To be fair to the story, Mythbusters back then were extremely seat-of-the-pants. As far as I could tell, they didn't do even the elementary center-of-gravity and stability tests that Estes tells kids to do on rocket designs. The Chinese were pretty hot on rockets and I think they probably knew more about building rockets than the Mythbusters did back then.
Their failure did not bust the myth in my opinion. They said that they had modern materials and fabrication, but they did not (apparently) have the knowledge of rocketry that the Chinese had 500 years ago. Most kids who have screwed with rockets for any length of time could have told them beforehand that that thing would just flop around wildly.
Mythbusters is still kind of seat-of-the-pants, but they've improved dramatically, especially in the last 2 or 3 years. They do controls a lot more than they used to, they talk about the scientific method, and they consult experts more than they used to. At least, it was never apparent that they were consulting with experts, now the experts do get at least mention and sometimes airtime.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 02:35 pm (UTC)Their failure did not bust the myth in my opinion. They said that they had modern materials and fabrication, but they did not (apparently) have the knowledge of rocketry that the Chinese had 500 years ago. Most kids who have screwed with rockets for any length of time could have told them beforehand that that thing would just flop around wildly.
Mythbusters is still kind of seat-of-the-pants, but they've improved dramatically, especially in the last 2 or 3 years. They do controls a lot more than they used to, they talk about the scientific method, and they consult experts more than they used to. At least, it was never apparent that they were consulting with experts, now the experts do get at least mention and sometimes airtime.