How high is space

Brad Guth wrote:
"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote in message
ups.com

Yes brad the iss orbital altitudes give the crew members the unique
perspective to conduct observations of earth's aurora that we get on
earths surface, but they are in an area of higher probability for
radiation exposure one of the negative effects of space travel. Please
see below website, where you will find Expedition 6, science officers
Don Pettit's observations and descriptions, which is one of the
benefits of humans orbiting earth as they are able to describe the
earth below in ways that unmanned space craft cannot.

Thanks so much, as I didn't realize that a human eye was so much better
in dynamic range and spectrum than those wussy CCDs and many other
methods of photon detections.

Does our NASA know about this?

BTW; you mentioned absolutely nothing about ISS having to avoid that
pesky SAA zone of death. Was that intentional?
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Interesting statement brad, you see the science including atmospheric
studies, and bioastronautics that is currently being done in low earth
orbit is important to understanding the earth, and human exposure to
space. Now, image capturing devices such as digital cameras and film
cameras do not properly represent the color spectrum as seen through
the human eye (ie the devices color gamut limitations and differences
from the human eye), and given the fact specific colors correlate to
specific energy transitions, human observations are extremely important
to reproducing those colors most accurately. The images and
descriptions taken by crew members of the iss, help increase our
understanding of the energy transitions that occur in earth's
atmosphere, so let me paste the whole page and you will better
understand how humans and technology conduct science together. So as
the original question to this thread asked (what is the edge of space
?), therefore posting the observations of crew members looking at the
atmosphere, or edge of space from a different perspective other than
what have on earths surface might help answer the question.

wrote: " What is the edge of space? I know
peeps think space is 150 miles up or 200 miles up when you go up in a
rocket, but what is the OFFICIAL edge of the earth atmosphere? Does
international astronomical union have accepted definition of where the
atmosphere ends and your in space."

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/...onicles12.html
"Expedition Six
Space Chronicles #12
By: ISS Science Officer Don Pettit
Auroras
"If Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, had a sister she would be the
goddess of Aurora. Aurora is nothing short of occipital ecstasy.
Glowing green ripples form concaved arcs that constantly transform
their shape into new glowing diaphanous forms. There is nothing static
about aurora. It is always moving, always changing, and like
snowflakes, each display is different from the last. Sometimes, there
is a faint touch of red layered above the green. There are bright spots
within the arcs that come and go at a whim. These bright spots will
transform into upward directed rays topped by feathery red structures.
Sometimes there will be six or more rays, sometimes none at all. Red is
not always seen but when it is, it usually lies above the green.
Most of the auroral light is emitted by oxygen atoms excited from
bombardment by charged solar particles. Charged particles consisting of
atomic fragments released by the sun and streaming through space
intersect Earth's magnetic field. When a charged particle moves through
a magnetic field, a force perpendicular to the motion is created and
that force diverts the particle into a spiral path until it collides
with atoms in the upper atmosphere. These collisions excite the atoms
into emitting light, much like electrons pumped inside of a glass tube
filled with neon create a light that says "NO VACANCY." The green is
centered around the 558 nanometer line of oxygen while the rarer red is
emitted around several lines in the 630 nanometer region.
Aurora follows Earth's magnetic field, thus it is seen more frequently
on the Canadian side of the hemisphere than the Siberian side due to
the north magnetic pole lying in the proximity of Hudson Bay. It seems
to be at its peak 180 degrees from the sun. Thus when your orbit
coincides with local midnight at high latitudes, you will be rewarded
by turning down the lights and looking out a north-facing window.
The edge-on view in the upper atmosphere allows height scales to be
estimated. Using the atmosphere as a ruler where its edge is taken to
be about 50 kilometers in altitude, the green emissions extend from the
ever present thin-shell of airglow at 2 atmospheric thicknesses to
perhaps 6 atmospheric thicknesses. That would place them in the 100 to
300 km range. The red emissions are at higher altitudes. They lie on
top of the green and extend beyond that layer by about 4 atmospheric
thicknesses, thus placing them in the 300 to 500 km range.
Aurora forms large concaved arcs 30 to 70 degrees along the visible
horizon with well-defined edges. From this large scale arc smaller
curtain-like structures extend in southerly directions. One time the
space station flew through one of these curtains while over northern
Canada near local midnight. Glowing green lines, some curvy like a
doodle on a scrap of paper and some spotted like a connect-the-dot
drawing were seen while looking through a nadir-viewing window. We were
most definitely above the aurora looking down onto the structure.
A glance through the north-facing window was a sight to behold. It was
as if we were in a dimly glowing fog of red. It was like you had been
shrunk down to some miniature dimension and inserted into the tube of a
neon sign. And it was just on the other side of the windowpane. You
wanted to reach out and touch, but of course you could not. Afterwards,
I had to clean a nose print off of the window.
Our orbital altitude was 388 km. These observations of emission
altitudes are consistent with the simple atmospheric ruler method for
determining their height. For a few days, viewing geometry was such
that we could see both aurora and the setting sun terminator at the
same time. This occipital treat gave both the sunlit horizon with its
iridescent layers of orange and blue and the glowing greens from the
auroral arc. It was as if Iris and her sister of the night were having
a brief conversation.
Green aurora was visible in the blackness above the sunlit atmosphere.
Above the terminator, the fuzzy line that demarks day from night, at
about the same altitude as our orbit, was a glowing cloud of red
aurora. No green emissions were visible near by, and the red emissions
seemed to follow the path of the terminator as it moved westward until
it was no longer in sight. I stared as if star-struck. Aurora, out of
all other natural phenomena, is the most deserving of goddess stature
and makes the sheer beauty of Venus pale by comparison."

