Module, Not Rocket
Ronald Corradin St. Paul, Minn
To the Editor: Steven Kerno is wrong when he says Apollo 13 had a problem with the Saturn V (“The Efficient Frontier,” March). In NASA parlance, the problem was with the service module, not the Saturn V rocket.
Good crisis management saved the crew. It is sad to hear that not even NASA has this sort of defense in depth any more.
Given the loss or unavailability of engineering legacy data, the departure of experienced engineers, and the pressure on new managers to try new, unproven approaches in the belief they will be faster and cheaper, I can only wonder what disasters are waiting to happen.
“Better, faster, cheaper” was NASA’s mantra until they lost two Mars probes in a row. My view is “Better, faster, cheaper—pick any two.”
A Above Middle C
Walid Farkouh Qatar
To the Editor: In the April issue, a letter, “Enthusiasm for Opportunity,” caught my attention. I don’t really think that A students are less active and enthusiastic than others. The letter sounds, with all due respect, as an excuse to be a C student, while you can be an A student.
I would say, instead, that C students should be encouraged to attain more knowledge and better grades in order to be vital competitors because enthusiasm without proper knowledge will be no good for any engineer.
Steam Appeal
Erin MacDonald Ann Arbor, Mich.
To the Editor: I am a recent Ph.D. graduate in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. I have noticed that mechanical engineering has become cool with a subculture of younger people in the form of “steampunk,” a trend in do-it-yourself fashion and design that evokes both the Victorian era and a spirit of industrial inventiveness.
 Steam power: Jake von Slatt’s retrodecorated Stratocaster is one of many mechanically inspired projects on view at www.steampunkworkshop.com.
The New York Times recently did an article on it, and there are plenty of images on the Web of steampunk creations that romanticize mechanical engineering: wind-up spiders, steam-powered robots, and watches that look like they are made out of airplane components.
Steampunk stretches from the immersive, such as computer keyboards retrofitted to function like typewriters, to the superficial, such as IPod skins intended to make it appear that your MP3 player is actually a collection of gears.
I am not exactly sure how mechanical engineers can capitalize on this movement, but I would suggest that we give it some further thought. If nothing else, with a couple of well-placed sponsorships we could maybe recruit more people into ME programs at colleges and universities.
I am interested to know what steampunks in the ME community have created. It is not often that the world of artistic design and mechanical engineering design meet in this manner. We shouldn’t miss it.
Old States of the Art
Samuel R. Phillips, P.E. Grass Valley, Calif.
To the Editor: “Hydrodynamic Diplomacy” authors Woods and Pendery (May) seem a little hard on the engineers of 18th-century Versailles.
Marly’s “bizarre assortment of levers and bell cranks” was, au contraire, not an “example of brute-force engineering and ignorance,” but perhaps the only way of transmitting power over a distance at that time. In the 18th and 19th centuries, belts and line shafting became the method of choice in textile mills and machine shops, although the steam engines and water wheels had to be nearby.
Even as late as the 1950s, long after the development of inexpensive diesel and gas engines and electric motors, I saw similar “bizarre assortments” of pull rods driving pumps in the oil fields near Taft and Avenal, Calif. Like the pumps at Versailles, oil-patch bottom-hole pumps have a large ratio of stroke to bore. The steel rods flailing back and forth two feet off the ground did make walking a bit dangerous. OSHA would not have approved, but the Marly engineers surely would have.
World Weary
Douglas L. Marriott South Lebanon, Ohio
To the Editor: There is a phenomenon in the operation of Web sites known, I believe, as “highjacking” in which a small number of individuals with an axe to grind effectively take over the site to pursue their agenda by sheer persistence. This is feasible because the majority of us mere mortals do not generally attain the same degree of vehemence about subjects near to our hearts.
With this in mind, I think it would be good for you to go back over your Letters column for the past few issues and decide whether or not your magazine might not be suffering from just such a takeover.
In short, let’s have more correspondence about mechanical engineering, which is something we can do something about, and less about the environment, which is something none of us, including Al Gore, can do anything about.
As George Carlin once said, the planet is fine. It is humanity that is in danger. If he is to be believed, and he makes as good a point as any of the pundits, the good Lord only invented man so we could develop plastic. Now we have done it, our usefulness is over, and we can just go away and leave the planet to the next evolution—possibly the beetles.
Money in the Wind
Stan Jakuba
West Hartford Conn.
To the Editor: Concerning your article “Wind Capacity Blows Away Rec- ord” (March), I do not share your enthusiasm for this source of electricity for economic reasons. According to the article, a 5.2 GW (billion watts) nameplate capacity was installed for $9 billion in 2007. Considering that the actual production is only about a fifth of the nameplate, one ends up with $9 for each watt of net output—a disproportionate sum in comparison with, for example, the $1.50/W with nukes, to cite an example of a non-CO2-generating source of electricity.
Wind proponents might argue that wind plants are about three times cheaper, for example, than photovoltaic plants ($30/W). True, but one might expect a breakthrough in that price. Not so with the wind turbines. They are performing too close to their theoretical efficiency limit already to produce appreciably more power per cost in the future.
Paul Williams Medina, Ohio
To the Editor: Every article I’m aware of neglects putting wind-installed capacity in perspective. The 5,244 MW total is not a realistic number to compare with other sources of electricity. Wind-generated power is about 20 percent effective on a full-time basis, whereas coal and nuclear plants will operate about 90 percent of the time at the installed capacity.
The effective capacity for wind of the 5,244 MW mentioned in the article is about 1,049 MW. If the mentioned installed capacity were coal or nuclear, the comparable capacity would be about 4,880 MW, over 4.5 times the wind power effective capacity.
Some time ago, I calculated the total of all support for wind that we taxpayers support. It was about equal to the total operating cost for a nuclear plant of about the same output, including operating cost, maintenance, and fuel.
University of Where?
Ed Nisbett Navarre, Fla.
To the Editor: Every article I’m aware of neglects putting wind-installed capacity in perspective. The 5,244 MW total is not a realistic number to compare with other sources of electricity. Wind-generated power is about 20 percent effective on a full-time basis, whereas coal and nuclear plants will operate about 90 percent of the time at the installed capacity.
The effective capacity for wind of the 5,244 MW mentioned in the article is about 1,049 MW. If the mentioned installed capacity were coal or nuclear, the comparable capacity would be about 4,880 MW, over 4.5 times the wind power effective capacity.
Some time ago, I calculated the total of all support for wind that we taxpayers support. It was about equal to the total operating cost for a nuclear plant of about the same output, including operating cost, maintenance, and fuel.
Editor’s note: The author is a graduate of the University of Glasgow.
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