spaceship one

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...
On 23 Jun 2004 09:59:41 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote in message
. ..
It took about forty years from the date the first government-sponsored
manned aerospacecraft left the atmosphere and glided down to a safe
landing
in the California desert to the successful flight of the first private
one.
If the same timescale was used for conventional airplanes, the first
privately-owned aircraft would have flown in 1943.

As opposed to 1903? The first airplane WAS privately-owned. Not to
mention amateur-built. The government-funded program wound up in the
Potomac. ;-)

Sure, I know the Wrights were private, it was just a way to make a
comparison. Interesting to note that the Wrights attempted to use
lawsuits
to deter those who wished to duplicate their feat; in retrospect, the
desire for the technology overcame the legal issues involved.

Ron Wanttaja

Well, strictly speaking, they used lawsuits to force other people to pay for
profiting from the use of their ideas. They gave permission for the use of
their patented system in experimental work. They were perfectly willing to
license their technology, but other manufacturers wanted to use it, both for
manufacturing airplanes and doing exhibitions, without paying for it.

There was a lot of suing, in all directions -- and thus the "patent pool"
solution of 1917, when the government wanted to start letting contracts for
airplanes without having to worry about who was suing whom.

The longest-running suit, which at least had the beneficial side-effect of
getting Orville to write and testify about how he and Wilbur developed the
airplane, was filed _against_ the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company (owner of
the Wright patents and to whom Orville was just a consultant at that point)
and the U.S . government by the heirs of John Montgomery. It was filed on
the basis of a 1905 patent by Montgomery covering the use of parabolic
curves as airfoils. The Wrights didn't use parabolic curves as airfoils,
but I guess you can always file a suit. The heirs eventually lost in 1928.

Tim Ward

On 23 Jun 2004 21:23:16 GMT, (Steve VanSickle)
wrote:

From article , by Richard Lamb Steve VanSickle wrote:

Because it was designed to be a sub-orbital ship...

This particular *design* won't work, yes, but why not the "method" (i.e.
moving surfaces to make for a "hands off" reentry)?

if they can stand up to 3000 degree heat...

Reentry from orbit is a vastly more difficult proposition.

All to the speeds involved.

Yes, it is more difficult. Yes, much hotter, much more energy. But I
have heard many people claim that the "shuttlecock" method Burt developed
"won't work" from orbit, and no one says *why*. If shuttle wings can be
protected (most of the time) from the heat, why can't Burt's wings?

First off, I should point out that in ~25 years in the space biz, I've only
worked *one* program where safe re-entering the atmosphere was a design
element. And I solved THAT by saying, "...assuming it survives re-entry,
we'll deploy the rotors at Mach 3..." :-)

With that out of the way, let me set up some reasons why the shuttlecock
system may not be the best solution for an orbital mission. Feel free to
whack 'em down.

First, you've got a device that must be in the deployed position during
re-entry. Whatever actuators you've got holding the tail in position are
in danger of exposure to the re-entry plasma. On the Shuttle, everything
gets set into positions that minimizes disturbance of the plasma, but the
shuttlecock mode is exactly the opposite.

Two things can happen: The actuators can jam, or the actuators can break.
If they jam, you're not going to land. If they break, your speed increases
and your structure will probably overheat. If one side breaks and one side
jams, you are probably going to end up in a fairly fierce spin.

Yes, you can design covers for the actuators. But the covers themselves
could jam, and cause the same problems they're designed to prevent.

It's not much of a risk during SpaceShipOne's re-entry at Mach 3...the
interface period is over pretty quickly. But OrbitOne will spend about
10-15 minutes in the plasma. A lot of ugly things could happen.

Second...and, probably more-easily overcome...there's the G-load issue.
IIRC, Melville experienced about 5 Gs, maximum, during re-entry. 5 Gs from
a re-entry speed of Mach 3 vs. a re-entry speed of Mach 25. Hmmmm...think
we'll have to trim the size of shuttlecock tail. :-)

Finally, we get to the heretical part of this posting: Why wings at all,
for an orbital mission?

Forty years ago, a few square feet of ablative heat shield was good enough
to handle most manned space missions. The Russian space program has flown
them continuously.

Just because you want to re-use an orbital vehicle doesn't mean it has to
have wings. Unless the vehicle is able to reposition itself from its
landing location to launch location, you're still stuck with considerable
infrastructure to recover, service, and transport the vehicle. Wings on
your deorbit vehicle don't help those functions. They allow pin-point
precision landings...but if you're just going to land out in the desert,
does it really make a difference? If you're aloft for more than one orbit,
you are not going to be able to land at your departure point until about 12
hours later.

For the most part, American capsule landings were within sight of the
recovery base. Isn't that accuracy enough?

However, wings may well have some good application to an orbital vehicle:
They can be used to change orbit planes by aeromaneuvering. That means you
dip into the atmosphere deeply enough to get some 'bite,' then deflect your
orbit aerodynamically. You'll need thrust to bring your perigee back up,
but that's a heck of a lot less than all but the most minor orbital plane
changes. So Burt might keep the wings for OrbitOne.

To me, Rutan's shuttlecock mode is an outstanding engineering solution to
ANOTHER re-entry problem....one which he might re-think, by the time he
gets to the problems of an orbital vehicle.

The Shuttlecock wasn't the only solution to the stable-reentry problem. A
split-flap system would have worked just as well, and would not have
required as wide a movement range.

But...a split-flap system would have imposed the G-loads on the occupants
in the eyeballs-out mode! In other words, the nose of the craft would be
pointing down, and the pilot would have been hanging on his straps during
5G acceleration.

Instead, in the shuttlecock mode, the nose of the vehicle is high, with the
G-loads being supported by the pilot's seat. Great solution to two
problems...

It remains to be seen whether the increased complexity of a similar system
designed for orbital re-entry will overcome the simplicity of a basic heat
shield.

By the way, NASA has "Astronauts," Russia has "Cosmonauts." We need a name
for the ordinary folks who fly on SpaceShipOne:

I hereby suggest "Commonauts" for those lucky SOBs who get to ride Burt's
space bird.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:09:46 -0500, Big John wrote:

On 23 Jun 2004 04:30:55 GMT, (Regnirps) wrote:

I don't know as I'd call Paul Allen and Rutan average joes.

I hear they put their pants on one leg at a time.

Sure, I bet Paul Allen's valet dresses him one leg at a time, just like
mine does. :-)

Ron "Off to the Drone's Club!" Wanttaja

Missed me! (Dr. Pepper - still in the glass!)

B2431 wrote:


Date: 6/23/2004 8:40 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:


Matt

My computer bombed so this may go as a dup?

I have thousands of hours in jet fighters breathing 100% oxy.

We had all kinds of electrical stuff in cockpit(s) and aircraft. High
power Radar, Radio's, etc., etc.
.

Big John
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:28:37 -0400, Matt Whiting
wrote:

Richard Lamb wrote:


In the aftermath of the Apollo 1 fire, NASA took a year (and $75 mil)
to redesign the space craft, mature their mental attitudes, and yes,
did come back with a much safer vehicle.

Yes, but I still wonder how anyone in their right might would use a
nearly pure oxygen atmosphere in a vehicle full of humans and electrical
equipment...

Matt

The difference is Apollo 1 was flooded with pure O2 where jet fighters push O2
from a LOX converter to a face mask. Big difference. The only electronics in
the mask is a microphone.

Having said that the electrical systems in Apollo 1 were poorly routed and
protected.
It was an accident waiting to happen.

Dan. U.S. Air Force, retired

Aaaaaaaaand, pure O2 pressurized at 15 PSI...

That's called a (low pressure) fuel air bomb these days.

Thanks for the note, Ron.
"Angle of Attack" is next on the list.

This is the first reference I've seen to a likely probably cause
(open connector) of the Apollo One fire.

Changing subjects abruptly...

I haven't seen all of "From the Earth to the Moon" episodes,
but I throughly enjoyed the one about the LEM.

That little monster fascinates me.

Any obsessive compulsive engineers dreamiest nightmare.

So delicate it was not possible to even stand in it (on Earth)
without dammaging it.

Probably the scariest machine ever flown...

But it never failed.

Just plain awesome work.