tom

columbiaaccidentinvestigation wrote:

Brad Guth wrote:"Whatever I may "lack of communications skills" I more
than make up byway of sharing the truth and nothing but the truth. How
about yourself?"

Hey brad, you're insults, and hypocritical words are not important to
me as they are typed by you under you're own free will, and therefore
demonstrate your own words of choice, an action which simply detracts
from effectively communicating you're ideas in writing, which is
something that further compounds you're frustration. Now brad if
you really wanted to increase peoples knowledge by explaining the
benefits of a particular location in space (much less alleviate your
frustration), then just do it by acting civil, without bias, and
without boosting you're own ego, all of which will help you
communicate you're ideas more effectively to the reader.


Forget it. We've tried. *I've* tried. What Brad calls 'taboo' is
merely the unwillingness of others to argue the same facts, over and
over, and slide into the same things you're experiencing.

(BTW, I think you want 'your' [posessive] not 'you're' [the
contraction of 'you are'])

Killfiling (if you can) or simply ignoring (if you can't) is SO much
less stressful...

--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

Frank Glover wrote:
columbiaaccidentinvestigation wrote:

Brad Guth wrote:"Whatever I may "lack of communications skills" I more
than make up byway of sharing the truth and nothing but the truth. How
about yourself?"

Hey brad, you're insults, and hypocritical words are not important to
me as they are typed by you under you're own free will, and therefore
demonstrate your own words of choice, an action which simply detracts
from effectively communicating you're ideas in writing, which is
something that further compounds you're frustration. Now brad if
you really wanted to increase peoples knowledge by explaining the
benefits of a particular location in space (much less alleviate your
frustration), then just do it by acting civil, without bias, and
without boosting you're own ego, all of which will help you
communicate you're ideas more effectively to the reader.


Forget it. We've tried. *I've* tried. What Brad calls 'taboo' is
merely the unwillingness of others to argue the same facts, over and
over, and slide into the same things you're experiencing.

(BTW, I think you want 'your' [posessive] not 'you're' [the
contraction of 'you are'])

Killfiling (if you can) or simply ignoring (if you can't) is SO much
less stressful...

--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

Hey frank thank you for the syntax correction, but I do not believe in
the concept of killfile as it is a readers' choice whether to believe
an author or not in science, and to suspend disbelief in other types of
reading. Any way back to brad

Interesting statement brad, you see the science including atmospheric
studies, and bioastronautics that is currently being done in low earth
orbit is important to understanding the earth, and human exposure to
space. Now, image capturing devices such as digital cameras and film
cameras do not properly represent the color spectrum as seen through
the human eye (ie the devices color gamut limitations and differences
from the human eye), and given the fact specific colors correlate to
specific energy transitions, human observations are extremely important
to reproducing those colors most accurately. The images and
descriptions taken by crew members of the iss, help increase our
understanding of the energy transitions that occur in earth's
atmosphere, so let me paste the whole page and you will better
understand how humans and technology conduct science together. So as
the original question to this thread asked (what is the edge of space
?), therefore posting the observations of crew members looking at the
atmosphere, or edge of space from a different perspective other than
what have on earths surface might help answer the question.

wrote: " What is the edge of space? I know
peeps think space is 150 miles up or 200 miles up when you go up in a
rocket, but what is the OFFICIAL edge of the earth atmosphere? Does
international astronomical union have accepted definition of where the
atmosphere ends and your in space."

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/...onicles12.html
"Expedition Six
Space Chronicles #12
By: ISS Science Officer Don Pettit
Auroras
"If Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, had a sister she would be the
goddess of Aurora. Aurora is nothing short of occipital ecstasy.
Glowing green ripples form concaved arcs that constantly transform
their shape into new glowing diaphanous forms. There is nothing static
about aurora. It is always moving, always changing, and like
snowflakes, each display is different from the last. Sometimes, there
is a faint touch of red layered above the green. There are bright spots
within the arcs that come and go at a whim. These bright spots will
transform into upward directed rays topped by feathery red structures.
Sometimes there will be six or more rays, sometimes none at all. Red is
not always seen but when it is, it usually lies above the green.
Most of the auroral light is emitted by oxygen atoms excited from
bombardment by charged solar particles. Charged particles consisting of
atomic fragments released by the sun and streaming through space
intersect Earth's magnetic field. When a charged particle moves through
a magnetic field, a force perpendicular to the motion is created and
that force diverts the particle into a spiral path until it collides
with atoms in the upper atmosphere. These collisions excite the atoms
into emitting light, much like electrons pumped inside of a glass tube
filled with neon create a light that says "NO VACANCY." The green is
centered around the 558 nanometer line of oxygen while the rarer red is
emitted around several lines in the 630 nanometer region.
Aurora follows Earth's magnetic field, thus it is seen more frequently
on the Canadian side of the hemisphere than the Siberian side due to
the north magnetic pole lying in the proximity of Hudson Bay. It seems
to be at its peak 180 degrees from the sun. Thus when your orbit
coincides with local midnight at high latitudes, you will be rewarded
by turning down the lights and looking out a north-facing window.
The edge-on view in the upper atmosphere allows height scales to be
estimated. Using the atmosphere as a ruler where its edge is taken to
be about 50 kilometers in altitude, the green emissions extend from the
ever present thin-shell of airglow at 2 atmospheric thicknesses to
perhaps 6 atmospheric thicknesses. That would place them in the 100 to
300 km range. The red emissions are at higher altitudes. They lie on
top of the green and extend beyond that layer by about 4 atmospheric
thicknesses, thus placing them in the 300 to 500 km range.
Aurora forms large concaved arcs 30 to 70 degrees along the visible
horizon with well-defined edges. From this large scale arc smaller
curtain-like structures extend in southerly directions. One time the
space station flew through one of these curtains while over northern
Canada near local midnight. Glowing green lines, some curvy like a
doodle on a scrap of paper and some spotted like a connect-the-dot
drawing were seen while looking through a nadir-viewing window. We were
most definitely above the aurora looking down onto the structure.
A glance through the north-facing window was a sight to behold. It was
as if we were in a dimly glowing fog of red. It was like you had been
shrunk down to some miniature dimension and inserted into the tube of a
neon sign. And it was just on the other side of the windowpane. You
wanted to reach out and touch, but of course you could not. Afterwards,
I had to clean a nose print off of the window.
Our orbital altitude was 388 km. These observations of emission
altitudes are consistent with the simple atmospheric ruler method for
determining their height. For a few days, viewing geometry was such
that we could see both aurora and the setting sun terminator at the
same time. This occipital treat gave both the sunlit horizon with its
iridescent layers of orange and blue and the glowing greens from the
auroral arc. It was as if Iris and her sister of the night were having
a brief conversation.
Green aurora was visible in the blackness above the sunlit atmosphere.
Above the terminator, the fuzzy line that demarks day from night, at
about the same altitude as our orbit, was a glowing cloud of red
aurora. No green emissions were visible near by, and the red emissions
seemed to follow the path of the terminator as it moved westward until
it was no longer in sight. I stared as if star-struck. Aurora, out of
all other natural phenomena, is the most deserving of goddess stature
and makes the sheer beauty of Venus pale by comparison."

tom

"Eric Chomko" wrote:

