Why Not?

Glad you liked it! The U2, I don't believe is designed to carry heavy payloads.

What you envision is coming, but it'll be expensive.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Nice ad

Hey you guys, take it easy..........I've got faith in Branson.

He's at least demonstrated that he can accumulate huge wealth without pissing anyone off. That I know of.

I'm using his cell phones.......best deal on the planet.

Now that is a space ship financed by a British based company - WOW!!!

You're right about jet engines needing air to work. I think Chuck Yeager found that out the hard way in an F104 back in the day.

At least it was that way in "The Right Stuff".

Your personal insult bounced right off my tin helmet.

Looking at that Virgin site, I think it's really going to happen soon. I looked at the booking link, and in the scheme of things, considering the relatively short time we've been in space, $200,000 is dirt cheap. If I had the money laying around, I'd be right in line.

Kramarat, I'll be standing right behind you in that line....

BTW, I like your moniker......but where does one Cram A Rat? Just kidding!

My name's Mark, wife's name's Tara. It just sounds creepy. This way I can remember my screen name and my wife's name. Just have to turn it around.

Avitar was hanging out on the front porch rail.

How do you remember your wedding anniversary?

The wife starts talking about it 2 months beforehand.

I've got a neighbor friend that I drink with, that got married on his birthday.

What a dumba$$. He's been married for about 26 years. Every year he just wants to relax, do some drinking, and have some fun for his birthday.........but he can't, because it's his anniversary......which trumps his birthday every year. It's sad and funny at the same time. He doesn't even really like his wife anymore.

My wedding anniversary is April 2nd. The wedding chapel was closed on April Fool's Day.

Good thinking. Speaking of fools.

What do they say about a fool and his money?

I want to be his personal mechanic.

I used to run into people like that in the paint business. "I don't care how much it costs, I just want it perfect." No problemo, will do.

They're getting few and far between though. Now they want it perfect, and they want me to match Pedro's price.

A jerk you are.

Wrong......get your glasses, I'm a _Bastard. But thanks for thinking about me.

Where did you learn to talk like that? Star Wars

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Hey kramarat, I'm the OP, and that response from another guest above is most certainly NOT ME.

Just wanted to make that clear.

No worries. I don't care anyway. You could just register and join the party.

Surely you can tell us!!!

Give him a little while, he's got to google it.

LOL!

Shame!!

You'd have to know us to understand. We had already lived together for over 10 years.

Beentheredoneit when it comes to first wife....Iiiccchhhh! Now on my 2nd one and she's gem thank goodness....even lets me drink every once and a while. LOL

Hmmm now where did I put that tall cool RumRunner!?

Hey Mark. Oh Oh.........I think I may have upset a guest. Oops.

"upset a guest"

Hey, that's my job.

I didn't mean to wander into your turf dude.

I guess I did a good job though, his post was deleted before I even saw it.

Why do I get the feeling, that when the weekend comes, the mods check in to see what kramarat has been up to?

"Why do I get the feeling, that when the weekend comes, the mods check in to see what kramarat has been up to?"

You've been hangin' with me too much.

Probably

Actually I reported it. I could see no basis for his/her asinine rant.

That's fine. He's just a kid with lot's of learning to do. Thanks for squelching my paranoia that was creeping in.

Even if he's young, I can't imagine why he would jump on here and brag that he got a credit card and immediately maxed it out and destroyed his credit on junk, without expecting some kind repudiation. Oh well.

If its of any interest here, we got married on the 31st December 1982, it means there is ALWAYS a party somewhere......practical!

Its nobodies birthday either.......that would be bad news.....

I'll bet the reception was one for the history books.

It almost gives me a headache thinking about it.

My wife was pregnant and had many hospital visits of 7-10 days behind her during the pregnancy, so it was OK but we partied CAREFULLY!

But we have made up many times since for that!!!!

Still do........

Its not long now!!

How do ya do Mark? BTW, my name is Mark as well!

For 200 Grand I would give you a ride you would not forget as well. If you have a passport you could be here before the weekend Ah, sorry, I'm already half a day ahead of you.

Have one on me, Ky.