Richard

"Richard Lamb" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the note, Ron.
"Angle of Attack" is next on the list.

This is the first reference I've seen to a likely probably cause
(open connector) of the Apollo One fire.

Changing subjects abruptly...

I haven't seen all of "From the Earth to the Moon" episodes,
but I throughly enjoyed the one about the LEM.

Yup. I love it when the camera pulls back and there's all those pink balls
on the roof.
They are (or were) available as a boxed set of VHS tapes.
My wife bought them for me, I've watched them all several times.
They are _all_ very good. Highly recommended.

Tim Ward

On 24 Jun 2004 01:35:58 GMT, (Regnirps) wrote:

(Steve VanSickle)

This particular *design* won't work, yes, but why not the "method" (i.e.
moving surfaces to make for a "hands off" reentry)?

I suppose it can be dome somehow, but you are talking 18,000 mph instead of
3,000. If there is a way to skim along and slowly loose energy I'd love to find
it. But as it now stands, as you lose energy you start to drop into more
atmosphere and more drag and loose it faster and drop faster and more heat
and....

Anyway, an ninformed quick calculation. Kinetic energy is proportional to the
square of the velocity. So, 18,000 mph is six times faster than 3,000 mph but
you will have 36 times as much kinetic energy, which will become heat (mostly I
think).

-- Charlie Springer

You've captured a large portion of the problem.

First let me say that Hypersonics and Reentry are not my field, so
what I say is necessarily of a general nature and may miss the
details.

The higher you go the more potential energy you've got to get rid of
in re-entry. As you move from sub-orbital through low earth orbit
(Shuttle) to high earth orbit to lunar return and beyond you end up
with more and more energy to get rid of. I believe it's significantly
worse than just the additional potential energy because of increasing
orbital velocity. I defer to our resident orbit wonk on the point,
but I seem to remember that the higher your circular orbit the higher
your orbital velocity. I don't even want to think about elliptic
orbits, they make my head hurt. But the higher you go you gain
kinetic energy as well as additional potential energy. All of this
has to go to heat if you want to end up at zero velocity by the time
you reach the dirt.

Reentry trajectories are often depicted on velocity-altitude plots.
These have velocity across the x-axis and altitude going up. A
vehicle arrives at the upper edge of the atmosphere with more velocity
the higher it comes from. so it comes in the top of the plot at a
greater entry speed. If you plot the trajectories we have data for
you see that Mercury and Gemini and Apollo move progressively to the
right on the plots. They begin with more and more energy. Apollo is
the case we have with the highest entry speed and the worst
atmospheric heating problem.

As you move to the right (move from sub orbital, to higher orbits,
etc) you move into regions where the thermochemistry get more and more
difficult. As you move to the right you enter regions where Oxygen
disassociates, then Nitrogen disassociates, then ionization occurs.
SS1's Mach 3 peak velocity avoids nearly all of that. At Mach 3 the
regime is arguably not Hypersonic at all. (The boundary between
supersonic and hypersonic is not a well defined line.)

As you move faster than SS1 and into the Hypersonic regime you end up
being far more concerned with heating problems than aerodynamic ones.
As a case in point, when the shuttle burned up over Texas the peak
dynamic pressure was 75 lbs per square foot. Not much. All the
trouble came from the viscous heating at those Mach numbers.

One additional factor which bears on the shuttlecock concept is that
in the hypersonic regime the heating problem gets worse as the leading
radius of curvature gets smaller. This is why vehicles come back
blunt side forward. Never say never, but I suspect that unless they
are made of pure unobtaneum the leading edges of the shuttlecock's
"fletching" would burn right off once you got up past Mach 5 or so.

With enough ablative material you might be able to counteract this,
but as you move up in speed other techniques of attitude control will
begin to look more attractive. The ESA is planning a vehicle which
will test aerodynamic control of attitude. It's called Cheops or
something like that, and they were testing models of it in the Mach 6
tunnel while I was at von Karman last year.

--
David Munday -
Webpage: http://www.ase.uc.edu/~munday
"Adopt, Adapt, and Improve" -- Motto of the Round Table

Big John wrote:

Matt

My computer bombed so this may go as a dup?