:
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: "Eric Chomko" wrote:
:
: :
: :Fred J. McCall wrote:
: : (Henry Spencer) wrote:
: :
: : :In article . com,
: : : wrote:
: : :What is the edge of space? I know peeps think space is 150 miles up or
: : :200 miles up when you go up in a rocket, but what is the OFFICIAL edge
: : :of the earth atmosphere? Does international astronomical union have
: : :accepted definition of where the atmosphere ends and your in space.
: : :
: : :With only one real exception, pretty much everybody accepts 100km as the
: : fficial boundary of space.
: : :
: : :Unfortunately, the holdout is the US government. Trouble was, the 100km
: : roposal came from (among others) the Soviets, so the US position was to
: : ppose the establishment of a standard boundary. Hence confusion even
: : :within the US government as to whether the boundary is 50 miles, 100km,
: : :350,000ft, or something else.
: :
: : I think you've got this wrong, Henry. I suspect that the 'opposition'
: : amounted to us already having a line we considered the 'boundary' and
: : that we don't use kilometers here (so going for a nice round number of
: : kilometers carries little weight).
: :
: :Nonsense! In science among many other things we do in fact use metric.
: :In cases like kilometers is is usually folled by miles in parenthesis.
:
: 'We' implies 'Joe Average' in everyday life, you silly ****. I'm sure
: somewhere we could find someone using barleycorns and fortnights, too,
: but that doesn't mean we 'use it' here.
:
:Yes, I get you being average.

As usual, Eric reads things that aren't there. Consequently, I guess
we can 'get' him being far below average.

: : Note that there is only around 17 kilometers difference between the
: : two definitions. The is the difference between an air pressure of
: : 0.00306119 kPa and 0.000758814 kPa.
: :
: : Note that for the US definition the 'terminal velocity' is a bit over
: : Mach 24 (approaching escape velocity). For the EU definition the same
: : value is almost Mach 46 (well over escape velocity).
: :
: : Seems to me that the US definition makes more sense from a physical
: : perspective and that the EU definition was just selected as a nice
: : round number.
: :
: :The OT asked for a distance from earth that was the beginning of space
: :not what the escape velocity was from Earth.
:
: And which is better, Eric, a line defined by what are essentially
: physical properties having to do with when you are no longer bound to
: Earth or "well, 100 is a nice round number..."?
:
:Funny when it comes to ROI you like percentage vs. something closer to
:the physical.

I 'like' it because that's the definition, Eric. I even gave you a
page in an accounting text to go look it up.

:IOW, you tend to contradict yourself just try prove you
:are smarter than the other poster.

IOW, you make **** up and then act as if your delusions are reality.

:Too bad I caught you in your little
:game.

Too bad for you. Just makes you look even stupider.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Frank Glover" wrote in message


Killfiling (if you can) or simply ignoring (if you can't) is SO much
less stressful...

Silly boy. Why didn't you and others of your kind "killfile" our
resident LLPOF warlord(GW Bush)?
-
Brad Guth




--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Why are you folks so deathly afraid of our moon's L1?

Isn't that interactive L1 zone as empty of accessable space and of the
least possible gravity that's most easily sustainable?
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote in message
oups.com

Interesting statement brad, you see the science including atmospheric
studies, and bioastronautics that is currently being done in low earth
orbit is important to understanding the earth, and human exposure to
space. Now, image capturing devices such as digital cameras and film
cameras do not properly represent the color spectrum as seen through
the human eye (ie the devices color gamut limitations and differences
from the human eye), and given the fact specific colors correlate to
specific energy transitions, human observations are extremely important
to reproducing those colors most accurately. The images and
descriptions taken by crew members of the iss, help increase our
understanding of the energy transitions that occur in earth's
atmosphere, so let me paste the whole page and you will better
understand how humans and technology conduct science together. So as
the original question to this thread asked (what is the edge of space
?), therefore posting the observations of crew members looking at the
atmosphere, or edge of space from a different perspective other than
what have on earths surface might help answer the question.

Sorry, but all of that nifty science can be far better accomplished
robotically (for less than 10 cents on the dollar) from our moon's L1.

Our moon's L1 is simply true "microgravity", or as close as can be
affordably obtained and sustained, whereas anything LEO is a spendy and
energy inefficient joke, especially if any of our DNA is required.

Most folks are still not being allowed to fully appreciate our moon's
L1. Of course, most Americans are still pretty much mainstream
dumbfounded and/or having been snookered about a great many such
important things in this highly infomercial skewed life, even as to what
little we've been allowed to know of (such as there having been
intelligent other life existing/coexisting on Venus) is often
taboo/nondisclosure X-rated. Perhaps those more intelligent members in
support of or working within the China National Space
Administration/CNSA are as such less snookered than we're giving them
credit for.

Basically, the average free-gravity-zone of this moon L1 is supposedly
r33.5~r34 away from the moon and otherwise merely r51 from Earth
(unfortunately there's still no hard-scientific and thus independently
replicated proof of such actually being the case of those specific
numbers), that's worthy of obtaining micro if not nano and even pico
gravity, although nearly any +/- adjustment in the net gravity can be
accommodated and rather efficiently interactively sustained.

Within this interactive moon L1 pocket (+/- wherever it has to be) there
should be as little as 1% the atoms/cm3 and of the required velocity is
roughly 9 fold less than LEO (those factors alone represent a rather
huge reduction in orbital friction, and thereby greatly minimizing
station-keeping energy demands). There's also no pesky gauntlet of Van
Allen belt radiation or SAA like nasty pocket of magnetosphere stored
radiation. It's also nearly always sunny as well as having either
earthshine and/or moonshine at your disposal, and of that moonshine so
happens to include a great deal of useful secondary/recoil photons in
the IR/FIR spectrum, plus offering loads of gamma and hard-X-rays
because there's so little mass between L1 and the highly reactive naked
surface of the physically dark and cosmic morgue that's represented by
our moon.

The moon's L1 is not technically a problem for most robotics, however
our frail DNA will demand a great amount of shielding that's similar to
8 meters of water, and for any long term (multi year) human involvement
demanding 16 meters of water unless an artificial magnetosphere can be
sustained. There's also the pesky matter of having to survive various
meteors of potentially lethal flak that isn't the least bit moderated in
velocity nor being gravity diverted.

This fancy enough "Clarke Station" document that's nicely revised and
certainly rather interesting but otherwise seriously outdated,
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications...aryland01b.pdf
not to mention way under-shielded unless incorporating 8+ meters of
water plus having somehow established an artificial magnetosphere, or
perhaps incorporating 16+ meters of h2o if w/o magnetosphere (shielding
that's necessary because it's parked within 60,000 km from our
physically dark and otherwise highly reactive moon that's continually
providing such a not so DNA friendly TBI worth of gamma and
hard-X-rays), is simply a downright deficient document about sharing the
positive science and constructive habitat/depot considerations for
utilizing the moon's L1. In fact, there's hardly any mention of the
tremendous L1 benefits to humanity, much less as to space exploration or
the daunting task of salvaging our mascon warmed environment, and it's
still not having squat to do with any primary task of actually
developing, exploiting or otherwise terraforming the moon itself.

On the other hand, whereas the CM/ISS portion of the LSE which I've
proposed offers 50t/m2 of outter shell or hull shielding for
accommodating the 1e9 m3 interior, thereby multiple decades if not an
entire lifetime can be afforded, as to safely accommodating our frail
DNA. That may seem like a rather great amount of tonnage deployment,
though eventually 99.9% is derived from the moon itself. Of course,
don't mind anything that I have to suggest, whereas you can keep
thinking as small and/or as insignificant as you'd like. However, our
having remained as LEO/terrestrial sequestered isn't going to help us
explore, pillage and rape the other planets and of their moons, not to
mention the mining and/or possible terraforming potential of digging
into our very own global warming moon that's chuck full of nifty and
rare elements.

I guess what's needed for this subtopic is an open mindset that isn't
afraid of it's own shadow, that isn't afraid of having made or of making
a few honest or even not so honest mistakes, nor demonstrating that
perhaps we're not exactly the smartest nor the most entitled species of
DNA in this universe. (sorry about that)
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Brad Guth wrote:
"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote in message
oups.com

Interesting statement brad, you see the science including atmospheric
studies, and bioastronautics that is currently being done in low earth
orbit is important to understanding the earth, and human exposure to
space. Now, image capturing devices such as digital cameras and film
cameras do not properly represent the color spectrum as seen through
the human eye (ie the devices color gamut limitations and differences
from the human eye), and given the fact specific colors correlate to
specific energy transitions, human observations are extremely important
to reproducing those colors most accurately. The images and
descriptions taken by crew members of the iss, help increase our
understanding of the energy transitions that occur in earth's
atmosphere, so let me paste the whole page and you will better
understand how humans and technology conduct science together. So as
the original question to this thread asked (what is the edge of space
?), therefore posting the observations of crew members looking at the
atmosphere, or edge of space from a different perspective other than
what have on earths surface might help answer the question.

