S&T Group March Meeting
This month the S&T Group had two presentations by Group members.
In the first half, Charles Stokes gave a well researched talk on his concept for developing “greener” methods for launching space rockets. Most of a space rocket’s weight is made up by fuel, and the heavier the space vehicle, the more fuel is required. If you could launch the space vehicle by an alternative means of propulsion using green energy instead of polluting rocket motors, it would make launching into space a more sustainable process. Charles proposed a novel concept of how to solve the problem!
In the second half, Reg Phillips described how the invention of radar in WW2 led to the development of microwave ovens, initially for commercial applications but then from the 1980s onwards for the domestic market. He explained why a microwave oven heats up food without melting its plastic container and debunked the common misconception that the food in a microwave oven heats from the inside out!