Category: Space and flight

Posts about flying in atmospheres, or outside of them

The space race as single combat

With the decline of archaic magic, the belief in single combat began to die out. The development of the modern, highly organized army and the concept of “total war” seemed to bury it forever. But then an extraordinary thing happened: the atomic bomb was invented, with the result that the concept of total war was nullified. The incalculable power of the A-bomb and the bombs that followed also encouraged the growth of a new form of superstition founded upon awe not of nature, as archaic magic had been, but of technology. During the Cold War period small-scale competitions again took on the magical aura of a “testing of fate,” of a fateful prediction of what would inevitably happen if total nuclear war did take place. This, of course, was precisely the impact of Sputnik I, launched around the earth by the Soviets’ mighty and mysterious Integral in October 1957. The “space race” became a fateful test and presage of the entire Cold War conflict between the “superpowers,” the Soviet Union and the United States. Surveys showed that people throughout the world looked upon the competition in launching space vehicles in that fashion, i.e., as a preliminary contest proving final and irresistible power to destroy. The ability to launch Sputniks dramatized the ability to launch nuclear warheads on ICBMs. But in these neo-superstitious times it came to dramatize much more than that. It dramatized the entire technological and intellectual capability of the two nations and the strength of the national wills and spirits. Hence … John McCormack rising in the House of Representatives to say that the United States faced “national extinction” if she did not overtake the Soviet Union in the space race.

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; New York. 1979. p. 124–5 (ellipses in original)

Related:

Fighter pilots’ hazardous lifestyles

More fighter pilots died in automobiles than in airplanes. Fortunately, there was always some kindly soul up the chain to certify the papers “line of duty,” so that the widow could get a better break on the insurance. That was okay and only proper because somehow the system itself had long ago said Skol! and Quite right! to the military cycle of Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving, as if there were no other way. Every young fighter jock knew the feeling of getting two or three hours’ sleep and then waking up at 5:30 a.m. and having a few cups of coffee, a few cigarettes, and then carting his poor quivering liver out to the field for another day of flying. There were those who arrived not merely hungover but still drunk, slapping oxygen tank cones over their faces and trying to burn the alcohol out of their systems, and then going up, remarking later: “I don’t advise it, you understand, but it can be done.” (Provided you have the right stuff, you miserable pudknocker.)

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; New York. 1979. p. 37 (italics in original)

End of the Cassini mission

After a 20-year mission, and to avoid any risk of contaminating Saturnian moons with microorganisms from Earth, the Cassini space probe was deliberately crashed into Saturn’s atmosphere today.

The science it has returned has been stimulating and the imagery spectacular. The watery moon Enceladus now joins Europa among the solar system’s most intriguing life-compatible bodies.

Mitchell on “Carbon Democracy”

A surprising oversight in Timothy Mitchell’s generally-insightful Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil is how he gives relatively little consideration to static versus mobile forms of fossil fuel consumption. He strongly emphasizes the production and transportation logistics of coal versus oil, but gives little consideration to special needs for fuels with high energy density (and sometimes low freezing points) in transport applications from cars and trucks to aircraft and rockets. People sometimes assume that oil demand and electricity production are more related than they really are, especially in jurisdictions where oil is mostly used as transport fuel and for heating (both areas where little electricity is generally used).

At a minimum, I think it’s important to give some special consideration to the needs of the aerospace and aviation industries, especially when pondering biofuel alternatives. Also, we need to try to project things like the deployment rate of electric ground vehicles in various applications, when trying to project how the forms of energy production and use in the future affect politics and low-carbon policy choices.

Juno’s orbital insertion

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft, designed to study Jupiter’s magnetic field to help us better understand the planet and solar system, will be burning its main engine to circularize its orbit around the gas giant later today:

At about 12:15 pm PDT today (3:15 p.m. EDT), mission controllers will transmit command product “ji4040” into deep space, to transition the solar-powered Juno spacecraft into autopilot. It will take nearly 48 minutes for the signal to cover the 534-million-mile (860-million-kilometer) distance between the Deep Space Network Antenna in Goldstone, California, to the Juno spacecraft. While sequence ji4040 is only one of four command products sent up to the spacecraft that day, it holds a special place in the hearts of the Juno mission team.

“Ji4040 contains the command that starts the Jupiter Orbit insertion sequence,” said Ed Hirst, mission manager of Juno from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “As soon as it initiates — which should be in less than a second — Juno will send us data that the command sequence has started.”

When the sequence kicks in, the spacecraft will begin running the software program tailored to carry the solar-powered, basketball court-sized spacecraft through the 35-minute burn that will place it in orbit around Jupiter.

The spacecraft has been on its way since August 2011 and will be just the second spacecraft to ever orbit our solar system’s largest planet. The first was Galileo, which orbited from 1995 to 2003.

GONAVY: The Language of Trident launches on television

From a number of perspectives, I find YouTube videos which include demonstrations of Trident D5 missile launches from American Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines highly interesting:

I find the first of the three clips (USS Nebraska) especially intriguing because of the highly stylized, almost theatrical language of the exchange between the bridge officers authenticating the emergency action message. In the second and third clips (USS Kentucky and USS Pennsylvania), the process is either simplified or not shown. The deliberateness of orders being given and then repeated back, with each action then being completed by a two-man team, seems demonstrative of a training culture and a concept of operations based around the two man rule. The way in which certain messages are broadcast on loudspeaker to the entire crew is also interesting from a security and system design perspective.

