Warholian fame for the “battery powered” rocket
It was another wild and woolly day in my portion of the twittersphere yesterday. I am not even talking about the #twitter earnings leak.
Rather it was a couple of tweets that made me scratch my head. They were a tweet and retweet of an article from people in finance, strategy and tech. The problem is that the original article’s title should have struck them as suspect; as something that is not possible. Did they realize this? Is it important to understand technology? It is time to go back to the beginning.
It all started on April 15th when engadget published the article “Startup launches first 3D-printed battery-powered rocket”. The article discusses the use of 3D printing to fabricate bits of a rocket engine and the use of “batteries instead of liquid-fuel”. The article’s one image shows what looks like a traditional rocket engine with piping to carry the propellant and the oxidizer. So, why would one print the above five words? Surely, one would question how it is possible to attain escape velocity from batteries. Is there a little electric motor and plastic propellers?
Now, based on the comments it appears that the article was updated/ corrected somewhere around 24 hrs. after publication. That would be on or around the 16th of April. It though was just yesterday i.e. 12 days later that it was tweeted and retweeted into my portion of the twittersphere. The question then is whether these two people knew of the mistake. I would assume not. I would be hesitant to tweet a title that at first reading is wanting clarification. Yes, they may have others tweeting for them, but it is still a poor representation of their knowledge of technology.
What about the original author? It appears they are an Associate Editor with a love affair with tech. It seems a better understanding of technology and physics is in order. On the other hand maybe I am taking this all too seriously.