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Lightning Strikes Delay Shuttle Launch
Tisha_AH writes "The Space Shuttle has had its
launch delayed for inspection after several lightning strikes to the launch tower and/or shuttle. Several different technologies have been applied by NASA to divert the strike energy to ground potentials with Air Terminals (lightning rods), surge protectors or the often-disputed use of static dissipator brushes. One technology that appears promising is to cause a lightning strike (to a safe location) through the use of short pulsed ultraviolet lasers. Maybe in the future, once the technology matures, we may find widespread use of UV lasers to protect space launch vehicles, antenna towers or buildings."
"None of the strikes hit the shuttle or its external tank and solid rocket boosters, but there were strikes to the lightning mast and water tower."
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Nasa can't afford to many delays in there program, if there are to get the ISS finished before the Shuttle program shutdowns down in september next year. The launch is now rescheduled to Sunday.
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Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller
While it has been pointed out that none of the strikes hit the shuttle itself... 7 of them hit the catenary wires or tower at the launch site and 2 of those were large enough to exceed the safety limit, inducing a 110V surge in the shuttle power system. While there's no damage indicated yet, this 24 hour stand down is to give the engineers and technicians time to check over the shuttle and all of the launch hardware.
There were 7 strikes that hit the water tower, launch tower and protective catenary wires. At least 2 of them exceeded safety limits; inducing unacceptable voltage spikes in electrical systems.
Launch sites are in the southernmost parts of the US in order to get some extra push from Earth's rotation. (The rotational velocity is the highest at the equator.) If there were sufficient access to shipping and industry, launch sites ought to be valuable in other countries along the equator...
Well, there are a few reasons for Florida.
First, if you want to launch a spacecraft into an equatorial orbit, it's best to launch it from the equator. The rotation of the earth will give you about an 850 MPH boost. This is one reason that things that launch from Florida travel east. The further north you travel, the less rotational energy you get. If you consider the continental US, you're pretty much looking at either Florida or the bottom part of Texas.
Second, ideally you want very little going on to the east, in the event of a problem. If you look to the east of Florida, you'll see a pretty big chunk of water where you can drop things without worrying too much about hitting something or someone. Texas, you have the Gulf of Mexico, but if the rocket veers north, you're hitting the southern part of the US. Veer a little south and you may end up hitting Cuba, which is not necessarily something the US would like to do.
So Florida makes pretty good sense, actually.
Which is why most European Space Agency missions are launched from French Guiana.
the lasers work by ionizing the air between the cloud and the source of the laser, effectively creating a guide wire which the lightning then follows from the cloud to .. the source of the laser. which in the case of an airplane would pretty much have to be the airplane, so i'm not sure it's quite what you want.
i guess that's so.
although a little googling seems to indicate that airplanes are pretty well lightning-protected these days as it is.
Don't forget the US has an equatorial launch facility: "2500 miles southwest of Hawaii on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific." That's where SpaceX has tried some launches...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
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