spaceship one

(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

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

(Frank Hitlaw) wrote in message . com...
(pacplyer) wrote in message . com...
Richard Lamb wrote
NOW (finally) we might get a better story that the
silly superficial questions asked by the news media.

How about this Richard: America has returned to manned space
launches... and it's not NASA!

We rocked around in an RV all night in 40 kt winds the night before
and were worried that the launch was going to be scrubbed. But
luckily high pressure was over the area and wind died down right
before taxi out. My friend Bubba flew Richard Branson in to Mojave in
a high dollar three blade helo and then landed him back on the top of
the theme restaurant at LAX (he just can't seem to make a low profile
entry anywhere!) William Shantner was supposedly there as well as Buzz
Aldrin. Most of the event was covered by a local FM station but they
screwed it up pretty bad so we just listened to the scanner. The wind
was still blowing stiff after t/o on top of our RV so I missed a lot
of the air to air conversation, but if anybody wants, I'll try to
narrate what I saw in detail. The test pilot community let me in on a
little secret: a major control failure occurred during launch and the
gyro Rutan used for attitude control tumbled (lost alignment.) This
caused an unplanned departure from the vertical profile. Mike M. took
over manually and saved the son of a bitch just in time! However,
this S-turn maneuver put them over 20 miles off course on the re-entry
window!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++snip++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

pacplyer

Amen Pac, did you read the press release from the May 13 flight?They
lost the platform on that flight as well. Maybe the INU just isn't up
to the sort of loads or speed they achieve.

Frank

No I didn't know that Frank, thanks. You could be right. I wonder
what Mike used for guidance reference? The sun? I'll ask my friend
who works for scaled next time I see him.

I forgot to mention that due to the wild S-turns the vehicle's apogee
topped out only 400 feet above 100K! That was according to Edwards
preliminary telemetry. That's so close I wonder if the other
contenders for the X-prize will try to challenge the data?

Another interesting fubar is the FAA issuing a new commercial license
rating to a 62 year old. He can't fly again for pay unless the fuzz
raises the mandatory retirement age above 60 for everybody! Raising
it is something the FAA has been against forever. Mike's probably
saying: "Thanks a lot FAA!" As usual, here's the government here to
help you. No wonder the guys at scaled hate big gov interference so
much. Maybe I'm wrong on this. Maybe it's under part 91 glider and
it doesn't matter. But he's rocket powered going up. WTF? Anybody
know?

pac

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

Big John wrote...

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.

But you had a mask sealed to you face (usually :-)
Cabin pressure is/was(?) usually supplied by engine bleed
air and is not 100% O2.

OTOH, I have flown with a smoker before, but he took off
his mask and shut off O2 before lighting up.

Also had a friend get a shock by a short in the lip
mike in his mask. There was some 'discussion' about
sparks and oxygen in the cockpit following that one.

Dave 'foom' Hyde

Richard Lamb wrote:

That seems like a reasonable question.
Wish I knew a reasonable answer.

For one, the shuttle comes in from much
higher and has no way to slow down _before_
reentering. The speed and angle are pretty much
fixed, so all you can do is find a way to dissipate
the heat that *will* build up. The tiles and other
thermal protection on the shuttle are (compared to
SS1) big and bulky. I suppose they could put more
TPS on SS1, but it would most likely change the
shape, pretty much requiring a new design.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Scaled
decides to go orbital, they will succeed (eventually),
and the design will be, er, revolutionary.

Dave 'ablative' Hyde

bci wrote...

"Private Spaceship Encounters Glitches in
Record-Setting Flight"

Must've been hard to close the cabin door
with b*lls that big. g

Dave 'tight fit' Hyde

Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
Ron Wanttaja wrote:

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.

I never knew that the Wright Flyer was gummint sponsored...


Matt

Looks like you (and others) missed the little "if" in Ron's post.

Harry K

Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
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

If the Russians had just informed us of their loss due to the same
problem earlier it may not have happened.

Harry K

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...

