The Wind Tunnel (Page 5)

Now he had to figure out how to get the rod perfectly straight into the ball. This was a lot harder than we thought. If the rod wasn't inserted straight into the ball, it would be at an angle when placed in the wind tunnel and wobble when spun. After a few tries, Jani suggested calling her friend Pat Ryan, who owns Menlo Machine Shop in Menlo Park - right near NASA Ames. Jim told Pat the situation and Pat had a lathe that would perfectly position the ball and drill a hole for the rod at the same time - right down the middle. Many thanks to Pat who donated this services to the project!

The ball and mount were ready. In the meantime Kevin Okamoto, another engineer at Cislunar, and Jani were doing the calculations and writing the readiness review document for NASA. After talking with John we decided that we should use wind tunnel speeds that were equivalent to a Pete Sampras serve and the speed before and after the bounce from a serve. We've included our calculations and readiness review document at the end of this section.

Jim headed down to NASA and Greg examined the ball and the mount. Rabi and Greg reviewed the documentation and felt it was sufficient to seek approval. We were ready for the test!