Sorry, but all of that nifty science can be far better accomplished
robotically (for less than 10 cents on the dollar) from our moon's L1.

Our moon's L1 is simply true "microgravity", or as close as can be
affordably obtained and sustained, whereas anything LEO is a spendy and
energy inefficient joke, especially if any of our DNA is required.

Most folks are still not being allowed to fully appreciate our moon's
L1. Of course, most Americans are still pretty much mainstream
dumbfounded and/or having been snookered about a great many such
important things in this highly infomercial skewed life, even as to what
little we've been allowed to know of (such as there having been
intelligent other life existing/coexisting on Venus) is often
taboo/nondisclosure X-rated. Perhaps those more intelligent members in
support of or working within the China National Space
Administration/CNSA are as such less snookered than we're giving them
credit for.

Basically, the average free-gravity-zone of this moon L1 is supposedly
r33.5~r34 away from the moon and otherwise merely r51 from Earth
(unfortunately there's still no hard-scientific and thus independently
replicated proof of such actually being the case of those specific
numbers), that's worthy of obtaining micro if not nano and even pico
gravity, although nearly any +/- adjustment in the net gravity can be
accommodated and rather efficiently interactively sustained.

Within this interactive moon L1 pocket (+/- wherever it has to be) there
should be as little as 1% the atoms/cm3 and of the required velocity is
roughly 9 fold less than LEO (those factors alone represent a rather
huge reduction in orbital friction, and thereby greatly minimizing
station-keeping energy demands). There's also no pesky gauntlet of Van
Allen belt radiation or SAA like nasty pocket of magnetosphere stored
radiation. It's also nearly always sunny as well as having either
earthshine and/or moonshine at your disposal, and of that moonshine so
happens to include a great deal of useful secondary/recoil photons in
the IR/FIR spectrum, plus offering loads of gamma and hard-X-rays
because there's so little mass between L1 and the highly reactive naked
surface of the physically dark and cosmic morgue that's represented by
our moon.

The moon's L1 is not technically a problem for most robotics, however
our frail DNA will demand a great amount of shielding that's similar to
8 meters of water, and for any long term (multi year) human involvement
demanding 16 meters of water unless an artificial magnetosphere can be
sustained. There's also the pesky matter of having to survive various
meteors of potentially lethal flak that isn't the least bit moderated in
velocity nor being gravity diverted.

This fancy enough "Clarke Station" document that's nicely revised and
certainly rather interesting but otherwise seriously outdated,
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications...aryland01b.pdf
not to mention way under-shielded unless incorporating 8+ meters of
water plus having somehow established an artificial magnetosphere, or
perhaps incorporating 16+ meters of h2o if w/o magnetosphere (shielding
that's necessary because it's parked within 60,000 km from our
physically dark and otherwise highly reactive moon that's continually
providing such a not so DNA friendly TBI worth of gamma and
hard-X-rays), is simply a downright deficient document about sharing the
positive science and constructive habitat/depot considerations for
utilizing the moon's L1. In fact, there's hardly any mention of the
tremendous L1 benefits to humanity, much less as to space exploration or
the daunting task of salvaging our mascon warmed environment, and it's
still not having squat to do with any primary task of actually
developing, exploiting or otherwise terraforming the moon itself.

On the other hand, whereas the CM/ISS portion of the LSE which I've
proposed offers 50t/m2 of outter shell or hull shielding for
accommodating the 1e9 m3 interior, thereby multiple decades if not an
entire lifetime can be afforded, as to safely accommodating our frail
DNA. That may seem like a rather great amount of tonnage deployment,
though eventually 99.9% is derived from the moon itself. Of course,
don't mind anything that I have to suggest, whereas you can keep
thinking as small and/or as insignificant as you'd like. However, our
having remained as LEO/terrestrial sequestered isn't going to help us
explore, pillage and rape the other planets and of their moons, not to
mention the mining and/or possible terraforming potential of digging
into our very own global warming moon that's chuck full of nifty and
rare elements.

I guess what's needed for this subtopic is an open mindset that isn't
afraid of it's own shadow, that isn't afraid of having made or of making
a few honest or even not so honest mistakes, nor demonstrating that
perhaps we're not exactly the smartest nor the most entitled species of
DNA in this universe. (sorry about that)
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Actually, brad there are many benefits to using both humans in low
earth orbit, in conjunction with unmanned space craft to conduct
observations of earth atmosphere, such as the iss crew members
descriptions of upper atmosphere phenomena of noctilucent clouds.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18feb_nlc.htm
"Strange Clouds
Astronauts onboard the International Space Station have been observing
electric blue "noctilucent" clouds from Earth-orbit.