There is clearly a substantial recruiting angle to such ‘documentaries’, which helps explain why the navy would tolerate the bother and potential security risks associated. A related dimension is helping to justify the huge costs associated with a fleet of 18 multi-billion dollar submarines, each with 24 $37 million dollar missiles, each capable of carrying 12 nuclear warheads.

It also seems plausible that publicly demonstrating the functioning of such systems adds to their credibility in the eyes of potential adversaries.

The launch procedures above are interesting to contrast with those depicted for a British Vanguard-class boat (HMS Victorious) carrying the same missiles. The protocol of using a yellow stick to guard the launch code safe is an especially amusing British security strategy. This depiction, straight from the Royal Navy (HMS Vigilant), is more serious in tone, though it still lacks the drama of the American variations.

Dancing with the sky

I find that my Prism Quantum two-line kite is too frustrating to fly in winds of less than 16 knots (kn). The ideal range is 16-25 kn, with the wind consistent in power and coming from a consistent direction. That’s a rare situation indeed in Toronto, where winds are almost never so strong and tend to be turbulent and inconsistent when they are. Because of that, I check Windfinder.com for the Toronto Island Airport to spot days which may be plausible for good kiting.

The forecast for today looked promising, so I went with my friend Nada to fly a bit in Riverside Park. It’s not as good a kiting location as Hanlan’s Point beach, but it’s a lot easier to reach and depart from and offers more options in the event of the summer downpours and thunderstorms that often accompany windy spring days.

All photos of me are by Nada Khalifa.

Milan Ilnyckyj flying a kite - photo by Nada Khalifa

One of my favourite things about kiting is teaching it to less experienced flyers. Anyone who seems interested and heavy enough to safely use this particular kite in these particular wind conditions is encouraged to give it a try. All told with this kite — in a variety of locations around Toronto — I have helped at least 50 people take their first flight with a two-line kite, with inductees ranging from about ten years old to well over seventy. I make a special effort to encourage women of all ages to try it, since there seems to be some general set of social expectations that makes men and boys more willing to give it a try.

I feel like a few years of intermittent kiting (along with related reading, video tutorials, and inspiring acts of lunacy) have taught me a fair bit about aeronautics in an applied sense.

Milan Ilnyckyj flying Prism Quantum kite

I tell my Massey friends that kiting is a bit like sailing for poor people. The Quantum has carbon fibre (or, apparently, “Pultruded Carbon“) spars and a sail made of material that would be suitable for a sailboat. Kite lines are highly specialized polymers. A kite lets you grab a little piece of the wind and feel how it’s moving across a fairly large area. As well as a meditative activity, it’s a cybernetic one: a complex interface between your body, a machine, and changing environmental conditions.

Two-line kite flying in Toronto's Riverside Park

Early when I was reading about more advanced kites, I thought that more power and more lines (there are lots of four and five line kites) would probably produce a more sophisticated or interesting flying experience. Having seen people using large but much less maneuverable parasail-type kites for kiteboarding, I am quite happy with the flexibility and acrobatic potential of a two-line delta style kite like the Quantum.

Prism Quantum kite

Concepts from kiting — about airflow, turbulence, attitude, and so on — seem generalizable to craft of many kinds. Indeed, thinking about attitude in the specific sense of simulated spacecraft in Kerbal Space Program has helped me disentangle some of the complex elements involved in precisely maneuvering a flying airfoil through a turbulent mass of air. Direction vector relative to the wind is crucial, as is responding to abrupt changes in air flow.

Riverside Park, Toronto

I would love to get a small soft kite with no hard parts, small enough to pack into the cargo pocket of my trousers or the poacher’s pocket in my winter jacket. With a light one-line kite, it would be possible to do a bit of flying whenever I happen to find myself in a decent wind. The Prism EO Atom is an intriguing possibility of this sort, though it’s hard to gauge how compact it is. Unlike most single-line kites, it offers a bit of variety in how it flies because you can pull it downward and watch it tumble and recover in interesting ways.

Dancing with the wind

My sense is that kiting has therapeutic value for my chronic shoulder injury. The traction is probably similar to what physiotherapy elastic bands are meant to produce, and it’s a whole lot more fun.

Kiting as therapy for chronic shoulder injuries?

With very stable wind, kiting is an excellent solitary activity. I just start a set of lectures rolling on my iPod and keep going for as long as the wind supports me. This tends to work best during adverse weather — either days well below 0 ˚C or those interspersed with thunderstorms. In those conditions, good flying locations tend to be thinly populated. When the weather is fine, you are sometimes interrupted by (welcome) inquiries from people who want to give it a try, unwelcome complaints from the maddeningly large subset of the population who are reflexively anti-kite, and the thoughtless interference of people who aren’t paying attention to what is happening above and around them.

With variable wind, it’s highly useful to have a friend to help you re-position the kite for launch after a crash or a failure of the wind.

I love the paganism of kite flying: the immediate connection with natural forces vaster and more powerful than you, and efforts to work alongside them rather than seek to dominate them or escape from their power.