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#1
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Dear Dr. Strangewater
Hey Dr. Bad
Twice now from my house over the last decade, we lucked out and watched a rocket launch right at sunset out of Van. God it was awesome! I live on a skypark and both times we were drinking beer watching the sun go down in my back yard, which is about 400' from rwy 25 and then: what a show. We always stand out there, telling lies, watching the amazing variety of bugsmashing machines try to negotiate our desert runway; which as luck would have it, is immediately following my 16 ft hangar that everybody hates (They don't blame me; I didn't build it.) Great shows by legends in their own minds and luckier than can be believed dweebs and students assures constant entertainment every night. My legal (by four feet) hangar is the great private pilot equalizer. But back to the topic! The first shot the upper level wind took and distorted the contrail for the following half hour or so: Twisted and spread the sucker like a basket of snakes all over the sky. Man it was something. Then, a few months ago the ICBM test went off towards the pacific. That one was the best (zero wind.) We were all standing out there unaware again (as airport drunks, er bums often are) and then all of a sudden, here comes this asshole with a really bright landing light head-on against the landing traffic! I told my buddy Ron, the skypark president, Oh Oh watch this, Ron, this asshole's going to do a high-speed pass opposing landing traffic! In the clear desert air, staring right into the sunset it's tough to judge distances. Sun had just gone down, so it made sense that moron here, who was going to scatter the traffic, flipped his light on cuz he was coming from the west. But as seconds went by, it became apparent as he got closer to us that he was really packing a wallop! I thought: oh yeah! a green-eared test pilot that's going to buzz the joint cuz his commander's away! (we get a show like that every blue moon.) And then he started trailing smoke real bad and then it hit all of us: a rocket out of Van. God it lumbered slowly upward. All of us broke out into ****-eating grins while the women gasped and shrieked. Then it bent over for the pacific (from our persp.) and penetrated out of the atmosphere. A huge neon-iridescent lavender umbrella opened up that looked kind of like the first volcano image of Io. It sat there glowing for nearly an hour and reminded me of the aurora borealis. Now Dr. Strangewater, what the hell was that all about? Was it propellant? Charged ion? What? Then tell us some rocket accounts and use: "following is all fictional" preceding the story to quell any jealous trolls/dweebs. Your pal, pacplyer |
#3
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John Ousterhout wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 15:11:41 GMT, (Badwater Bill) wrote: On 15 Aug 2003 11:17:40 -0700, (pac plyer) wrote: Hey Dr. Bad Twice now from my house over the last decade, we lucked out and watched a rocket launch right at sunset out of Van. If you'd have been to our last Jean Fly in, you'd have witnessed a Vandenberg launch that evening too. A few photos that I took of that spectacular rocket launch are near the bottom of the page at: http://www.jouster.0catch.com/jean-99.html - John Ousterhout - Nice shots John, looks like you guys had fun. Let me know if you guys have another reunion, need to sight in my mini-30. Best regards, pacplyer |
#4
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On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 09:58:35 -0700, John Ousterhout
wrote: On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 15:11:41 GMT, (Badwater Bill) wrote: On 15 Aug 2003 11:17:40 -0700, (pac plyer) wrote: Hey Dr. Bad Twice now from my house over the last decade, we lucked out and watched a rocket launch right at sunset out of Van. If you'd have been to our last Jean Fly in, you'd have witnessed a Vandenberg launch that evening too. A few photos that I took of that spectacular rocket launch are near the bottom of the page at: http://www.jouster.0catch.com/jean-99.html - John Ousterhout - Thanks John for putting that up. You'll notice the effect I was discussing about the gasses expanding once the rocket is virtually outside of the atmosphere. What I find interesting is this happens relatively quickly, like there is some kind of demarcation line of the upper atmosphere where you are in it, then in a quantum jump you are outside of it and the gasses begin expanding without bound. I've watched these launches for years and they all are about the same. Before I saw one of these 30 years ago I would have figured that the demarcation of the upper atmosphere would have been more an analog event than a digital jump as it seems to be. In the second and third shots there you'll notice an effect of either four nozzels or some kind of thrust director in the main nozzel pushing the gasses symetrically out in 4 quadrants. I wonder what this is? Anybody know what's going on? BWB |
#5
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Badwater Bill wrote:
In the second and third shots there you'll notice an effect of either four nozzels or some kind of thrust director in the main nozzel pushing the gasses symetrically out in 4 quadrants. I wonder what this is? Anybody know what's going on? What kind of launch vehicle was it? Perhaps it had fins (presumably 4) that were causing a trailing vortex, and those votices were shaping the propellant gases? Russell Kent |
#6
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#7
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#8
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(Badwater Bill) wrote in message . ..
Not knowing the particular vehicle, we can only speculate, but it's fairly common to use verniers - nozzles mounted at an angle - for steering and control. Fins don't do much at that altitude. That's what I was thinking. It was a minuteman rocket. Does the Minuteman have four nozzels? Not according to this: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/engines/eng66.htm Other launch photos: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/rocket.html http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp/msls-ift-3-3.htm shows the X-shaped plume According to this: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-30.html the Minuteman has a single engine in each stage. That's all I can find. The photo at earthlink confirms the X-shaped exhaust, but I can't find a reason for it. But hey - this is interesting (adding 'steering' to the google search-term list) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/space-.../message/32302 : ""The Rocket" by David Baker say Nitrogen Tetroxide ... is injected into the SRB nozzle to change the shockwave pattern and therefore the exhaust plume to give a limited thrust-vectoring for steering. " So maybe that's it! |
#9
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""The Rocket" by David Baker say Nitrogen Tetroxide ... is injected into the SRB nozzle to change the shockwave pattern and therefore the exhaust plume to give a limited thrust-vectoring for steering. " So maybe that's it! Maybe that's it. If you look at an old Redstone rocket you see those two metal-plate (and movable) thrust deflectors placed directly in the exhaust at 90 degree angles from one another. That separates the exhaust into four quadrants and would cause this effect of the "X" shaped exhaust I'm guessing. What do you other rocket guys think? Bill |
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