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Commercial Spaceport In Texas
Scothoser writes "CNN has this article on a rocket that was launched on a ranch site near Stockton, Texas. Their hope is that it will become a commercial launch site for anything, as long as it is legal. The major reason for this move is that using NASA launch sites are prohibitively expensive. This way someone can launch their home-made satellites for much less than approaching NASA. Now I am just waiting for the HOW-TO on a Linux-run micro-satellite!"
This sig no verb.
There's also a spaceport in Oklahoma, and the state gives tax breaks for people who move their rocketry stuff there. Launch licenses are also somewhat easier to obtain. I happen to know John Carmack was considering doing some of his stuff there.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace (god, I'd love to go work for them :) tried to launch in Texas but couldn't get approval. They had to drive 6 hours to Oklahoma which is launch-friendly (if you give manufacturing preference to OK companies). There are many places that are offering alternative launch locations to NASA, but it's still tough to get approval.
Links: Armadillo Aerospace Log Entry and The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority
Dr. JJJ -- An N motor is between 20,480.01 and 40,960 newton seconds. Slightly stronger would be something more than that and probably at the low end of the O (40,960.01 - 81,920 newton seconds) range. If I remember correctly, the ML launches with a full N staging to an M. I don't remember the total installed impluse, but I'll ask JP next time I see him.
Cape Canaveral launches over water! Range safety destroys the vehicle before it can get over land.
Vandenberg likewise launches over water.
White Sands launches over a military area where they can prohibit entry.
Fort Stockton, OTOH, is landlocked with no place to create a completely safe range.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Now I am just waiting for the HOW-TO on a Linux-run micro-satellite!
:
Amateur satellites are nothing new. Hams and AMSAT have been putting satellites up since the early 60's. Right now they have about 20 operational satellites in orbit. Linux based software is quite popular in the Ham community, and plays a big role in AMSAT operations. Satellite Software
The HOW-TO's
Davidoff, Martin, The Satellite Experimenter's
Handbook Newington, CT: The American
Radio Relay League, 1984.
Jansson, Richard, Spacecraft Technology Trends
in the Amateur Satellite Service, Ogden, UT:
Proceedings of the 1st Annual USU Conference
on Small Satellites, 1987.
It's stupid to put a space launch facility in Texas. Especially a commercial one.
If you launch from close to the equator, you get a much larger initial velocity, and it's free. Free! You can carry a larger payload or use less fuel with your rocket.
When the French started up Ariannespace, they put it French Guyanna, very close to the equator. Ariannespace has about half of the commerical satellite business.
Very few commercial planes travel above Mach 1. In order to get a package into orbit, it has to be going quite a bit faster. For example, geostationary orbit (orbiting once every 24 hours at 22,300 mi altitude/ 35,000 mi from center of earth) requires the satellite to be moving at about 9,000 mph. Given that Mach 1 is about 750 mph, that means that our satellite is traveling above Mach 12.
Frankly, that's the real threat of an ICBM. It's extraordinarily difficult to shoot down something moving at 12 times the speed of sound and your decision time to engage is very small. Therefore, you are correct that Commercial Aviation does have this type of hazard, but I think you'll agree that the magnitude of danger is quite different.
Not at all...
The 9,000 mph figure you're quoting is the escape velocity - an instantaneous velocity at the surface of the earth which, without any external acceleration save that of gravity, should theoretically get you into orbit.
However, this is as ridiculously simplistic as it is stupid. In reality, one only has to achieve slightly more than 9.8m/s^2 acceleration and maintain that for the duration of the trip to space. Granted, the shuttle uses a LOT more than just 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration, but it still never reached speeds of 9,000 mph.
When you launch a rocket, you have to be able to guarantee that in the event of a malfunction, the rocket will fall in a safe impact area. There are systems that predict the impact point based on the current position and velocity of the launch vehicle. If there is a danger that the current predicted impact point will move outside of the safe impact area, the range safety officer will send a command to the rocket to activate the flight termination system. The flight termination system terminates powered flight by using linear shaped charges to open up fuel/oxidizer tanks and solid rocket motor cases. This guarantees that the rocket, or the pieces of the rocket, will follow a ballistic trajectory and land in the safe impact area.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat