1.
VSS Enterprise
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VSS Enterprise was the first SpaceShipTwo spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic and it was also the first ship of the Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo class, based on upscaling the design of record-breaking SpaceShipOne. The VSS Enterprises name was an acknowledgement of the USS Enterprise from the Star Trek television series, the spaceplane also shared its name with NASAs prototype space shuttle, as well as the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. It was rolled out on 7 December 2009, SpaceShipTwo made its first powered flight in April 2013. Richard Branson said it couldnt have gone more smoothly, Enterprise was destroyed during a powered test flight on 31 October 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another. Initial projections by Virgin Galactic in 2008 called for test flights to begin in late 2009 and this schedule was not achieved, with captive carry and glide flight tests beginning in 2010, and the first test flight under rocket power was not until 2013. In October 2009, Virgin Galactic CEO Will Whitehorn outlined the flight test program for SpaceShipTwo, a second test flight was made on 16 May 2010, reaching SS2s launch altitude and lasting nearly five hours, in order to facilitate cold soak testing of SS2s avionics and pressurization system. Thereafter, a simulated spaceship descent/glide mission was made from altitude, between these two flights, the SpaceShipTwo airframe was modified by the addition of two interior fins, with one fin being added to the inside of each of the crafts twin vertical stabilizers. On 15 July 2010, VSS Enterprise made its first crewed flight, the craft remained attached to VMS Eve as planned, and underwent a series of combined vehicle systems tests. The flight lasted a total of 6 hours and 21 minutes, a second, similar crewed flight of VSS Enterprise and VMS Eve was carried out on 30 September 2010, lasting approximately 5 hours. Among the objectives of these flights was the improvement of proficiency. On 10 October 2010, VSS Enterprise made its first manned gliding test flight and it was released from VMS Eve at 13700 m feet and glided to a safe landing at the Mojave Air and Spaceport. A second gliding test flight took place on 28 October 2010, as of December 2010, Scaled reported that the flight test program is exceeding expectations. The fourth test flight took place on 13 January 2011, while the fifth and sixth glide flights occurred on 22 and 27 April 2011, respectively. Following this, the feathered reentry configuration was tested in flight on 4 May 2011, on 9 June 2011, SS2 failed to separate from White Knight Two during its 11th planned glide flight due to a technical problem. Testing resumed with five successful flights in June 2011. In July 2011, after 15 successful glide flights, flight testing of SS2 was halted for two months while planned revisions to the spaceplane were made and this test was followed by another hiatus, during which some of the spacecrafts engine components were installed. In June 2012, Scaled Composites received an FAA permit to conduct rocket-powered supersonic test flights, SpaceShipTwo flight tests resumed in June 2012
2.
Mother ship
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A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bombers converted to experimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research. A mother ship may also be used to smaller craft. A smaller vessel serving or caring for larger craft is called a tender. The term mother ship dates back to the 19th-century whaling trade when small, fast ships were used to chase, the dead meat from several boats was then brought back to the larger, slower ship for processing and storage until the return to land. This model enabled a far more efficient method of whaling, though whaling is much lower-scale than in earlier days, the single large storage ship model is still used extensively by fishermen. Such ships are known today as factory ships, in many languages, such as Chinese, Finnish and Japanese, the word mother ship refers to an aircraft carrier, see 母艦. During World War II, the German Type XIV submarine or Milchkuh was a type of large submarine used to resupply the U-boats, mother ships can carry small submersibles and submarines to an area of ocean to be explored. Somalian pirates use mother ships to extend the reach of their attacking speed boats into the Indian Ocean, in aviation, motherships have been used in the airborne aircraft carrier, air launch and captive carry roles. Some large long-range aircraft act as motherships to parasite aircraft, a mothership may also form the larger component of a composite aircraft. During the age of the airships, the United States built two rigid airships, USS Akron and USS Macon, with onboard hangars able to house a number of Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters. These airborne aircraft carriers operated successfully for several years and these airships utilized an internal hangar bay using a trapeze to hold the aircraft. In the air launch role, a carrier aircraft or mother ship carries a smaller payload aircraft to a launch point. During World War II the Japanese Mitsubishi G4M bomber was used to carry the rocket-powered Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka aircraft, used for kamikaze attacks, germany also planned a jet-carrying bomber, called the Daimler-Benz Project C. In the USA, NASA has used converted bombers as launch platforms for experimental aircraft, notable among these was the use during the 1960s of a modified Boeing B-52 Stratofortress for the repeated launching of the North American X-15. In a captive carry arrangement the payload craft, such as a rocket, missile, aeroplane or spaceplane, does not separate from the carrier aircraft. Notable examples include, A pair of modified Boeing 747s known as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, were used by NASA to transport the Space Shuttle orbiter, the Soviet Union developed and used the Antonov An-225 Mriya to ferry the Buran spacecraft
3.
VMS Eve
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VMS Eve is a carrier mothership for Virgin Galactic and launch platform for Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo-based Virgin SpaceShips. VMS Eve is the first, and so far only, White Knight Two, the VMS prefix stands for Virgin Mothership. The aircraft was named after Evette Branson, the mother of Richard Branson, the jet plane has nose art of a blonde woman holding the Virgin Galactic corporate flag. The image is based on how Evette Branson looked when she was younger and is called Galactic Girl, the aircraft was officially launched on July 28,2008, in Mojave, California, the United States, at the Mojave Spaceport, home of Scaled Composites. On December 12,2008, the aircraft performed first taxi tests, Eve will be used in the Virgin Galactic testflight program, preceding entry into commercial usage. It is the largest all composite aircraft ever constructed and has the longest single-piece composite aircraft part, burt Rutan has dismissed fears that pressurization cycles might induce fatigue failure in the composite structure. Richard Branson has also announced that it will be highly fuel efficient, the initial flight tests were planned to begin in early September 2008 but they were delayed. On 12 December 2008 the initial low speed taxi test was carried out at Mojave followed by a high speed taxi on 16 December, by September 2009 the flight envelope was extended to 50000 feet. Testing has continued, with delays and setbacks, and as of 19 September 2014 the total flight time for WhiteKnightTwo is 333.96 hours.29
4.
Pilot error
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Pilot error is a term used to describe a decision, action or inaction by a pilot or crew of an aircraft determined to be a cause or contributing factor in an accident or incident. The term includes mistakes, oversights, lapses in judgment, gaps in training, adverse habits, accounting for the way human factors influence the actions of pilots is now considered standard practice by accident investigators when examining the chain of events that led to an accident. Usually in an accident caused by error, it is assumed that the pilot in command makes an error unintentionally. However, a disregard for a standard operating procedure is still considered to be a pilot error. Pilot error is a decision or action mistake by pilots when there is an emergency, as the commander of the aircraft, the pilot is always regarded to be one of the most important factors. The decisions of the pilot determine everything on the craft, analyses of accident patterns can have value for the improvement of passengers safety. The pilot may be a factor even during adverse weather conditions if the investigating body deems that the pilot did not exercise due diligence. The responsibility for the accident in such a case would depend whether the pilot could reasonably know of the danger and whether he or she took reasonable steps to avoid the weather problem. Some weather phenomena are difficult to avoid, especially if the aircraft involved is the first aircraft to encounter the phenomenon in an area at a certain time. Placing pilot error as a cause of an accident has often been controversial. Attorneys for the co-pilot, who was killed in the crash, modern accident investigators avoid the words pilot error, as the scope of their work is to determine the cause of an accident, rather than apportion blame. Furthermore, any attempt to blame pilots does not consider that they are part of a broader system, ICAO and its member states therefore adopted the Reason Model in 1993 in an effort to better understanding the role of human factors in aviation accidents. Thus, pilot error is a cause of air accidents. During 2004, pilot error was pointed to be the reason of 78. 6% of disastrous GA accidents. Pilot errors are related to multiple causes, decision errors can be caused by several factors such as tendencies, biases as well as breakdowns when human proceeds the information coming in. For pilot in aviation, these errors are highly to produce not only errors, pilots work in complex environments and are routinely exposed to high amounts of situational stress in the workplace, inducing pilot error which may result in a threat to flight safety. While aircraft accidents are infrequent, they are visible and often involve massive loss of life. For this reason, research on causal factors and methodologies of mitigating risk associated with pilot error is exhaustive, pilot error results from physiological and psychological limitations inherent in humans
5.
Mojave Desert
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The Mojave Desert is an arid rain-shadow desert and the driest desert in North America. It is located in the southwestern United States, primarily within southeastern California and southern Nevada, very small areas also extend into Utah and Arizona. The central part of the desert is sparsely populated, while its peripheries support large communities such as Las Vegas, Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, the Mojave Desert is bordered by the Great Basin Desert to its north and the Sonoran Desert to its south and east. Topographical boundaries include the Tehachapi Mountains to the west, and the San Gabriel Mountains, the mountain boundaries are distinct because they are outlined by the two largest faults in California – the San Andreas and Garlock faults. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography and it occupies less than 50,000 sq mi, making it the smallest of the North American deserts. The Mojave Desert is often referred to as the desert, in contrast to the low desert. However, the Mojave Desert is generally lower than the Great Basin Desert to the north, the spelling Mojave originates from the Spanish language while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. The Mojave Desert receives less than 13 in of rain a year and is generally between 2,000 and 5,000 feet in elevation, zion National Park in Utah lies at the junction of the Mojave, the Great Basin Desert, and the Colorado Plateau. Despite its aridity, the Mojave has long been a center of production, fed by irrigation coming from groundwater. The Mojave is a desert of temperature extremes and two distinct seasons, winter months bring comfortable daytime temperatures, which dip precipitously to around 20 °F on valley floors, and below 0 °F at higher elevations. Storms moving from the Pacific Northwest can bring rain and in places even snow. More often, the shadow created by the Sierra Nevada as well as mountain ranges within the desert such as the Spring Mountains, bring only clouds. By early June, it is rare for another Pacific storm to have a significant impact on the regions weather, summer weather is dominated by heat. Temperatures on valley floors can soar above 120 °F and above 130 °F at the lowest elevations, low humidity, high temperatures, and low pressure, draw in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico creating thunderstorms across the desert southwest known as the North American monsoon. Autumn is generally pleasant, with one to two Pacific storm systems creating regional rain events, october is one of the driest and sunniest months in the Mojave, and temperatures usually remain between 70 °F and 90 °F on the valley floors. After temperature, wind is the most significant weather phenomenon in the Mojave, during the June Gloom, cooler air can be pushed out into the desert from Southern California. In Santa Ana wind events, hot air from the desert blows out into the Los Angeles basin, wind farms in these areas generate power from these winds. The other major factor in the region is elevation
6.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
7.
SpaceShipTwo
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The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic, SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine. It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing, the spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on 7 December 2009 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. On 29 April 2013, after three years of unpowered testing, the first one constructed successfully performed its first powered test flight. The spaceplane could also be used to carry payloads for NASA. On 31 October 2014 during a test flight, VSS Enterprise, a preliminary investigation suggested the feathering system, the crafts descent device, deployed too early. One pilot was killed, the other was treated for a shoulder injury after parachuting from the stricken spacecraft. The second SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, VSS Unity, was unveiled on 19 February 2016, the vehicle is currently undergoing flight testing. The SpaceShipTwo project is based in part on technology developed for the first-generation SpaceShipOne, the Spaceship Company licenses this technology from Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a joint venture of Paul Allen and Burt Rutan, the designer of the predecessor technology. SpaceShipTwo is a low-aspect-ratio passenger spaceplane and its capacity will be eight people — six passengers and two pilots. SpaceShipTwo will reach 4,200 km/h, using a hybrid rocket engine — the RocketMotorTwo. It launches from its ship, White Knight Two, at an altitude of 15,000 metres. After 70 seconds, the engine cuts out and the spacecraft will coast to its peak altitude. SpaceShipTwos crew cabin is 3.7 m long and 2.3 m in diameter, the wing span is 8.2 m, the length is 18 m and the tail height is 4.6 m. SpaceShipTwo uses a feathered reentry system, feasible due to the low speed of reentry, in contrast, other orbital spacecraft re-enter at orbital speeds, closer to 25,000 km/h, using heat shields. SpaceShipTwo is furthermore designed to re-enter the atmosphere at any angle and it will decelerate through the atmosphere, switching to a gliding position at an altitude of 24 km, and will take 25 minutes to glide back to the spaceport. SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two are, respectively, roughly twice the size of the first-generation SpaceShipOne and mother ship White Knight, SpaceShipTwo has 43 and 33 cm -diameter windows for the passengers viewing pleasure, and all seats will recline back during landing to decrease the discomfort of G-forces. Reportedly, the craft can land safely even if a failure occurs during flight
8.
Virgin Galactic
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Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company within the Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists, Virgin Galactic plans to provide orbital human spaceflights as well. SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactics suborbital spacecraft, is air launched from beneath a carrier known as White Knight Two. As part of Bransons promotion of the firm, he has added a variation of the Virgin Galactic livery to his business jet. The Spaceship Company was founded by Branson through Virgin Group, and Lee Family from Hong Kong owned 30%, to build commercial spaceships, by July 2014, TSC was only halfway through the completion of a second SpaceShipTwo, and had commenced construction of a second WhiteKnightTwo. In July 2008, Richard Branson predicted the maiden voyage would take place within 18 months. In October 2009, Virgin Galactic announced that flights would take place from Spaceport America within two years. Later that year, Scaled Composite announced that White Knight Twos first SpaceShipTwo captive flights would be in early 2010, both aircraft did fly together in March 2010. When I joined in 2010 we were mostly a marketing organisation, right now we can design, build, test and fly a rocket motor all by ourselves and all in Mojave, which I don’t think is done anywhere else on the planet”. On December 7,2009, SpaceShipTwo was unveiled at the Mojave Spaceport, Branson told the 300 people attending, each of whom had booked rides at $200,000 each, that flights would begin “in 2011”. However, in April 2011, Branson announced further delays, saying “I hope 18 months from now, we’ll be sitting in our spaceship and heading off into space”. By February 2012, SpaceShipTwo had completed 15 test flights attached to White Knight Two, and an additional 16 glide tests, a rocket-powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo finally took place on April 29,2013, with an engine burn of 16 seconds duration. The brief flight began at an altitude of 47,000 feet, while the SS2 achieved a speed of Mach 1.2, this was less than half the 2,000 mph speed predicted by Richard Branson. However, Branson still announced his spaceship would be capable of launching 100 satellites every day, maybe I’ll dress up as Father Christmas, Branson said. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said “We are progressively closer to our target of starting commercial service in 2014. Interviewed by The Observer at the time of her 90th birthday in July 2014, Branson’s mother, Eve, asked when that might be, she replied, “I think it’s the end of the year”, adding after a pause, “It’s always ‘the end of the year’ ”. Tom Bower, author of Branson, The Man behind the Mask, told the Sunday Times, They spent 10 years trying to one engine. They are now trying to use a different engine and get into space in six months, BBC science editor David Shukman commented in October 2014, that enthusiasm and determination undoubted
9.
