spaceship one

Harry K wrote:

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

No, I didn't miss it and I doubt the others did either. The comparison
was time delta of the first GOVERNMENT sponsored flight of a spacecraft
to the first private one. If the same timescale was applied to
conventional airplanes, you would be comparing the first GOVERNMENT
sponsored flight of a conventional airplane to the first private one.
Backing 40 years off of 1943 yields 1903, which is NOT when the first
GOVERNMENT sponsored airplane flew successfully, so the comparison is
completely invalid.

Matt

Harry K wrote:

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.

That's the lamest excuse I've heard lately. If we hadn't made a stupid
design decision it wouldn't have happened. Who knows, maybe we were
copying the Russians.


Matt

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 04:50:24 GMT, (David
Munday) wrote:

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...

Hmmfff. Weren't referring to me, I hope. :-)

I ain't really an orbit type, though I've picked up a bit over the years.

Anyway, you do have it backwards...orbital velocity decreases with circular
orbit altitude. ~25,200 FPS at 200 nm, ~10,100 FPS at geosynchronous
altitude (~19320 NM).

You're right about the potential energy, though. Dropping from
geosynchronous altitude to ground level, you'll hit the atmosphere at over
23,000 miles per hour. And if you're an old-timer like BOb, you'll have
the turn-signal flashing the entire way....

Ron Wanttaja

(David Munday)

snip

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.

snip

David Munday -
Webpage: http://www.ase.uc.edu/~munday

I believe the shuttle comes in pointed end first albeit nose high.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 01:06:23 -0400, Matt Whiting
wrote:


No, I didn't miss it and I doubt the others did either. The comparison
was time delta of the first GOVERNMENT sponsored flight of a spacecraft
to the first private one. If the same timescale was applied to
conventional airplanes, you would be comparing the first GOVERNMENT
sponsored flight of a conventional airplane to the first private one.
Backing 40 years off of 1943 yields 1903, which is NOT when the first
GOVERNMENT sponsored airplane flew successfully, so the comparison is
completely invalid.

The purpose of the comparison was merely to illustrate the time spans
involved, not to try to contrast the difference between government vs.
private efforts. A less controversial comparison would have been along the
lines of "...it was as if no else other than the Wright brothers had been
technically capable of building an airplane until 1943."

Rutan's achievement is tremendous, but let's not forget, he's standing on
the shoulders of giants. SpaceShipOne's success is due to Rutan's
brilliant combining of today's cutting-edge technology. He probably has
more computing power on his desktop than NASA had in 1960. There wasn't
any wind-tunnel testing done on SpaceShipOne; it was all done on a
computer.

Yet, barely ten years ago, the first flight of an improved launch vehicle
failed because the aerodynamic models used weren't accurate enough. That
company trusted the computer model and didn't do any wind tunnel testing.
The launch vehicle and satellite end up in the drink. Oops.

Burt Rutan was fully aware of this instance...after all, his company built
part of that rocket's structure (which was in *no* way involved in the
failure). Yet, in ten short years, modeling capabilities have improved to
the point where he felt confident in risking a manned flight on
computational data only.

Rutan did one heck of a job, but some folks in this newsgroup have used it
as an excuse to sneer at the people who developed some of the technologies
that made it possible. If suborbital space flight was so doggone easy, the
first private space launch would have been four years after the X-15, not
forty.

Ron Wanttaja

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 23:16:51 -0700, wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 05:28:59 GMT, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

::
:You're right about the potential energy, though. Dropping from
:geosynchronous altitude to ground level, you'll hit the atmosphere at over
:23,000 miles per hour. And if you're an old-timer like BOb, you'll have
:the turn-signal flashing the entire way....

I wish someone would revive Moose
http://www.boggsspace.com/strange_but_true.htm

A moose bit my sister once...

Ron "The person responsible for this quote has been sacked" Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

Anyway, you do have it backwards...orbital velocity decreases with circular
orbit altitude. ~25,200 FPS at 200 nm, ~10,100 FPS at geosynchronous
altitude (~19320 NM).

You're right about the potential energy, though. Dropping from
geosynchronous altitude to ground level, you'll hit the atmosphere at over
23,000 miles per hour. And if you're an old-timer like BOb, you'll have
the turn-signal flashing the entire way....

Ron Wanttaja

So?
To catch up with the guy in front of you, you first slow down?

From: Matt Whiting
Date: 6/24/2004 12:07 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

Harry K wrote:

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.

That's the lamest excuse I've heard lately. If we hadn't made a stupid
design decision it wouldn't have happened. Who knows, maybe we were
copying the Russians.


Matt


Matt, the Soviets had a flash fire in a capsule (during a mission if memory
serves) with fatal results. The Soviets never mentioned it and it occured prior
to Apollo 1. Maybe NASA could have learned from that.

Please reread what was written, no one was blaming the Soviets for Apollo 1.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Ron Wanttaja wrote...

A moose bit my sister once...

Why not try a holiday in Sweden this year?

Dave 'fruit bats and breakfast cereals' Hyde

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

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.

Can't they be "Space"men? er. Spacepeople, what was I thinking... G