I have thousands of hours in jet fighters breathing 100% oxy.

We had all kinds of electrical stuff in cockpit(s) and aircraft. High
power Radar, Radio's, etc., etc.

They filled the entire cockpit area with pure oxygen? I've never heard
oa a fighter aircraft designed that way. Which model are you talking about?


Matt

B2431 wrote:


Date: 6/23/2004 8:40 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:


Matt

My computer bombed so this may go as a dup?

I have thousands of hours in jet fighters breathing 100% oxy.

We had all kinds of electrical stuff in cockpit(s) and aircraft. High
power Radar, Radio's, etc., etc.
.

Big John
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:28:37 -0400, Matt Whiting
wrote:


Richard Lamb wrote:



In the aftermath of the Apollo 1 fire, NASA took a year (and $75 mil)
to redesign the space craft, mature their mental attitudes, and yes,
did come back with a much safer vehicle.

Yes, but I still wonder how anyone in their right might would use a
nearly pure oxygen atmosphere in a vehicle full of humans and electrical
equipment...

Matt


The difference is Apollo 1 was flooded with pure O2 where jet fighters push O2
from a LOX converter to a face mask. Big difference. The only electronics in
the mask is a microphone.

Having said that the electrical systems in Apollo 1 were poorly routed and
protected.
It was an accident waiting to happen.

Even without the poor electrical system design, a static discharge could
have started a fire. Having a pure oxygen environment was simply stupid
and the risk far outweighed the benefits.


Matt

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 20:59:00 -0700, "Tim Ward"
wrote:

I haven't seen all of "From the Earth to the Moon" episodes,
but I throughly enjoyed the one about the LEM.

Yup. I love it when the camera pulls back and there's all those pink balls
on the roof.
They are (or were) available as a boxed set of VHS tapes.
My wife bought them for me, I've watched them all several times.
They are _all_ very good. Highly recommended.

My in-laws bought the DVD set for me about three years back, and I've
watched 'em through at least twice already...and started a third after
reading _Angle of Attack_. When you own the set, you can't just watch one
episode.

"Spider," the one about the LEM, is my absolute favorite. It illustrates,
better than anything I could say, what it's like to work in the industry
when you get a living, breathing, metal-cutting spacecraft program.

When they showed the sequence where the Program Manager watches the crane
carry off his 'baby' to be shipped away, it looked like he was damn near
crying. Just like I was when I said goodbye to one of my 'babies.'

This was in a clean room atop the launch tower, and they were closing out
the payload fairing. I signed the clipboard (I was the company rep), then
walked away and punched the button for the elevator. The ride down was a
bit rough.

Had more fun several months earlier, when we were getting ready to ship it
from the factory. This was early in the digital photography days, and our
program had a Mk 1 digital...cost $10,000, and had all of a 1 MB array.
Pretty hot stuff at the time, though. Anyway, with a sideline of (film)
photography and a love for goofy hardware, I had ended up with a sideline
of being the program photographer.

On the day before the unit was to be encapsulated, we Team Leaders decided
to get our pictures taken next to the hardware. So we trooped to the clean
room and put on our bunny suits, booties, and mobcaps. I hauled in the
digital camera and tripod. We picked the best spot, and selected where we
were going to stand.

Then I ran into trouble. I'd taken tons of pictures with that digital, but
had never used the self-timer function. As far as I could tell, the darn
thing had only a five-second delay. Not enough for me to join my fellow
team leaders for the group shot. No one else around; and it would take
fifteen minutes to get someone into the room due to the suit-up and
pre-cleaning procedure.

So I shot a couple of the rest of the crew, then told them to wait a
moment. I triggered the timer, ran towards the group, and at the mental
count of four I jumped into the air and clicked my heels.

Turned out pretty good. Got my best side, even.

I got my own picture taken with it by one of the other guys. There was an
interesting post-script, though. When I downloaded the pictures, I found
that I had set myself up so that a certain wall poster was in the
background. It was a full-size portrait of a science fiction character.

So there I stand, next to the hardware, in bunny suit and mobcap, with
Captain Jean-Luc Picard looking disdainfully over my shoulder....


Ron Wanttaja