PS: I've been through that name thing so just roll with the punches Mate.

Eventually you reach an altitude where the air is too thin to allow a jet engine to function or to allow the plane's control surfaces to work. That's when you need a main rocket engine to achieve increased altitude and smaller rocket engines to allow yaw, pitch and roll of the space-plane.

I seem to recall that an F-15 was once used to place a satellite in orbit. The F-15 carried a rocket/satellite combination high into the atmosphere, whereupon the rocket was released and it carried the satellite further up into orbit.

Although it might be possible to modify a U2 for that, or a plane capable of supersonic speeds like the F-15 or an SR-71, I think that newer technologies have rendered these options obsolete.

Sorry, that F-15 Eagle that you're referring to was used as a platform to launch an "Anti-Satellite Missile" at an orbiting satellite, not for launching a satellite. Test was deemed successful by the USAF with a direct hit.

==CaptMoosie

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I know I should have googled it first to check, but got lazy. Though I'm thinking, if they were able to launch a missile like that it wouldn't have been too big a step to launch a small satellite in a similar manner.

The Lockheed U2/TR-1 designed by the legendary Kelly Johnson wasn't designed to reach space or to be used as a launching platform for several reasons:

1. The wings need air to create lift. The airplane is more of a jet-powered glider than anything else with an extremely low wing loading.

2. The jet engine needs air to run.

3. To operate in space the airplane would need to be equipped with thrust vectoring jets at the nose, tail and wingtips.

Aside, yes it is true that Chuck Yeager took up a specially designed F-104 Starfighter outfitted with a rocket booster installed at the root of the vertical stabilizer (tail) and thrust vectoring jets.....and nearly died as a result of a instability problem at altitude. The movie "Right Stuff" almost got it right except the F-104 shown in the movie was plain Jane F-104C not equipped with the rocket unit. That jet was a one of a kind and augered into desert sands at Edwards AFB. I suggest reading Yeager's book about this altitude record attempt. Quite amazing that he was able to punch out in time at all....

As I recall, he reached an altitude of about 104,000 feet and was unable to control the plane with the vectoring jets. He went into a flat spin and was not able to regain control although he and the ground crew discussed and attemped solutions all the way down to 14,000 feet where he finally punched out.

His parachute got tangled in the ejection seat then, he got serious facial burns from the ejection rocket. He survived and was the recipient of a new plastic surgery process that saved his face.

Being in a flat spin for 90,000 feet must be some sort of record.

I've always favored fly-up over the current launch vehicle. The name of the game is to get mass up to escape velocity. I would like to see a multi-stage vehicle, perhaps starting with something on rails going up a slope. Mag-lev could transition to rail-gun to get the vehicle up to the stratosphere. If fast enough, the air-burning engine may not be necessary, just go right to rockets. Scram-jets and ram-jets are light, could be dropped as the craft goes up, too.

It's the fuel that's the real weight, it takes fuel to lift fuel.

Reaction wheels are useful for attitude control in space vehicles,(Hubble telescope) but may be too heavy for this use. I've been trying to develop a reaction wheel thruster, but, alas, no joy. A couple always produces a couple, darn it.

I personally like the idea of ramjets/scramjets with an intake door (or perhaps a movable inlet spike that could completely close up the intake like a modified P&W J58) that closes at altitude to convert them to rockets when the air gets too thin to sustain combustion, then use a (much smaller) tank of LOX for the remainder of the flight. A driven turbine in the hot section could be used to turn the turbopumps. you save probably half or more of the weight of the LOX over a straight rocket setup that way.

I was just reading about this in Popular Science.

It amazes me how a person with only a high school education can second-guess NASA. Personally, I think it's the usual 'not invented here' syndrome, or they are so ingrained with the rocket vendors that any other idea is taboo.

It will take a third party to show them up, like Branson and Co. (can't remember the Vari-easy guy, right on the tip of my memory)

"Vari-Easy guy" = Burt Rutan ? of Scaled Composites ?

Masu, can you link to where you got those numbers please?

Drew

"Masu, can you link to where you got those numbers please?"