February 18, 2003: They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds,
glowing electric blue. Some scientists think they're seeded by space
dust. Others suspect they're a telltale sign of global warming.
They're called noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds (NLCs for short).
And whatever causes them, they're lovely.
"Over the past few weeks we've been enjoying outstanding views of these
clouds above the southern hemisphere," said space station astronaut Don
Pettit during a NASA TV broadcast last month. "We routinely see them
when we're flying over Australia and the tip of South America."
Sky watchers on Earth have seen them, too, glowing in the night sky
after sunset, although the view from Earth-orbit is better. Pettit
estimated the height of the noctilucent clouds he saw at 80 to 100 km
.... "literally on the fringes of space."
"Noctilucent clouds are a relatively new phenomenon," says Gary
Thomas, a professor at the University of Colorado who studies NLCs.
"They were first seen in 1885" about two years after the powerful
eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, which hurled plumes of ash as high
as 80 km into Earth's atmosphere.
Ash from the volcano caused such splendid sunsets that evening sky
watching became a popular worldwide pastime. One sky watcher in
particular, a Briton named T. W. Backhouse, noticed something odd. He
stayed outside after the sun had set and, on some nights, saw wispy
filaments glowing electric blue against the black sky. Noctilucent
clouds. Scientists of the day figured the clouds were some curious
manifestation of volcanic ash.
Eventually the ash settled and the vivid sunsets of Krakatoa faded. Yet
the noctilucent clouds remained. "It's puzzling," says Thomas.
"Noctilucent clouds have not only persisted, but also spread." A
century ago the clouds were confined to latitudes above 50o; you had to
go to places like Scandinavia, Russia and Britain to see them. In
recent years they have been sighted as far south as Utah and Colorado.
Astronaut Don Pettit is a long-time noctilucent cloud-watcher. As a
staff scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory between 1984 and
1996, he studied noctilucent clouds seeded by high-flying sounding
rockets. "Seeing these kinds of clouds [from space] ... is certainly a
joy for us on the ISS," he said on NASA TV.
"Although NLCs look like they're in space," continues Thomas, "they're
really inside Earth's atmosphere, in a layer called the mesosphere
ranging from 50 to 85 km high." The mesosphere is not only very cold
(-125 C), but also very dry--"one hundred million times dryer than air
from the Sahara desert." Nevertheless, NLCs are made of water. The
clouds consist of tiny ice crystals about the size of particles in
cigarette smoke. Sunlight scattered by these crystals gives the clouds
their characteristic blue color.
How ice crystals form in the arid mesosphere is the essential mystery
of noctilucent clouds.
Ice crystals in clouds need two things to grow: water molecules and
something for those molecules to stick to--dust, for example. Water
gathering on dust to form droplets or ice crystals is a process called
nucleation. It happens all the time in ordinary clouds.
Ordinary clouds, which are relatively close to Earth, get their dust
from sources like desert wind storms. It's hard to waft wind-blown dust
all the way up to the mesosphere, however. "Krakatoa may have seeded
the mesosphere with dust in 1883, but that doesn't explain the clouds
we see now," notes Thomas. "Perhaps," he speculates, "the source is
space itself." Every day Earth sweeps up tons of meteoroids--tiny bits
of debris from comets and asteroids. Most are just the right size to
seed noctilucent clouds.
The source of water vapor is less controversial. "Upwelling winds in
the summertime carry water vapor from the moist lower atmosphere toward
the mesosphere," says Thomas. This is why NLCs appear during summer,
not winter.
One reason for the recent spread of noctilucent clouds might be global
warming. "Extreme cold is required to form ice in a dry environment
like the mesosphere," says Thomas. Ironically, global warming helps.
While greenhouse gases warm Earth's surface, they actually lower
temperatures in the high atmosphere. Thomas notes that noctilucent
clouds were first spotted during the Industrial Revolution--a time of
rising greenhouse gas production."


tom

"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote in message
ups.com

Actually, brad there are many benefits to using both humans in low
earth orbit, in conjunction with unmanned space craft to conduct
observations of earth atmosphere, such as the iss crew members
descriptions of upper atmosphere phenomena of noctilucent clouds.

