Comments by "" (@EbenBransome) on "Scott Manley" channel.

The original steam turbine woudn't have been up to the job. Turbinia had many improvements, like the dummy piston system to withstand end thrust, but the rpm was impracticably high for a ship and a lot of development was needed before the torpedo destroyers really made sense. It is also believed that the Turbinia stunt was organised with the support of naval officers who saw the potential for turbines.
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@EvelynNdenial Yes, torque ripple applies to every motor that isn't a full entry turbine, the biggest being in single cylinder Diesel engines. It can be minimised in wave wound commutated motors but those are no good for space. It's also important that bearing friction is constant and any gears are extremely accurate. People don't think about that kind of engineering in the context of spacecraft. I came across it in the context of stabilising tank guns.
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The reason? Scottish universities were interested in "Natural philosophy" aka science in the 19th century and produced people like Lord Kelvin and Maxwell. At Oxford and Cambridge the high status subjects were still Latin, Greek, Mathematics and History (though Cambridge had an important geology department, partly because of consultancy fees looking for coal and iron fields.) As a result Scotland was ahead on theoretical engineering, which spread to the North of England. Scotland had electric light before England. Southern English engineering was too trade based and so missed developments like turbines which needed a sound theoretical basis.
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@LudwigVaanArthans Was his middle name Ahab? Similar personality.
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Jules Verne, De la Terre à la Lune. Describes a lunar gun operated by the "Baltimore rocket club". In the same book he says that perhaps one day a gigantic boiler wil blow up the world "and I imagine an American will have a hand in it."
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@PhilipFly11 Diesel injectors - which for some reason are still made of steel.
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@Canada_Dominium Not to mention the bitterly cold near vacuum above the water, with the dangerous oxygen levels.
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@vikkimcdonough6153 At the same time as they were still using steam/sail small ships because of their fuel efficiency.
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Spending vast amounts of money to prove the Earth was at the centre of the universe and then employing Kepler to analyse his results and prove him wrong was pretty good.
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@nathanevans6277 So has average UK intelligence as the people who voted Leave die off and are replaced by well qualified immigrants.
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@MichaelKane-s3i Yes, work it out. Atmospheric pressure is about 10N/sq cm (100kPa). A 3 mm hole has an area of about 7 square millimetres, so the force on the finger would be 0.7N, or under 3 ounces in American Customary Units. Like pressing a button.
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