We're budget minded folk. We've *never* had an engine go boom, thanks to a healthy portion of caution and ignition interlocks which don't allow the main valves to open until we have good igniter operation.
Last month, we did over 300 tests of that igniter in one afternoon just to verify the statistical reliability- and it passed with flying colors.
We've tried expensive aircraft style flush-face spark plugs, and they don't work as well as the cheapo units. Sometimes the inexpensive solution is also the best.
Can you imagine what the GROUND must look like coming at you at Mach 1 though?!??!?
Actully, if you're 100 kft up and coming down at 1500 ft/s the speed vs distance is kinda low- the "rush factor". I was in freefall below 1000 feet once, coming down about 160 ft/s- now *that* gives you a good pucker factor!
(If we define rush factor as speed/range, then 1500/100,000 is only.015 s^-1, while 160/1000 is.16 s^-1, appearing ten times faster. Normal freefall at around 10,000 feet and 180 ft/s seems like you're just hanging in the sky, so even while she's supersonic she won't have a strong impression of speed.)
looking at the picture of her in the specialized jump suit, skin shows.
That's just a regular jumpsuit for everyday diving, not a pressure suit.
Now if your so high up, that there's not enough air to control descent, then isn't there any danger of bends sickness if the whole body isn't in a preassurized suit?
The pressure suit will enclose her entire body (she'll probably use an air force surplus unit like those worn on the Space Shuttle during launch). The ascent to altitude will be slow enough that even though the pressure in the suit drops from 14.7 psia at sea level to 3 or 4 psia at peak, she shouldn't get any bubbles. Prebreathing oxygen before liftoff will be a good idea, though.
one not only needs a preassurized suit. I would imagine you also need a suit that protects one from cosmic radiation...?
Nope. She might pick up the equivalent of a chest x-ray during the ascent, but the only real "radiation" hazard is UV light making it through her faceplate, ie, sunburn.
what about becoming extremely electro statically charged by falling at those speeds and "ripping" the atmosphere which is busy absorbing
radiation..?
No, only if you're falling through clouds can you pick up significant amounts of charge.
it is extremely cold up there, somewhere around -90 celcius, add to that the draft chill factor of mach 1.5...
The suit has an inner liner, a gas bladder that holds the air, a mechanical pressure restraint that holds the air pressure, and an outer layer or two to prevent abrasion of the others. Thin air with a density 1/100 of normal just doesn't transmit heat well, so she'll probably be too hot during the ascent.
one poster mentioned the danger of airplanes wings being ripped off at such high speeds.
The key is dynamic pressure, Q=rho*v^2/2. Even though the v is very high, rho is very very low, and so she'll only feel a little bit more than one gee all the way to opening. In any balloon jump, you go to zero gee when you step off, then the wind builds up until you're back at one gee and constant speed (actually slightly slowing as the air gets thicker).
But what about resonance effects? Assuming she can avoid going into extreme tumbling wouldn't there be a problem of "whipping" body parts (her head for example)..?
Tumbling or rolling is unlikely, but spinning is possible- it is the least stable axis for any skydiver. Since the "indicated" airspeed will peak out at around 130 mph (what a pitot tube would measure) whipping won't be a problem.
basically what happens is her potential energy of 31miles gets converted into other forms of energy: thermal and kinetic. No need to worry about the thermal energy part. So, the kinetic energy would be preferrably "down".
Yes, that's right- but the kinetic energy is being turned into mixing of the air, with essentially all the energy of the jump turned into a very slightly warmed trail of air. Consider, though, that a freefalling object runs into roughly its own mass of air every second, and that heat is very diffuse indeed.
1)Wouldn't slowing her down from Mach 1.5 to 0 with the use of a parachute tear this woman in half?
Your ignorance is showing. The high speed is only reached for a short time above 100,000 feet; by the time she nears the ground she'll be falling at the usual low altitude speed of around 120 mph. If one does deploy a canopy at high altitude and high speed, the airloads simply rip it apart at around 15 to 20 gees loading- painful but not injurious.
As for cratering, sorry to disappoint your ghoulish fascination, but it wouldn't be spectacular. You sound like one of the mouth breathers that attends NASCAR races to see the crashes. Anyway, I'm sure she'll have an automatic activation device on her reserve chute, as is pretty standard practice these days.
I haven't jumped in years, but navigation is not difficult as long as you don't have clouds down below. Certainly she'll review satellite photos of the area around the launch site, at various scales, and she'll probably carry a GPS receiver for use on ascent and while under canopy.
I suspect that Cheryl and her team will select many potential landing zones about a mile or two apart, and during the ascent will narrow the choices down to one or two. Her location at exit will be known to within a few meters, so if she maintains zero lift during freefall her trajectory should be very predictable. Just a little bit of tracking after slowing subsonic will let her shift her landing point miles- the L/D is about.7, so from about 50,000 feet down she could cover more than four miles sideways.
