SS1 flight set for June 21

In article ,
"Christopher M. Jones" writes:
Pat Flannery wrote:
It's good at what it's intended to do; but the thing's overall impact on
spaceflight is going to be about as important as the GeeBee racer's
impact on fighter design.

A Spitfire sure looks a hell of a lot more like a Gee Bee
than an SE5A, on the inside as well as the outside.

Nonsense. If you look at the structires of all 3, you'll see that the
SE 5 and the Gee Bee use the same techniques - fabric covering over a
truss structure for teh fuselage (Wooden truss for the SE 5, Welded
Steel Tube (Like a Fokker Eindecker) for the Gee Bee, with externally
braced woden single-spar wings (also fabric covered).
A Spitfire was an Alumin(i)um monococque structre with an all-metal
wing structure. While the wing was still a single-spar design, it
used nested Alumin(i)um channels to produce a strong and resilient
spar. (Not at all unlike a leaf spring).

Actually, a Spitfire looks a lot more like a Nortrop Alpha airliner or
the Boeing Monomail than a Gee Bee, in structural terms.

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

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:08:54 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

One of the most thoughtful and reasonable posts yet. I may steal this
next time I take on those zealots at slashdot. (I really wish more
the clued in regulars here would join in there.. Stuffie has more
common sense and intelligence than they collectively do.)

What is slashdot? I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

Peter Stickney wrote:


The one attempt to build a fighter by a manufacturer of racers, teh
Weddell-Williams XP-34, was a dismal failure.


The French tried it also with a fighter based on their Caudron racer;
but it didn't work that well either.
http://www.geocities.com/lastdingo/aviation/c714.htm

Pat

In article , says...
In article ,
Joe Strout writes:
- first manned vehicle with a hybrid rocket motor
And what differences are there between the hybrid motor for SS1 and
other hybrids? None, that I've seen.

Sometimes good engineering is realizing that off-the-shelf components
are good enough.


- first rocket plane to use innovative "shuttlecock" configuration for
stable re-entry

That is nifty, and it's a good example of Rutan's approach to things -
Burt's very good at finding simple solutions to single-point
problems.

Yep!


but it's not applicable to anything but this particular point case,
where the vehicle is reentering at a low speed, and steep angle. It's
not going to work for the delicate balance of drag, heating and lift
that is a lifting reentry for an orbital vehicle.

On the other hand, by demonstrating that Burt's very good at finding
simple solutions to single-point problems, this gives better confidence
in his ability to find a simple solution to the single point problem of
reentry from orbit. I've certainly got more confidence in Rutan's
ability to deorbit a spacecraft than anyone else who's never done it!
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 21:22:03 -0500, "Christopher M. Jones"
wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:
It's good at what it's intended to do; but the thing's overall impact on
spaceflight is going to be about as important as the GeeBee racer's
impact on fighter design.

A Spitfire sure looks a hell of a lot more like a Gee Bee
than an SE5A, on the inside as well as the outside.

I think it looks more like the Hughes Racer, myself. Well, except for
the wing planform, being elliptical.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

In article ,
(Henry Spencer) writes:
In article ,
Peter Stickney wrote:
...If the goal is to get instruments to that height, Sounding
Rockets are a much more economical and safer...

You might try pricing sounding rockets sometime -- they are not cheap. As
for "safer", that's a word with many definitions. Sounding rockets are a
good deal less safe for both the payload and the innocent bystanders --
that's why cargo aircraft have pilots, to keep the cargo and the people
on the ground safe.

And a "Sounding" SS1 mission isn't going to be cheap, either. You're
talking about at least 4 aircraft (SS1, White knight, White Knight's
safety chase, and SS1's Safety Chase), special clearances, and, as OSC
has found, restrictions to the same ranges currently used for ground
launches. For all that, you get the performace of a Terrier-Orion, or
a Black Brant. A Black Brant launch costs, something like $200,000.00,
all up. That's rather hard to beat. I won't dispute that you've got
a higher chance of a vehicle failure with an unmanned system - that's
one of the tradeoffs. But what's actually lost - a surplus rocket
motor, a simple airframe, and an automated experiment. While that
would stink for your particular project, metal doesn't bleed.
(And is the risk really that high? Black Brant's success record is
about 98%, the same as the Shuttle or Soyuz.)

I'm not, BTW, claiming this as a point for unmanned vs. manned Space
Exploration. It's just that in the context of a ballistic, short
duration 100 Km flight, I don't see what the advantages are - we don't
put people in Bathythermograph buoys to plumb the Ocean Depths, nor do
we put people in the remote weather reporting stations used in the
Antarctic, or teh Large Navigational Buoys set mid-Ocean.

What, actually, is the risk to teh uninvolved public (Innocent
Bystanders) from a Sounding Rocket launch? I've not heard of any
problems. To believe that the existance of SS1 would meant that
they'd be allowed to operate over anything but a range cleared to
similar standards as used today seems misplaced. While the technical
capability may be there, the Regulators aren't going to allow it.
Look at OSC's experience. Hell - given the Sonic Boom restrictions in
both the U.S. and Canada, the only place where an SS1 flight that
isn't over one of the cleared ranges is, is a narroe corridor over the
middle of Lake Superior.

That's differnt than a cargo airplane. Airplanes fly all over the
place, including places where there are people underneath. A
suborbital launch is more like that of a UAV or Drone. Those _are_
restricted to a particualr area, and they aren't allowed to mix with
the rest of the traffic.

(As in no Pilot Risk with no Pilot)

And this matters... why, exactly? Again, why is this so different from
a cargo aircraft?

Becasue Cargo Aircraft require a flexibility both in operation and
destination that isn't necessary or feasible with a suborbital, short
duration flight. If you can't accomplish any more from an SS1
sounding flight than you can with one of the current rockets, which
don't risk more people, than why would you add to the risk?

I think that that's what it boils down to - What advantage would SS1,
with its very limited flight profile, provide over the current crop of
sounding rockets? At this point, I don't see any.

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

Mary Shafer wrote:
What is slashdot? I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is.

Consider yourself lucky. Sometimes the news they
post is halfway decent, but the comments are just a
tar pit you don't want to ever bother with.

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:08:54 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

One of the most thoughtful and reasonable posts yet. I may steal this
next time I take on those zealots at slashdot. (I really wish more
the clued in regulars here would join in there.. Stuffie has more
common sense and intelligence than they collectively do.)

What is slashdot? I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is.

Mary

http://slashdot.org
"News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Columbia Loss FAQ:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Mary Shafer wrote:

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:08:54 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:


One of the most thoughtful and reasonable posts yet. I may steal this
next time I take on those zealots at slashdot. (I really wish more
the clued in regulars here would join in there.. Stuffie has more
common sense and intelligence than they collectively do.)


What is slashdot? I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is.

Mary



www.slashdot.org

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 14:21:00 -0500, Herb Schaltegger
wrote:

http://slashdot.org
"News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

Thank you. I went and looked. I don't even know what two-thirds of
that stuff is about. I guess I'm the wrong kind of nerd.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer