SS1 success reported widely

In addition to the usual outlets (Yahoo, etc), the appearent success
of this morning's flight even made it to the Peter Tilden Morning Show
on KZLA. The "Five Things You Need To Know to Be Smarter Then Your
Friends" segment features 5 selections from the wire service, and
today they lead off with the SS1 story, including a paraphrase of
X-Prize officials saying that "it looks like they did it".

Is the early morning time of the trials just because Rutan can't
sleep, or is there a technical reason, such as atmospheric density?
Or are they just making the launch window as big as possible, and
haven't had any delays at this point?

/dps

(almost posted with the subject line saying "retorted widely", which
may be a Freudian reference to celebrating with champagne)

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:31:42 -0500, in a place far, far away,
(dave schneider) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Is the early morning time of the trials just because Rutan can't
sleep, or is there a technical reason, such as atmospheric density?
Or are they just making the launch window as big as possible, and
haven't had any delays at this point?

That's the most likely time for low wind conditions. It can get very
windy in the afternoon.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:31:42 -0500, in a place far, far away,
(dave schneider) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Is the early morning time of the trials just because Rutan can't
sleep, or is there a technical reason, such as atmospheric density?
Or are they just making the launch window as big as possible, and
haven't had any delays at this point?

That's the most likely time for low wind conditions. It can get very
windy in the afternoon.

Hmmm, yes. In fact, I was discussing that yesterday as we scudded
across Long Beach Harbor.

There is a second lull, but it tends to be accompanied by decreasing
light levels, making optical tracking more difficult until you've made
a substantial climb.

Thanks!

/dps

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:31:42 -0500, (dave
schneider) wrote:

Is the early morning time of the trials just because Rutan can't
sleep, or is there a technical reason, such as atmospheric density?
Or are they just making the launch window as big as possible, and
haven't had any delays at this point?

Turbulence and density altitude. Mostly turbulence. We try to fly
everything early in the desert in the summer.

It also gives the maximum daylight for SAR, I suppose, but I doubt if
that's a conscious motive.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

In article ,
(dave schneider) writes:
In addition to the usual outlets (Yahoo, etc), the appearent success
of this morning's flight even made it to the Peter Tilden Morning Show
on KZLA. The "Five Things You Need To Know to Be Smarter Then Your
Friends" segment features 5 selections from the wire service, and
today they lead off with the SS1 story, including a paraphrase of
X-Prize officials saying that "it looks like they did it".

Is the early morning time of the trials just because Rutan can't
sleep, or is there a technical reason, such as atmospheric density?
Or are they just making the launch window as big as possible, and
haven't had any delays at this point?

Things are a lot smoother, at lower altitudes, in the early morning
and late evening. Most of the air motion that gets felt as turbulence
come from convection heating of various parts of the surface (The
darker stuff heats up more than the light stuff - warm air rises, &
cooler air from the lighter surroundings rushes in, & so forth & so
on) With a light unpowered critter like SS1, that could make quite a
difference.
It might also affect the performance of White Knight (The carrier
airplane) While the temperature above the Tropopause is stable, and
things are pretty smooth, modulo the occasional standing wave, which
can reach higher than 70,000', the height of the Tropopause can vary,
somewhat, due to local conditions. In general, a cooler & lower
Tropopause is better for a jet airplane's performance, but that
depends on what you're trying to do.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Turbulence and density altitude. Mostly turbulence. We try to fly
everything early in the desert in the summer.

Except sailplanes :-) We wait for the heat and "turbulence" of the day.

Some pics I took from a sailplane overhead Mojave Spaceport when I
visited the USA for the June SS1 flight:

http://www.hoult.org/bruce/MojaveJun...ges/Image15.ht
ml

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

In sci.space.policy Bruce Hoult wrote:
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Turbulence and density altitude. Mostly turbulence. We try to fly
everything early in the desert in the summer.


Side benefit - better images through the tracking cameras. Clyde
Tombaugh spent some time in the late 1940s(?) convincing the
management at White Sands that they should do their anti-aircraft
missile tests at dawn so his telescopic pictures would show in detail
how everything went, rather than uninformative coalescence
of blurs.


Bill Keel

That's the most likely time for low wind conditions. It can get very
windy in the afternoon.

It was not very windy today at all there. Ansari just said on CNN that
she and her husband will be two of the first ten passengers on space
ship one.