Her chase crew should be able to get to the chosen LZ before she jumps. Since ram air chutes have L/D about 3, if she deploys at 10,000 feet she could fly four more miles to a pinpoint landing- the chase crew can put out a target, put up a windsock, and she'll land within a meter of her mark for the cameras.
Extreme altitude skydiving is a stretch, but is certainly doable with reasonable safety.
The Proton uses hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which inherently don't create any smoke, and very little light. The Shuttle's SRBs burn rubber and aluminum with ammonium perchlorate oxidizer, and emit incandescent molten aluminum oxide particles. This bright glow makes the mixing at the edge of the SRB plume easier to see- it's also there for the Proton, but isn't glowing.
That really is how the Proton looks at liftoff- only aluminized solids and kerosene-fueled rockets have bright yellow or orange exhaust plumes, pretty much all the rest are transparent and pale yellow or blue. However, I have managed to make a nitrous oxide/ethane fueled engine produce a pale green plume by getting the mixture ratio just so, and a LOX/kerosene engine can run purple if the mixture is too lean (this eliminates the soot that makes the plume bright orange/yellow). LOX/alcohol is generally bluish for the same reason a gas flame on a stove is blue- it's an emission line of carbon monoxide. Working with rockets can be quite a lightshow:)
Well, yeah, but she was pretty skanky, and I was really damn desperate. I doubt if I'll ever again use the line, "Hey, baby, wanna go up to my room and see my rocket?", though.
As for phallic symbolism, why do ya think hammerhead payload fairings are so popular- or why the Boeing 747 with that suggestive shape was such a success?
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We're budget minded folk. We've *never* had an engine go boom, thanks to a healthy portion of caution and ignition interlocks which don't allow the main valves to open until we have good igniter operation.
Last month, we did over 300 tests of that igniter in one afternoon just to verify the statistical reliability- and it passed with flying colors.
We've tried expensive aircraft style flush-face spark plugs, and they don't work as well as the cheapo units. Sometimes the inexpensive solution is also the best.
Doug
(If we define rush factor as speed/range, then 1500/100,000 is only
As for cratering, sorry to disappoint your ghoulish fascination, but it wouldn't be spectacular. You sound like one of the mouth breathers that attends NASCAR races to see the crashes. Anyway, I'm sure she'll have an automatic activation device on her reserve chute, as is pretty standard practice these days.
I haven't jumped in years, but navigation is not difficult as long as you don't have clouds down below. Certainly she'll review satellite photos of the area around the launch site, at various scales, and she'll probably carry a GPS receiver for use on ascent and while under canopy.
.7, so from about 50,000 feet down she could cover more than four miles sideways.
.sig below...
I suspect that Cheryl and her team will select many potential landing zones about a mile or two apart, and during the ascent will narrow the choices down to one or two. Her location at exit will be known to within a few meters, so if she maintains zero lift during freefall her trajectory should be very predictable. Just a little bit of tracking after slowing subsonic will let her shift her landing point miles- the L/D is about
Her chase crew should be able to get to the chosen LZ before she jumps. Since ram air chutes have L/D about 3, if she deploys at 10,000 feet she could fly four more miles to a pinpoint landing- the chase crew can put out a target, put up a windsock, and she'll land within a meter of her mark for the cameras.
Extreme altitude skydiving is a stretch, but is certainly doable with reasonable safety.
Please disregard my
The Proton uses hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which inherently don't create any smoke, and very little light. The Shuttle's SRBs burn rubber and aluminum with ammonium perchlorate oxidizer, and emit incandescent molten aluminum oxide particles. This bright glow makes the mixing at the edge of the SRB plume easier to see- it's also there for the Proton, but isn't glowing.
:)
That really is how the Proton looks at liftoff- only aluminized solids and kerosene-fueled rockets have bright yellow or orange exhaust plumes, pretty much all the rest are transparent and pale yellow or blue. However, I have managed to make a nitrous oxide/ethane fueled engine produce a pale green plume by getting the mixture ratio just so, and a LOX/kerosene engine can run purple if the mixture is too lean (this eliminates the soot that makes the plume bright orange/yellow). LOX/alcohol is generally bluish for the same reason a gas flame on a stove is blue- it's an emission line of carbon monoxide.
Working with rockets can be quite a lightshow
Well, yeah, but she was pretty skanky, and I was really damn desperate. I doubt if I'll ever again use the line, "Hey, baby, wanna go up to my room and see my rocket?", though.
As for phallic symbolism, why do ya think hammerhead payload fairings are so popular- or why the Boeing 747 with that suggestive shape was such a success?