That’s what the Department of Jetpack Suppression would like you to think. But these are jet boots, which didn’t even rate a closet in Annex 1, let alone a department.
And so she joins the ranks of The Greatest American Hero, Captain Nice, Mr. Terrific, and that guy on Love American Style… those who can fly, but shouldn’t!
*George of the Jungle theme, revised standard edition*
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Evil scientist on leave….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that tree!
(Crash!)
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Cobras in her sleeves ….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that tree!
(Crash!)
In a red knight rampage
Ginny Lee will engage
To keep wild Jersey Devils good and safe
and protect her good friends
Bubbles, Stachio and Nick,
while Hitty oozes irradiated ick.
We’ve got….
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Motivated and hot is she….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that ….. TREE!
(Crash!)
Melt-down? It was also recorded in panel 1, when Doctor Lee used it. Moustachio’s unfamiliarity with the term is indicated by the dashed underscore (please pardon my language, there.)
pretty sure people used the term melt down before we had nuclear reactors, just not to describe a catastrophic failures of aforementioned nuclear reactors.
for future reference, fusion reactors do not melt down.
A fission rector uses solid-phase fuel that radioactively heats itself more the more fuel you have in one place. Lose the control rods, or other moderator mechanism, and you get too much in one place, and the whole thing melts into a big blob, which increases criticality further, which means it gets even hotter – hot enough to melt concrete. Since Uranium is denser than most of the stuff one runs into on a daily basis, the molten fuel sinks through the now-also-molten remains of the floor of the containment chamber. It literally melts down into the earth, until either it gets too impure to continue producing enough radiation to keep the reaction going, or else damage control manages to put a stop to it. In the end, you’ve got a red hot lump of radioactive slag that hopefully hasn’t managed to hit groundwater. Not only is the reactor a total loss, you probably won’t be able to get at the slag for years.
In a fusion reaction, the fuel is an ionized gas contained in a superconducting magnetic bottle. If it gets cool (say, anything a million degrees), the reaction stops completely. If the reaction is neutronic (and just about every practical one will be) you probably have a lithium blanket for tritium breeding, which will absorb stray neutrons for you and make you new fuel as a bonus. If containment fails all at once, the magnetic bottle gets totalled, but if you really don’t have any lingering problems unless you used too little lithium and have neutron activation issues – which would have been a thing even if you shut the reactor down normally. The overall effect is that the reactor turns itself off and can never be turned back on If the reactor gets punctured (as here), you get an explosion at the point of the rupture, as high temperature low pressure plasma tries to blast out while high pressure low temperature air gets sacked in. The two jets basically meet in the middle and you end up with a fireball. The process is more destructive, but turning the reactor off manually and chucking a grenade into the bottle would have more or less the same effect. You don’t have the outrageous and irreparable damage you’d have with fission.
In other words, Dr. Lee should be worried about a containment failure which would probably turn poor Hitty into a giant frag grenade) rather than a meltdown.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get this nitpicky on a story about talking animals and mad scientists, but since you used to like to use real science terms in your technobabble, I figured I’d make an exception just this once. Hopefully, you’ve found a few choice terms you can add to your technobabble lexicon.
While your story is interesting and educational (and hurt my head), the term “meltdown” was in use before there were nuclear reactors. True, nowadays it is commonly associated with said nuclear reactors, but it was originally used in the late 1930s in reference to the ice cream industry, most likely due to the depression and the fact that people were not buying anything that were not absolute necessities. And it has been used metaphorically since 1979 for any rapid breakdown, such as a person’s sanity or a relationship, etc.
So although it is scientifically inaccurate to say “keep Hitty from meltdown”, it is a perfectly acceptable metaphor, considering how quickly she could go from ‘badly damaged’ to ‘catastrophic failure’. And even though Virginia’s main field is neuroscience, one of her jobs is to turn mad science sane, so her broader focus is science as a whole. So she would know that ‘meltdown’ is not the correct scientific term, but using it would inspire the appropriate sense of urgency for someone who is not intimately familiar with the inner workings of Hitty’s power source.
And of course there’s the little detail that the Beni, the Victor, and Hitty’s reactor were experimental reactors, so how many people even are intimately familiar with their inner workings?
Sorry, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I am an English language geek and an insufferable pedant.
S’okay, superheroing takes a bit of getting used to.
Aaand this is why jetpacks still aren’t a thing.
At least not on land.
That’s what the Department of Jetpack Suppression would like you to think. But these are jet boots, which didn’t even rate a closet in Annex 1, let alone a department.
They are seven league boots I’ll have you know, which have been subjected to unauthorized modifications. “Jet Boots” my left solenoid.
rule no 1 always have a bot on hand to spray you with a fire extinguisher
Rule no 2 is always to make sure that bot WANTS to spray you with a fire extinguisher…
It definitely took Tony some work to get it right, not to mention extending his bruise collection.
I’m really glad Pancha’s on the job; the green glowy fusion power and the translucent visor really benefit from color.
Also, lol at poor Lee in last panel.
And so she joins the ranks of The Greatest American Hero, Captain Nice, Mr. Terrific, and that guy on Love American Style… those who can fly, but shouldn’t!
and Pumaman.
Pyumaman?
I am about to say something completely obvious.
Virginia is not your normal scientist.
You have to admire M’s confidence.
Maybe they should’a tried out Alfie in the suit after all…
I’m surprised Jeff could resist putting a cute animal in power armor.
Dr. Lee has found a new way for doing science to a tree.
I hope that I shall never see
A substance harder than a tree.
A tree with lack of interest
Came close to giving final rest;
A tree that happens in the way,
Concussion turning all away;
A tree as hard as granitewear
Leaves shards of bark within my hair;
A tree that stood up to my strain,
And wracked my skull with searing pain.
I hope my next flight will not be
As interesting as a tree.
—from “Trees,” Joyce Kilmer.
Thank you. Very nice.
Nice — although that strikes me as less Joyce and more Val.
Ogden Nash?
‘Tain’t easy matching these things rhyme for rhyme…
I keep hearing the tune that the banana republic leader applied to that poem in The In-Laws.
*George of the Jungle theme, revised standard edition*
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Evil scientist on leave….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that tree!
(Crash!)
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Cobras in her sleeves ….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that tree!
(Crash!)
In a red knight rampage
Ginny Lee will engage
To keep wild Jersey Devils good and safe
and protect her good friends
Bubbles, Stachio and Nick,
while Hitty oozes irradiated ick.
We’ve got….
Doc-Tor
Virgin-eeaa Lee
Motivated and hot is she….
(Pkeow-Yaaahhhhhh)
Watch out for that ….. TREE!
(Crash!)
“Trees are so interesting and hard.”
(applause)
Very well done, sir. And very appropriate for today’s strip. Ginny and George would have much to talk about.
I’m a bit surprised to see Moustachio using language like that. Not least because the term he used was first recorded in 1977 according to the OED.
Melt-down? It was also recorded in panel 1, when Doctor Lee used it. Moustachio’s unfamiliarity with the term is indicated by the dashed underscore (please pardon my language, there.)
Sorry, I was referring to the term he used in panel 1 to describe Red Knight.
pretty sure people used the term melt down before we had nuclear reactors, just not to describe a catastrophic failures of aforementioned nuclear reactors.
Shaenon:
for future reference, fusion reactors do not melt down.
A fission rector uses solid-phase fuel that radioactively heats itself more the more fuel you have in one place. Lose the control rods, or other moderator mechanism, and you get too much in one place, and the whole thing melts into a big blob, which increases criticality further, which means it gets even hotter – hot enough to melt concrete. Since Uranium is denser than most of the stuff one runs into on a daily basis, the molten fuel sinks through the now-also-molten remains of the floor of the containment chamber. It literally melts down into the earth, until either it gets too impure to continue producing enough radiation to keep the reaction going, or else damage control manages to put a stop to it. In the end, you’ve got a red hot lump of radioactive slag that hopefully hasn’t managed to hit groundwater. Not only is the reactor a total loss, you probably won’t be able to get at the slag for years.
In a fusion reaction, the fuel is an ionized gas contained in a superconducting magnetic bottle. If it gets cool (say, anything a million degrees), the reaction stops completely. If the reaction is neutronic (and just about every practical one will be) you probably have a lithium blanket for tritium breeding, which will absorb stray neutrons for you and make you new fuel as a bonus. If containment fails all at once, the magnetic bottle gets totalled, but if you really don’t have any lingering problems unless you used too little lithium and have neutron activation issues – which would have been a thing even if you shut the reactor down normally. The overall effect is that the reactor turns itself off and can never be turned back on If the reactor gets punctured (as here), you get an explosion at the point of the rupture, as high temperature low pressure plasma tries to blast out while high pressure low temperature air gets sacked in. The two jets basically meet in the middle and you end up with a fireball. The process is more destructive, but turning the reactor off manually and chucking a grenade into the bottle would have more or less the same effect. You don’t have the outrageous and irreparable damage you’d have with fission.
In other words, Dr. Lee should be worried about a containment failure which would probably turn poor Hitty into a giant frag grenade) rather than a meltdown.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get this nitpicky on a story about talking animals and mad scientists, but since you used to like to use real science terms in your technobabble, I figured I’d make an exception just this once. Hopefully, you’ve found a few choice terms you can add to your technobabble lexicon.
While your story is interesting and educational (and hurt my head), the term “meltdown” was in use before there were nuclear reactors. True, nowadays it is commonly associated with said nuclear reactors, but it was originally used in the late 1930s in reference to the ice cream industry, most likely due to the depression and the fact that people were not buying anything that were not absolute necessities. And it has been used metaphorically since 1979 for any rapid breakdown, such as a person’s sanity or a relationship, etc.
So although it is scientifically inaccurate to say “keep Hitty from meltdown”, it is a perfectly acceptable metaphor, considering how quickly she could go from ‘badly damaged’ to ‘catastrophic failure’. And even though Virginia’s main field is neuroscience, one of her jobs is to turn mad science sane, so her broader focus is science as a whole. So she would know that ‘meltdown’ is not the correct scientific term, but using it would inspire the appropriate sense of urgency for someone who is not intimately familiar with the inner workings of Hitty’s power source.
And of course there’s the little detail that the Beni, the Victor, and Hitty’s reactor were experimental reactors, so how many people even are intimately familiar with their inner workings?
Sorry, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I am an English language geek and an insufferable pedant.