No problems

Follow this link to the X-15 information including a list of some of it record breaking flights.

Follow this link to Orbital Velocity for the information on orbital speeds

Follow this link to the U-2 page which contains the information about the U-2 speed and altitude.

Great answer masu. That should keep the OP happy.

Wow!

"I did take it to a staggering 6,000 feet once"

I live at over 5,000 feet. Trail ridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park is at 14,000 feet. I've never seen anybody stagger at that altitude unless intoxicated. LOL

In all fairness. Trying to read between the lines, it sounds like he may have killed the engines at about 20,000ft and dropped her to 6000 ft. But, who knows?

That would be impressive though.

I don't know about the USA but it's more than likely the same as Australia where if you are flying at over 10,000 feet AMSL in an unpressurized aircraft it's mandatory for the pilot to use supplemental oxygen.

You might be interested to know that there is a unit that glider pilots use that uses a device called a pulse oximeter to measure the concentration of oxygen in your blood then uses the result to determine how much supplemental oxygen you require to prevent altitude induced hypoxia.

At night you can start to show the first signs of hypoxia with a fading off of your night vision at as little as 3,000 feet AMSL.

I seem to remember reading in one of the "Crash Comics" that RAAF pilots use supplemental oxygen from the ground up when flying at night but I can't remember where or when I read it so I have no way of confirming this. If there are any military pilots out there they may like to help out here.

At 14,000 feet you would definitely be showing signs of hypoxia.

The city of Estes Park is about 9000 feet. One vacation we returned by way of Trail ridge road. My wife was having a panic attack or something. She thought she would "fall off the world". It may be because she wasn't adjusted to the altitude. I drove slower and stopped at the Trail Ridge Gift Store which is about 12,000 feet, and we had something to eat. When we left there she was OK. She now sleeps with an oxygen concentrator. We were taking my son up there once, and he got a headache about half way there, so we turned back. He may not have been "popping his ears" properly to the change in altitude. People who live at sea level may have a difficult time getting up there.

Going back I used to fly gliders which as you would expect are unpressurized and unheated so the poor old pilot is stuck with the same atmosphere as outside. As you go up the it's not just the pressure that drops the temperature as well falling by about 3°C for every 1,000 feet (300 metres) of height gain but because the pressure drops the boiling point of water drops so the evaporation rate increases quite dramatically. You have to be really careful because not only can you suffer from hypothermia but the increased evaporation rate can dehydrate you very quickly so it's essential you keep drinking even when your cold.

I remember flying north of Adelaide one hot summers day when the ground temperature was touching on 40°C but the dew point was so low that there were no clouds in sight. I picked up a thermal that was giving me 5 to 7 knots (500 to 700 feet per minute) of lift and ended up riding it to 13,000 feet before getting off. Even then the thermal was still going strong and the reason I got off was the glider didn't have oxygen so technically I should have called it quits at 10,000 feet.

When I pulled the plug the thermometer was reading a chilly 1°C which was compounded by my 40°C attire so my extremities were starting to turn blue. It was a bloody great day and I managed to cover the final 60 km back to the airfield in a little over 20 minutes and even then had to use full airbrakes to get down to the circuit height.

Anyway, it's not just the lack of oxygen that can get you but you can dehydrate really quickly and become intoxicated much sooner than at ground level. Sometimes you can even be intoxicated by things like medications that at ground level don't have any effect. That's one of the reasons people get drunk on aeroplanes then sober up and go straight to the hangover as soon as the aircraft lands.

I used to visit Colorado regularly years ago and I used to trek up into the Rockies to find really great tiny lakes for fishing.....often with cases of fresh beer left by fisherman too lazy to carry it down again!!! Though I had to drive later, and restrict my intake....

I am pretty sure we got up pretty high, 10-12,000 feet or maybe more, (Well above Nederland at some 8,300 feet or so....) I don't remember exactly, but I never noticed any problems......and I was careful being a relatively "lowlander" person.....and we were carrying our food, drink and fishing gear......

Or does that last 2,000 feet or so make all the difference with oxygen.....?

I just read post #76 and we were well above Estes park and the road he mentions.....