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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
and just subcontract the work to theSoyuz engineers.
What's next on the list of delays: slow pizza delivery,
mice, North Korean botnets, or Bruno?
Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout
From TFA: 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.
Sheesh... You'd think it was Microsoft article.
I wonder if lasers could be used to divert lightning from commercial airliners in-flight? There was some speculation it could have contributed to the recent Air France crash, though apparently it's not a leading theory.
Maybe they'll use the short pulsed ultraviolet lasers to make sure lightning strikes the vicinity of vast capacitors to generate energy for a city.
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.
Could this be used to collect lightning?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHY_BVj1Xo
I can't imagine the water tower being too complicated in electronics,open valve to get the water to the site to cool the concrete right?
Other electronics on shuttle though must be checked.
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.
So why wasn't Hawaii used? It's the furthest southern state and there's lots of water before reaching California. I know why the Johnson Space Center came about...LBJ.
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!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Why is this modded Funny instead of Informative?
At the time this was decided, Hawaii wasn't a US State.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
My group has a satellite going up on this launch. It got delayed from last month; now it's delayed again.
The knob that was stuck between the dashboard and windshield of Atlantis (discussed here two weeks ago) was succesfully removed using dry ice, a pressurized orbiter, and "hand pressure to manipulate it loose". The window subsequently passed inspection. Recall that window replacement could have caused a six month delay.
I'd imagine one obvious reason would be logistics--it's probably easier and quicker to transport rocket parts to Florida than it is to Hawaii.
They are not CW (continuous wave) lasers, they are pulsed with pulses in the microsecond range (just like the flash on a camera).. There is a power equation on the paper postulating that 200 pSec (picosecond) pulses at 50 MW (megawatts) are seen as optimal.
If my math is right (10 -12 is a picosecond) multiplied by pulse power 50,000,000 watts per pulse, then factoring in lasing efficiencies (for the sake of argument, lets assume that the laser is only 10% efficient). This comes out to around 1/10th of a watt per pulse.
So give the laser a pulse repetition rate of ten times a second, use a mirror to fan it across the sky, creating little ionization channels to the clouds within 5 miles of the laser (it can have a much longer range but because when it is overcast close to the ground, you lose range so we downplay the area and distances covered).
Add in more losses, air conditioning to keep the laser nice and happy, mirror power, some type of control system...
This could draw less power than your computer. The air conditioning for a small enclosure will be the biggest load.
Tisha Hayes
You mean there's something that isn't made in China?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The majority of Europe is also at a much higher latitude. The southern tip of Florida is about the same latitude as southern Algeria.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Yeah, they use a train to carry the boosters to the launch site. No trains to Hawaii! We need a chunnel 2.
15 feet!? You were either way off in your measurement, extremely lucky, one-legged, or have a pretty perverse definition of 'awesome'.