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Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #133

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 133

Today's Topics:
           SR-71 Record Flight Information
         Re: SR-71 Record Flight Information
             Re: SR-71:  LA to DC
                  Re: SR-71
              Re: hubble telescope power
              Re: hubble telescope power
         MUSES-A dust experiment - first (non-)result
                XB-70 and X-15
             Re: SR-71 and dates
        Re: Resolving Power of Hubble Space Telescope
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 07 Mar 90 18:40:50 SET
From: [e-mail]
Comment: CROSSNET mail via MAILER@CMUCCVMA
Comment: File SPACE FILE A
X-Envelope-To: [e-mail]

could you please unsubscribe me...remove me from your mail list.

Ta.

   Joe Kuzak

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 19:42:06 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]  (Mary Shafer (OFV))
Subject: SR-71 Record Flight Information


OK, troops, here's the straight skinny, from the Lockheed full-page
ad in the LA times, 7 March 90.

[Big photo of 972]

THE ONLY PLACE TO CATCH IT
IS AT THE SMITHSONIAN.

    On March 6, 1990, SR-71 # 972 made its final flight, from Los Angeles
to Washington, D.C,, setting four speed records along the way.  Rightfully,
this Blackbird will ultimately be placed on permanent display by the
Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museaum.  It's a fitting
tribute to a masterpiece of modern aviation.

    Upholding the SR-71's distinction as the world's fastest and highest-
flying jet aircraft, #972 claimed speed records for:

     - Transcontinental Coast to Coast--2,404 statue miles
       (National record 68 min. 17 sec.
       Average speed 2,112 statute mph)
     -Los Angeles to Washington
       (World Record 64 min. 5 sec.)
     -Kansas City to Washington
       (World record 26 min. 36 sec.)
     -St. Louis to Cincinnati
       (World Record 8 min. 20 sec.)

    This same aircraft previously set the New York-to-London and London-
to-Los Angeles world speed records.

    For 25 years, the extraordinary SR-71 remained a technological
breed apart while flying high altitude reconnaissance missions.  Sleek
and lightning- fast, it was truly an aircraft ahead of its time.  Even
today, nothing approaches the Mach 3 Blackbird, which still holds the
absolute world speed record.  Revolutionary technology like this is a
Lockheed trademark.  It's inherent in everythin we do.  This is as
true today as it was in 1964, when the first SR-71 roared skyward amid
the purple-orange blast of full afterburner.

                                              *LOCKHEED

[The front page LAT article says, among other things, that the old
coast-to-coast record was set in April, 1963 by an American Airlines
Boeing 707 on a commercial flight.  That record was 8 hr. 38 min.,
with an average speed of 680.9 mph.

The SR-71 took off from Palmdale (AF Plant 42) at 0430, went out
over the Pacific, refuelled, and then went for it.  They crossed
the California coast near Oxnard.  They had a 6 kt tailwind.  They
crossed the Atlantic coast east of Salisbury, Md, decelerated, and
turned.  They landed at Dulles, in Chantilly, VA.  They did a low
approach (flyby), at 200 ft AGL, in burner before they landed.

The records were certified by the National Aeronautic Assn, keeper of
the nation's aviation and space records.

The Blackbird also holds the record for sustained altitude in horizontal
flight--85,069 ft.  The New York-to-London record is 1 hr. 54 min.,
average speed of 1,807 mph.  The old world record for absolute speed
was 2,193 mph.]

Notice that the records didn't include Edwards or Palmdale and that
the altitude must have been below 85,069 ft.

--

Mary Shafer  [e-mail] or ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
         NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
                   Of course I don't speak for NASA
--

Mary Shafer  [e-mail] or ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
         NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
                   Of course I don't speak for NASA

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 22:02:01 GMT
From: skipper![e-mail]  (Mary Shafer (OFV))
Subject: Re: SR-71 Record Flight Information

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mary Shafer (OFV)) writes:

   [The front page LAT article says, among other things, that the old
   coast-to-coast record was set in April, 1963 by an American Airlines
   Boeing 707 on a commercial flight.  That record was 8 hr. 38 min.,
                                                       ^ 3 hr. Sorry.
   with an average speed of 680.9 mph.