Just got done reading _Angle of Attack_, the biography of North American VP
Harrison Storms, who led the NA Apollo program. Since he got fired
(actually, transferred to headquarters) as a result of the Apollo I fire,
it goes into the situation with considerable detail.

Early in the life of the program, the decision as to what to use for air in
the cabin fell to two basic issues: The known fire danger of a pure oxygen
atmosphere, and the fact that equipment did not then exist to sense and
maintain a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.

Other than the CO2 scrubbers (needed with either scheme) all that would be
necessary for the pure-oxygen system would be a simple valve allow oxygen
into the spacecraft when the pressure dropped. With 5 PSI pressurization,
occupants have the same partial pressure of oxygen as at sea level, and the
fire danger isn't too severe. There was the rather low danger of the 5 PSI
pure 02 system, vs the potential schedule risk of the control system and
the known weight penalties of the 14 PSI N/O2 mix. North American favored
the normal-air mix, but the ultimate decision was NASA's.

Also in their proposal, North American specified an outward-opening hatch
with an explosive device to get rid of it in a hurry.

Two things worked against this part of the design. First, NASA had gained
a considerable black eye with the loss of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7.
Whether you believed that Grissom blew the hatch himself or a technical
fault caused the mechanism to fire, the basic fact was that the accident
would not have happened if an emergency eject mechanism had not been
installed.

And...according to _Angle of Attack_, the NASA manager in charge of the
Command Module program was ex-Navy. An ex-Navy submariner, in fact. And
anyone wearing dolphins will insist that pressure on a hatch should cause
it to close *tighter*. He was dead-set against an outward-opening hatch,
and his background also gave him a negative view of things like explosive
hatches.

After all, the main danger was a loss of pressurization on orbit. Either
way the hatch worked, the astronauts would be able to open it in the case
of a pad emergency. But if a hatch failed once the rocket was in orbit,
the astronauts would be dead. An inward-opening hatch was obviously less
risk, on-orbit.

So... Apollo was directed to make the hatch open inward, to not include an
emergency jettison function, and to use a pure-oxygen atmosphere (IIRC, the
pure-oxy atmosphere was NASA Change Order #1). Mercury and Gemini had used
100% oxygen systems, and no problems had occurred.

Then came the Plugs-Out test of Apollo 1.

The Plugs-Out test was basically a full test to see if all the spacecraft
systems would support launch. The crew was in place, the hatch would be
closed, the capsule would be pressurized, and all the umbilicals normally
used to connect the capsule to the pad would be disconnected.

Unfortunately, the test required the capsule to be pressurized to ensure
that everything sealed properly. Since it was on the ground, not in space,
they had to pressurize it to about two PSI over ambient. And, of course,
they used the only breathable gas aboard: 100% oxygen.

A pure-oxygen atmosphere at 5 PSI has its dangers, but a pure-oxygen
atmosphere at 16 PSI is pure horror.

No one really knows what started the fire. What I found interesting is
that the capsule wasn't completely ready for flight...some items were still
in work. For instance, one piece of cabin equipment had been removed for
repair. Its power connector was left in place, energized. It was located
in close to the area where they determined the first started: near one of
the astronaut's feet.

But whether the cause was a kicked connector, scraped insulation, or any of
the myriad other possibilities, a fire started. The crew started the
painful, awkward process of opening the inward-swinging hatch. But within
about ten seconds, the fire had built the internal pressure to the point
where the hatch could *not* have been budged...either by the crew, nor by
any of the pad support personnel with the equipment they had available.

After I read _Angle of Attack_, I re-watched the Apollo 1 fire episode of
HBO's series, "From the Earth to the Moon." The series shows Frank Borman
testifying to Congress about the fire. I don't know if the dialog used in
the series was directly from Borman's actual testimony, but one line really
rang true:

"The cause of this accident was a failure of imagination."

Everyone worried about what would happen during a failure in space, but
nobody thought about the mundane problems that might occur during a simple,
routine pad test...or how a chain of seemingly logical design decisions
could result in disaster.

Ron Wanttaja