fine water spray

April 24, 2023 4:31 PM

Test film of USAF MOL mock up and ZERO- G shower. (slyt)
posted by clavdivs (14 comments total)

Tag yourself, I'm "shadowy face in the background intently observing the formation of an unsettling globule of liquid around zero-G Ken doll's crotch", although "Ken bathing in the blood of innocents in his sin capsule" was a close second
posted by phooky at 4:51 PM on April 24, 2023 [9 favorites]

I also absolutely love the diagrams of a person standing in a shower with the water nozzle hooked up to a 25kV voltage supply. Just insane bonkers super-genius terror engineering. There is no way that this project was not somehow linked to an underground murder cult.
posted by phooky at 4:56 PM on April 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

The camera operator has performed a highly questionable zoom.

thank you for this wonderful cursed video
posted by phooky at 5:07 PM on April 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

How did they get the water globs to float around like that?
posted by slogger at 5:50 PM on April 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Probably they used a globfloater.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:41 PM on April 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Per this title card, the globfloating parts were conducted during zero-G flight trajectories on a KC-135, aka the Vomit Comet.
posted by zsazsa at 9:12 PM on April 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Obligatory shirtless Scott Bakula, I guess?

I'm trying to locate a video of R. Buckminster Fuller demonstrating his idea for an optimized shower hose which only released a fine mist. Since the real cleaning action takes place at the surface tension points of a water droplet, most of the water in a bathtub is wasted. You'd be better off conserving water and energy by converting a shower stall into a booth that filled with warm fog while you soaped up.
(mirror ball and waterproof speakers for Disco Smoke Machine Shower-Beer Party Time not included)
posted by bartleby at 10:11 PM on April 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Well, that's easily the weirdest Klaus Nomi short film I've ever seen.
posted by loquacious at 10:28 PM on April 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

I couldn't find a good match for the figure, it looks like a generic "dad" from a dollhouse set since his joints are not very good. You'd think the USAF would at least have splurged on a Johnny Apollo.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:56 AM on April 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Bucky Fuller tended to over-optimise. Like the three-wheeled car. Bucky! Cars can tip over when they're going too fast or on curves! And if they're shaped like a turd, they can roll over and over and over. That's bad! Or his Dymaxion bathroom, which is great, if you like bathing, shaving, washing and pooping in a tiny steel crypt! Bucky, no, people need a little decor, it's not just about how easy something is to clean.

Anyway, people like bathing in hot water because it feels really nice. Bathing in a fine mist would really suck because tiny water droplets tend to evaporate really fast and chill the air. I don't want to shower in a cold mist. The real way to conserve water in the shower is to use a navy valve, which only runs water when you actually need it; when getting damp, and when rinsing.

What even am I going on about.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:01 AM on April 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

You could probably run a pretty respectable blog with the title "Bucky, no!" For variety, you could occasionally toss in a few of Frank Lloyd Wright's worse ideas. The banner image could be the Montreal Expo dome on fire.
posted by phooky at 9:31 AM on April 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

> Bucky, no, people need a little decor, it's not just about how easy something is to clean.

I don't know, I wouldn't mind a stainless steel bathroom with a floor drain. You could just hose it all down with a high temp pressure washer.

Japanese bathrooms are kind of like this where it's a small wet room and/or the toilet is in its own closet.

I'm also reminded that US bathroom decor has involved some terrible crimes, like carpeting or shag carpet seat covers and mats, or clear resin seats full of sea shells and other horrible ideas.
posted by loquacious at 10:58 AM on April 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

> I don't know, I wouldn't mind a stainless steel bathroom with a floor drain. You could just hose it all down with a high temp pressure washer

Time for you to move to a Lustron house! You can hose down any room you want. (To be fair, that's true of any house if you set your mind to it.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:41 AM on April 26, 2023

Ah, you wouldn't say that if the actual Lustron house you'd been in was floored with that 1970s textured carpet (? sculpted? that thing where they used to shave patterns into wall-to-wall). Not low maintenance at all.

Bucky, No! dot com aside, I think I'd still prefer my zero gravity shower to resemble a capsule that pumped steam in at one end and sucked water droplets out the other, as part of my astronaut morning 'spend a few minutes Restoring Thermostasis in the Dissociation Booth' routine.
posted by bartleby at 3:33 PM on April 26, 2023