Sea Launch out of bankruptcy

(Pat Flannery) wrote:
Pretty far-out, but one thing Russian entrepreneurs have actually looked
at is using surplus Zond technology to develop a space tourist
spacecraft based on Soyuz that could actually loop the Moon with 2-3
people aboard.
That would make Virgin Galactic look pretty lame by comparison, wouldn't
it?
You could charge one hell of a ticket price for it, and still get a lot
of takers, particularly if you could figure out a way for the tourist to
EVA as it looped the Moon and get video of them floating over the Moon's
far side.
Oh yes, if I were very rich, I would pay a _****load_ of money to take
that little trip.
That's got the ultimate bragging rights:
"I've been to the summit of Mount Everest."
"That's nice; I've been to the Moon." :-D

That would be pretty cool, indeed. I have to settle for having flown
commercial airlines a distance equal to going to the moon and back.
Fortunately, my friends are easily impressed.

--
djb@ | Dan Birchall - Observation System Associate - Subaru Telescope.
naoj | Views I express are my own, certainly not those of my employer.
..org | Why do phasers have fewer settings than Kitchenaid bowl mixers?

On 10/29/2010 12:03 AM, Dan Birchall wrote:

That would be pretty cool, indeed. I have to settle for having flown
commercial airlines a distance equal to going to the moon and back.
Fortunately, my friends are easily impressed.

Yeah? I hit 45,000 feet in a Il-62 headed for JFK from Moscow. Beat
that. :-)

Pat

(Pat Flannery) wrote:
On 10/29/2010 12:03 AM, Dan Birchall wrote:

That would be pretty cool, indeed. I have to settle for having flown
commercial airlines a distance equal to going to the moon and back.
Fortunately, my friends are easily impressed.

Yeah? I hit 45,000 feet in a Il-62 headed for JFK from Moscow. Beat
that. :-)

Again I come up short, since the control room I work is at a paltry
13,650 feet or so.

--
djb@ | Dan Birchall - Observation System Associate - Subaru Telescope.
naoj | Views I express are my own, obviously not those of my employer.
..org | Our atmospheric inversion layer keeps silly people below 3000m.

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:40:34 -0800, Pat Flannery wrote:

On 10/29/2010 12:03 AM, Dan Birchall wrote:

That would be pretty cool, indeed. I have to settle for having flown
commercial airlines a distance equal to going to the moon and back.
Fortunately, my friends are easily impressed.

Yeah? I hit 45,000 feet in a Il-62 headed for JFK from Moscow. Beat
that. :-)

50,000' (And maybe a little [1]), T-38A, out of WPAFB, circa 1979.
23,000' Schweitzer SGS 2-32, Mt Washington wave, 1978.

[1] Exceeding 50,000' without a pressure suit is contrary to regulations.

--
Pete Stickney
Failure is not an option
It comes bundled with the system

On 10/30/2010 1:07 PM, Peter Stickney wrote:

[1] Exceeding 50,000' without a pressure suit is contrary to regulations.

Somebody should have told Concorde about that. At one point they were
going to put the flight crew in pressure suits, but thought that might
send the wrong message to the passengers. :-)

Pat

On Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:41:04 -0800, Pat Flannery wrote:

On 10/30/2010 1:07 PM, Peter Stickney wrote:

[1] Exceeding 50,000' without a pressure suit is contrary to
regulations.

Somebody should have told Concorde about that. At one point they were
going to put the flight crew in pressure suits, but thought that might
send the wrong message to the passengers. :-)

That should have read, by implication, "contrary to USAF Regulations".
Concorde, like any other commercial aircraft, is able to maintain pressurization
with several window-sized leaks in the pressure hull.
It also was exempted from some of the safety requirements that are supposed to
apply to airliners. (Divert / Reserve fuel requirements on the North Atlantic run, for example.)
Since the subsonic ceiling is down around 30,000', with a serious increase in fuel burn, there's
a section in the mid-Atlantic where an engine loss means that they get to test the ditching
characteristics of a 100 passenger delta-winged glider. As it is, an engine out past Iceland
meant a landing in Gander, Newfoundland, or Bangor, Maine.
Deceleration and descent from Mach 2/60Kft is a ticklish affair, as well.
(Although operating the airplane doesn't quite need to be the Spaceship/Scifi movie
game that the crews made it out to be.)

--
Pete Stickney
Failure is not an option
It comes bundled with the system