I really have a hard time believing there was no lower cost solution for a 400 km trip by land as opposed to a 9000 km trip by land, sea, and land. What about an off road heavy transport trailer for the sections of road they can' t fit through. Or a quick build bridge structure similar to what is used by the military? Or some sort of land version of a lock (water transport)?
How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
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Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#12I really have a hard time believing there was no lower cost solution for a 400 km trip by land as opposed to a 9000 km trip by land, sea, and land. What about an off road heavy transport trailer for the sections of road they can' t fit through. Or a quick build bridge structure similar to what is used by the military? Or some sort of land version of a lock (water transport)?
Assuming they could even get permission for a land route given the usual max weight is 40 tonnes, not 200.
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#13and the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KATRIN
In short, it's an experiment to directly measure the mass of the electron-type neutrino. Very occasionally, when tritium beta-decays, the electron carries away all the energy. If the neutrino has mass (and we are rather certain [1] that it does), then there's a little less energy to carry away. The giant MAC-E spectrometer (actually a chain of them, of which the big one is the last) is the only known way of resolving the 13,000 electron-volt electron to less than an electron-volt.
It's a very hard experiment, but it's important, and nobody knows an easier terrestrial path to the same knowledge (cosmology limits are equal to or better than KATRIN, but there's a big difference between the cosmos and something you can do on Earth).
(Edit: and for you vacuum jocks out there, that entire volume operates at UHV. It's electropolished internally, and for their vacuum test, it pumped to below 10^-7 Torr on a single 6-8" turbo before bakeout.)
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#14I really have a hard time believing there was no lower cost solution for a 400 km trip by land as opposed to a 9000 km trip by land, sea, and land. What about an off road heavy transport trailer for the sections of road they can' t fit through. Or a quick build bridge structure similar to what is used by the military? Or some sort of land version of a lock (water transport)?
I presume the height of it means it won't fit under bridges on either road or canal.
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#15Is it possible to have multiple helicopters work together to lift one object? If so, 10 of these could have done it :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Hard to see how ten helicopters could maintain enough horizontal separation to work safely while carrying the load. An airship might be a better alternative.
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#16Is it possible to have multiple helicopters work together to lift one object? If so, 10 of these could have done it :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26
Hard to see how ten helicopters could maintain enough horizontal separation to work safely while carrying the load. An airship might be a better alternative.
It worked poorly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#17I really have a hard time believing there was no lower cost solution for a 400 km trip by land as opposed to a 9000 km trip by land, sea, and land. What about an off road heavy transport trailer for the sections of road they can' t fit through. Or a quick build bridge structure similar to what is used by the military? Or some sort of land version of a lock (water transport)?
This is the middle of Germany. "Off road" means "across someone else's property, destroying a large strip of it". It looks like they had enough trouble getting it the last 7km. I presume the height of it means it won't fit under bridges on either road or canal.
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard to see how ten helicopters could maintain enough horizontal separation to work safely while carrying the load. An airship might be a better alternative.
They could build a wide platform beneath it so the anchor points would be further apart.
Re: How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard to see how ten helicopters could maintain enough horizontal separation to work safely while carrying the load. An airship might be a better alternative.
Or combine both, and you get a Piasecki PA97 Helistat. It worked poorly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY