window, it is highly probable the Orbiter's touchdown would damage the runway, and quite possibly catastrophically damage the Orbiter itself. That set of considerations greatly limits the available options.

Timber--

The original concordances of both the bible--at least the King James Version--and the bard were done laboriously in the pre-computer age by adoring humans.

Noddy -

A 13th Century work attributed - not without dispute - to Anthony of Padua (a contemporary and protege of Francis of Assisi, and among the very first of Franciscan Friars - but that's another story), based on the Canon of The Latin Vulgate, generally is accepted to be the earliest known complete concordance of the Christian Bible. Some works of early Church Fathers, notably but not exclusively, of Justyn Martyr in the Second Century, and of John Chrysostom in the Fourth Century, among others, approach the concept in effect. Certain writings of Jewish scholars, again notably but not exclusively The Midrash, very much resembling - in purpose and effect, at any rate - greatly, some as in by more than a millenium, predate the Paduan manuscript as concordances of a sort. Similarly-themed works pertaining to the scriptures of Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religions are known to exist, some dating very nearly to the appearance of writing, dealing with scriptures of religions known today only through archaeology. Who used which word in what context within which works at what time long has been a fascination of folks with time on their hands.

Somewhat abashedly, I admit I was unaware of formal Shakespearean concordances, though on reflection I cannot imagine that such would not exist; folks being as folks are, somebody would have to have come up with them. Even Homer has been given the treatment, and quite anciently, at that. IMO: File alongside numerology and numerology's latest itteration, "computer-revealed Biblical codes".



BTW - I came up with my "Minutes" count via a CD-ROM edition of Shakespeare's Collected Works - its an old set (XP runs it only - and grudgingly - in '98 Compatability Mode), but I figure Shakespeare ain't real likely to have changed much since I got the disks, so though newer, flashier compilations readly may be had, no compelling reason to run out and grab one suggests itself.


And so much for getting this topic back on focus, I guess

Timber--

Once again, I'm illuminated. Thank you.

As I am.

What a tool.

So that's how one or two posters have impressed me in the past. And I thought they were experts.

Sheesh. What a gump I am.

No mirrors for the Shuttle crew though.

space shuttle
That Shakespeare concordance site is great! (Thanks a whole bunch, now I can spend even more hours on this thing.)

I found my Puck reference the hard way, by digging out my old, battered up book of Shakespeare's plays that I've had since college. I thought I remembered the scene where Puck says that line, so it wasn't too hard finding it. But this web site would have made it a whole lot easier!

You can't beat love NWI.

Shakespeare blew my mind.

timber's Noddy piece wasn't bad either.

As laughing tackle I mean.

You can't beat it. Laughing about laughing. That's gearing.

Rabelais would have approved of that.

Look out the saints are coming through.

Bandits at six o'clock.

Does anyone know when the word "minute" was first used to denote one sixtieth of an hour? My Shorter Oxford doesn't say.