Oops!
--

Mary Shafer  [e-mail] or ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
         NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
                   Of course I don't speak for NASA

------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 90 17:55:12 GMT
From: umich!sharkey!amara![e-mail]  (S. Khai Mong)
Subject: Re: SR-71:  LA to DC

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug Krause) writes:
>   In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kral) writes:
>   #Their flight path was such that they watched the sun rise and set 3 times
>   #(this from an interview with the pilot).  A truley awsome experience.
>
>   How is this possible?  The only thing I can think of is that they
>   were constantly changing their altitude.

Another possible way -- they flew westbound around the world.  :-)
--
Sao Khai Mong:   Applied Dynamics, 3800 Stone School Road, Ann Arbor, Mi48108
[phone] (uunet|sharkey)!amara!khai  [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 18:14:14 GMT
From: s96![e-mail]  (Kris Chubb)
Subject: Re: SR-71


Someone told me last night that they cheated on the coast to coast
flight. Seems that the SR-71 flew west about 100 miles, turned around,
and with a running start and altitude already gained, started being timed
as it passed over the coast (or Edwards AFB?). Any comment (or clarification)?


Kris Chubb --> [e-mail]
Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab. (Who/Which has nothing whatever
---------------------------->  to do with the trash I've
---------------------------->  expressed here)

------------------------------

Date: 10 Mar 90 03:45:47 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: hubble telescope power

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
>Is it possible to someday boost the HST to sychronous orbit
>where it was originally intended to operate? Could a Centaur
>upper stage be ferried up by expendable launcher and then
>mated to HST by a shuttle crew?

The earliest references to the HST that I can find all refer to it as
a low-orbit mission; I don't recall ever hearing of a proposal to put
it in Clarke orbit.

Mating a Centaur to it would probably work, and might supply enough
delta-vee to get it there, but in-space assembly is officially Too
Difficult for anything but the space station.  Dunno why.  The mission
would take tight scheduling, since Centaur's loiter time in orbit is
very limited.

There are a couple of other problems with the idea, too.  For one thing,
how do you bring HST back for repairs and instrument changes?  (The second-
generation instruments for it are already under development.)  For another,
you might have to radiation-harden the electronics and solar arrays more,
since Clarke orbit is in the fringes of the outer Van Allen belt.
--
MSDOS, abbrev:  Maybe SomeDay |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
an Operating System.          | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 8 Mar 90 17:20:27 GMT
From: convex![e-mail]  (Richard A. Schumacher)
Subject: Re: hubble telescope power


Is it possible to someday boost the HST to sychronous orbit
where it was originally intended to operate? Could a Centaur
upper stage be ferried up by expendable launcher and then
mated to HST by a shuttle crew?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Mar 90 17:32:00 +0100
From: [e-mail] (Daniel Fischer)
Subject: MUSES-A dust experiment - first (non-)result

It was just announced that the Munich Dust Detector aboard the Japanese
MUSES-A spacecraft didn't measure any increase in dust density when it passed
the L4 Lagrange Point of the Earth-Moon system on Feb.14. However, since it is
a fairly small detector the counting rate is very small (about one dust grain
per week!) and thus the statistics aren't convincing. In the past 3 decades
there has been a lot of controversy about the possibility that there are
"dust moons" at the L4 and L5 points, and one Polish researcher even claimed
to have seen and photographed them. [Some references: Kordylewski, Acta Astron.
_11_,165{1961}; Bruman, Icarus _10_,197{1969}; Roach, Planet Space Sci. _23_,
173{1975}; Roeser, Lecture Notes in Physics _48_,124{1976}; Kordylewski, Ster=
nenbote _21_,81{1978}] The 'phenomenon', if there is any, is very little known
nowadays, and I wonder: has it been 'killed' convincingly, either by calcula=
tion or by complete non-observation (references, please!,) or was it just
forgotten?  >>>>>  What does the 'L5 society' think about it...?  <<<<<

