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Haha, that's hilarious. Teacher: "Write a report on the story of Icarus. What lessons can we learn?" Then you write up a report like a post-mortem of a failed rocket launch. Materials science, testing, dry runs, abort procedure. A graph of wax temperature versus sheer strength, tensile strength. Altitude versus temperature graph. Temperature versus phase diagram for wax. Finally conclude that besides lack of a suitable abort procedure the major error was in choosing a midday launch, dusk should have been chosen in order to reduce incident light, which would have kept the temperature within design constraints for the altitudes Icarus was flying. Until more suitable materials were found, the Greeks should stick to night-time launches.



You missed that a good sounding rocket would have shown temperatures drop as you increase in altitude.


Friction and drag coefficient may have removed all the feathers in the boost phase :)




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