SR-71 Presentation -- Reminder & Last Chance

The space shuttle is a rocket and carries all the "air" it
uses (liquid oxygen) and doesn't burn "all the air out of an
area" so I'd say the story is a real urban legend.


"Big John" wrote in message
...
| Jay
|
| Believe I asked you this question before but you didn't
have the
| chance to ask Bill.
|
| A friend (?) of mine here in Houston was on a console when
the Shuttle
| blew up after launch. He said that a '71 was also lost
because the
| shuttle fuel burned all the oxy out of air in a large area
and '71
| flamed out and crashed.
|
| I never was able to validate this story. When you see Fox
please ask
| him if it is true (I don't think so as ascent trajectory
is kept clear
| of aircraft for safety on launches).
|
| Would love to hear his stories but am to far away and
don't travel
| well any more.
|
| Be sure the flags are up this Memorial Day for those who
are no
| longer with us.
|
| Big John
|
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` ``````````````````````````````````````````
|
| On Mon, 29 May 2006 12:34:13 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
| wrote:
|
| To those of you who have reserved a seat for Bill Fox's
talk about his years
| working as a project manager at the Lockheed Skunk Works
during the
| development of the SR-71 Blackbird (7 PM tomorrow --
Tuesday -- night),
| please arrive around 6:30 PM. Seating is limited and by
reservation only,
| so please (for a change!) don't bring a bunch of friends.
|
| ----clip----

I was at the cape watching that very sobering sight that morning..
There was so much debris flying though the air when it exploed there
would be no way something could have flown anywhere close to the area
and not hit some trash. If I rememeber correctly NASA would not even
launch helicopters to the area for over an hour cause stuff was still
falling out of the sky and that crap would have taken down a rescue
vehicles. That was a sad day in space flight for sure...

Ben
www.haaspowerair.com

Matt Whiting writes:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Matt Whiting writes:

If that is the case, then I'm about 99% certain that the above is
urban legend as the shuttle carries its own oxidizer for its fuel.
You don't see air intakes anywhere on the shuttle do you? I really
doubt it depletes the atmosphere of oxygen in any significant way.
The shuttle certainly doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen, no. On the
other hand, it produces high volumes of combustion products, and I
wouldn't be shocked to discover the reaction hasn't gone to
completion, and the stuff left reacts with the air in some way or
other. Or at least, I'd want expert advice before I walked into a
cloud of
the stuff :-).

Oh, no doubt. But at the speed an SR-71 flies, it would spend at most
a few milliseconds in the exhaust remnants of the shuttle. I find it
very hard to believe that this would bring down an SR-71. It'll be
curious to see what Jay finds out when he asks the expert.

I don't really give much credit to the SR-71 story, but it's not my
field of expertise so I'm not confident my opinion is right
particularly. I was just pointing out that the shuttle could affect
the atmosphere in ways other than burning atmospheric oxygen.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

On 2006-05-29 18:43, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Matt Whiting writes:


If that is the case, then I'm about 99% certain that the above is
urban legend as the shuttle carries its own oxidizer for its fuel.
You don't see air intakes anywhere on the shuttle do you? I really
doubt it depletes the atmosphere of oxygen in any significant way.


The shuttle certainly doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen, no. On the
other hand, it produces high volumes of combustion products, and I
wouldn't be shocked to discover the reaction hasn't gone to
completion, and the stuff left reacts with the air in some way or
other.

Or at least, I'd want expert advice before I walked into a cloud of
the stuff :-).

Not that I'm too savvy about this, but what I recall the Columbia
shuttle burned on reentry, and at that stage the shuttle would be mainly
a glider with very little onboard fuel?

Whatever burns through friction, I'd expect to use up athmospheric
oxygen, excepting the oxygen in breathing eqm, if such is used.

/Rolf

Not that I'm too savvy about this, but what I recall the Columbia shuttle
burned on reentry, and at that stage the shuttle would be mainly a glider
with very little onboard fuel?

I believe Big John's SR-71 question was referring to the Challenger
explosion -- not the Columbia re-entry break-up.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

me too

On 2006-05-30 15:02, Jay Honeck wrote:
Not that I'm too savvy about this, but what I recall the Columbia shuttle
burned on reentry, and at that stage the shuttle would be mainly a glider
with very little onboard fuel?


I believe Big John's SR-71 question was referring to the Challenger
explosion -- not the Columbia re-entry break-up.


Oh, sorry, mea culpa; I read too much into the SR-71 issue; I was
trying to make a sensible connection to the SR-71 question, and when
such a craft might have been used close to the shuttle.

I can't imagine NASA would put one anywhere near a launch site, since
it's not very manouverable, and AFAIK they have other craft for launch
photography. (Noone else uses SR71:s nowadays, if at all, but back in
-86 it was still in use by the USAF; but they would surely have stayed
far away too.)

IMO, it could perhaps have been useful for watching a shuttle during the
descent, since that is pretty straight until the breaking turns.

But as stated before, the lost SR-71 is probably an urban legend.

/Rolf

In any case, all space launches involve very strictly
controlled restricted airspace. No aircraft are allowed
anywhere near the launch vehicle flight path because of the
risk of a mid-air. There are planes doing airspace
monitoring. probably armed F16 or FA18. But an SR71 would
not be a good choice for monitoring the launch from a close
point, although it might be 100 miles away as a training or
evaluation of its detection equipment.


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:cnXeg.754859$084.22232@attbi_s22...
| Not that I'm too savvy about this, but what I recall the
Columbia shuttle
| burned on reentry, and at that stage the shuttle would
be mainly a glider
| with very little onboard fuel?
|
| I believe Big John's SR-71 question was referring to the
Challenger
| explosion -- not the Columbia re-entry break-up.
| --
| Jay Honeck
| Iowa City, IA
| Pathfinder N56993
| www.AlexisParkInn.com
| "Your Aviation Destination"
|
|