+- [e-mail] --- Daniel Fischer --- [e-mail] -+
| Max-Planck-Institut f. Radioastronomie, Auf dem Huegel 69, D-5300 Bonn 1,FRG |
+----- Enjoy the Universe - it's the only one you're likely to experience -----+

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 09:26:42 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!axion!axion.bt.co.uk![e-mail]  (alan pengelly)
Subject: XB-70 and X-15

The pilot of the F104 that hit the XB-70 was Joe Walker, who at the time
was considered the US's best test pilot ( in particular flying the X-15).
Apparently no one knows why it happened.

Incidently, does anyone know what characteristics of the X-15 were
inherited by the Shuttle, i.e. lift/drag ratio etc? Strikes me that
the X-15 was a superb research programme and that its value is somewhat
understated.

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 18:47:05 GMT
From: hplabsb![e-mail]  (David Smith)
Subject: Re: SR-71 and dates

With respect to the proposals for SR-71 as Pegasus launcher, the stores
separation problem was not fully solved in the D-21 program.  AW&ST had
this to say (Jan. 22, p.42):

    The photograph directly below shows the D-21 mounted on the aft
    fuselage of a Lockheed M-12 mother ship.  The M-12 was created by
    taking a single-seat A-12, the forerunner of the SR-71, and converting
    the reconnaissance bay behind the pilot into a cockpit for the drone
    controller.  A streamlined launch pylon for the D-21 was added atop the
    aft fuselage.

    On a launch attempt during supersonic cruise on July 30, 1966, the D-21
    collided with the M-12 carrier aircraft after separation.  The M-12
    broke apart and both crewmembers ejected.  The drone controller drowned
    of the California coast after successfully ejecting.  The M-12 program
    was immediately canceled, and the remaining drones were converted for
    launch from the B-52.
--

            David R. Smith, HP Labs
            [e-mail]
            [phone]

------------------------------

Date: 9 Mar 90 19:57:12 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!emory!emcard!wa4mei!nanovx!chara![e-mail]  (Donald J. Barry)
Subject: Re: Resolving Power of Hubble Space Telescope

As stated correctly by several posters, the HST will have a limiting
performance of 0.1 arcseconds.

What was not mentioned is that resolution three times greater is
routinely obtained through ground-based optical speckle inter-
ferometry.  Using the 4-m Mayall and CTIO telescopes, the Center
for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) at Georgia State University
routinely resolves features down to 0.03 arcseconds.  Statistical
techniques to remove atmospheric blurring are used with sensitive
detectors capable of taking short exposures over which atmospheric
distortion is frozen.  Many such images are processed to yield a
final diffraction-limited dataset.

Arrays of optical telescopes are being pioneered by several groups,
including CHARA.  The "CHARA Array", a network of 7 1-meter
telescopes distributed over a 400-meter circle, is currently
under consideration for funding by the National Science Foundation.
The Array will have a limiting resolution of 0.2 milliarcseconds -- a
factor of 100 exceeding any ground-based instrument (and 300 times
better than Hubble!)

Of course, these techniques are limited to reasonably bright
sources (New detectors enable the speckle technique to work to
roughly 14 magnitude, over a dynamic range not exceeding 100/1, and
the Array will have limiting magnitude of 11 initially, and 14 with
optical compensation)  But there are many interesting objects visible
with these constraints -- certainly far more than Hubble will ever have
time to examine.

Hubble's principle contribution will be simultaneous solution of several
limits pertaining to ground-based astronomy -- fine resolution of
very dim sources having large dynamic ranges, in visible and UV.
Singly, except for UV spectroscopy, the capabilities of HST have
been duplicated years past by ground based instruments.



--
Donald J. Barry       [phone]         | [e-mail]
Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy | President, Astronomical
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303  | Society of the Atlantic

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V11 #133
*******************