At best humans are at least ten fold the cost of robotics in LEO space,
and more than likely it's actually a good 100:1 fold worse off than
having efficient and compact robotics accomplish nearly everything you
can imagine, as in so much better and for years if not decades at a time
without having to risk one stran of human DNA.

So, keep right on spending those extra decades upon decades, and
hundreds of billions upon billions in whatever efforts for keeping
humans in space, whereas eventually we'll all run ourselves out of spare
loot about the same time as we manage to run ourselves out of fossil and
yellowcake fuels. Then what?

Considering that another spendy and extremely bloody century from now,
and if going by way of your wisdom alone, we'll still not have the
LSE-CM/ISS nor having allowed China or any others to having accomplished
whatever should have been easily established as of decades ago, whereas
obviously your perverted mindset is clearly and every bit as pro GW Bush
as your actions are yaysay Old Testament Third Reich.

Only a truly perverted and/or born-again God freak like yourself and
your GW Bush puppet could be so totally arrogant and so absolutely
bigoted without a stitch of remorse, which is obviously why you folks
continually hide yourselves behind such pathetic Usenet code names.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Brad Guth wrote:
"columbiaaccidentinvestigation"
wrote in message
ups.com

Actually, brad there are many benefits to using both humans in low
earth orbit, in conjunction with unmanned space craft to conduct
observations of earth atmosphere, such as the iss crew members
descriptions of upper atmosphere phenomena of noctilucent clouds.

At best humans are at least ten fold the cost of robotics in LEO space,
and more than likely it's actually a good 100:1 fold worse off than
having efficient and compact robotics accomplish nearly everything you
can imagine, as in so much better and for years if not decades at a time
without having to risk one stran of human DNA.

So, keep right on spending those extra decades upon decades, and
hundreds of billions upon billions in whatever efforts for keeping
humans in space, whereas eventually we'll all run ourselves out of spare
loot about the same time as we manage to run ourselves out of fossil and
yellowcake fuels. Then what?

Considering that another spendy and extremely bloody century from now,
and if going by way of your wisdom alone, we'll still not have the
LSE-CM/ISS nor having allowed China or any others to having accomplished
whatever should have been easily established as of decades ago, whereas
obviously your perverted mindset is clearly and every bit as pro GW Bush
as your actions are yaysay Old Testament Third Reich.

Only a truly perverted and/or born-again God freak like yourself and
your GW Bush puppet could be so totally arrogant and so absolutely
bigoted without a stitch of remorse, which is obviously why you folks
continually hide yourselves behind such pathetic Usenet code names.
-
Brad Guth


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Sure brad, but as the original question asked "where is the edge of
space?", operational experience with the shuttle has helped develop a
better understanding of the upper atmosphere as can be seen in the
paper cited below.

N. Wayne Hale, Jr., Nicole O. Lamotte, and Timothy W. Garner
OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH HYPERSONIC FLIGHT OF THE SPACE
SHUTTLE 17_5259
NASA Johnson Space Center, United Space Alliance, National Weather
Service Spaceflight Meteorology Group

Hypersonic flight is, by its nature, high altitude flight.Adverse
effects due to drag including both propellant consumption and heating,
and flight control instabilities can only be avoided by significantly
higher altitude flight than typical current commercial or military
aircraft experience. It is of significant note that the only operating
supersonic airliner, the Concorde, cruises at altitudes typically 25%
higher than subsonic airliners. The most advantageous flight regime for
hypersonic vehicles is even higher. Unfortunately, the region of the
atmosphere between 18 km (60,000 ft) and 120 km (400,000 ft) has been
rightly termed the "ignorosphere" due to the relatively low number
of direct measurements available...

UPPER ATMOSPHERE VARIATIONS FROM STANDARDS
Four major differences have been observed between the shuttle flight
data and the standards.The first difference is between the steady-state
component of the actual atmospheres and the reference standard
atmospheres that are used by the navigation and guidance systems.
During most of entry, navigation updates the altitude by extracting the
atmosphere density from the drag and comparing it to one of three
standard tables of density versus altitude (nominal, hot and cold).
Deviations from the standards have resulted in significant altitude
errors. Guidance uses the 1962 standard atmosphere to compute a
reference altitude rate profile as a function of the reference drag
profile. The actual atmospheres have been found to differ substantially
from that standard. This often contributes to a negative angle of
attack bias from the reference angle of attack profile, which can have
adverse thermal consequences."

Tom