Aircraft registration
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In accordance with the Convention on International Civil Aviation, all civil aircraft must be registered with a national aviation authority using procedures set by each country. Every country, even those not party to the Chicago Convention, has a NAA whose functions include the registration of civil aircraft, an aircraft can only be registered once, in the one jurisdiction. The registration identifier must be displayed prominently on the aircraft, most countries also require the registration identifier to be imprinted on a permanent fireproof plate mounted on the fuselage in case of a post-fire/post-crash aircraft accident investigation. Military aircraft typically use tail codes and serial numbers, although each aircraft registration identifier is unique, some countries allow it to be re-used when the aircraft has been sold, destroyed or retired. For example, N3794N is assigned to a Mooney M20F and it had been previously assigned to a Beechcraft Bonanza. Also note that an aircraft may be assigned different registrations during its existence. This can be because the aircraft ownership, jurisdiction of registration. The first use of aircraft registrations was based on the radio callsigns allocated at the London International Radiotelegraphic Conference in 1913, the format was a single letter prefix followed by four other letters. The major nations operating aircraft were allocated a letter prefix. Smaller countries had to share a single letter prefix, but were allocated exclusive use of the first letter of the suffix and this was modified by agreement by the International Bureau at Berne and published on April 23,1913. The agreement stipulated that the nationality marks were to be followed by a then a group of four letters that must include a vowel. This system operated until the adoption of the system in 1928. The International Radiotelegraph Convention at Washington in 1927 revised the list of markings and these were adopted from 1928 and are the basis of the currently used registrations. The markings have been amended and added to over the years, upon registration, the aircraft receives its unique registration, which must be displayed prominently on the aircraft. Annex 7 to the Chicago Convention describes the definitions, location, the aircraft registration is made up of a prefix selected from the countrys callsign prefix allocated by the International Telecommunication Union and the registration suffix. Depending on the country of registration, this suffix is a numeric or alphanumeric code, a supplement to Annex 7 provides an updated list of approved nationality and common marks used by various countries. When painted on the fuselage, the prefix and suffix are usually separated by a dash, when entered in a flight plan, the dash is omitted. In some countries use a number suffix rather than letters, like the United States, South Korea, and Japan
10.
Mojave Air and Space Port
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The Mojave Air and Space Port, also known as the Civilian Aerospace Test Centre, is located in Mojave, California, at an elevation of 2,791 feet. It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, in 1935, Kern County established the Mojave Airport a half mile east of town to serve the gold and silver mining industry in the area. The airport consisted of two runways, one of which was oiled, but it lacked any fueling or servicing facilities. In 1941, the Civil Aeronautics Board began improvements to the airport for defense purposes that included two 4,500 x 150-ft. Kern County agreed the airport could be taken over by the military in the event of war, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States Marine Corps took over the airport and expanded it into Marine Corps Auxiliary Air Station Mojave. The two existing runways were extended and a third one added, barracks were constructed to house 2,734 male and 376 female military personnel. Civilian employment at the base would peak at 176, the Marines would eventually spend more than $7 million on the base, which totaled 2,312 acres. Many of the Corps World War II aces received their training at Mojave. During World War II, Mojave hosted 29 aircraft squadrons, four Carrier Aircraft Service Detachments, at its peak, the air station had 145 training and other aircraft. Mojave also had a 75 x 156 foot swimming pool that was used to train aviators in emergency water egress, the bases 900-seat auditorium hosted several USO shows that featured Bob Hope, Frances Langford and Marilyn Maxwell. With the end of World War II, MCAAS was disestablished on February 7,1946, the Navy used the airport for drone operations for less than a year, closing it on January 1,1947. The base remained closed for four years until the outbreak of the Korean War, Mojave was reactivated as an auxiliary landing field to MCAS El Toro. The airport was recommissioned as a MCAAS on December 31,1953, Squadrons used Mojave for ordnance training when El Toro had bad weather. Marine Corps reserve units were deployed to Mojave for two-week periods. MCAAS Mojave personnel peaked at 400 military and 200 civilians during this period, in 1961, after the Marine Corps transferred operations to MCAS El Centro, Kern County obtained title to the airport. In February 1972, the East Kern Airport District was formed to administer the airport, to a great extent EKAD was the brainchild of Kern County rancher and aviator Dan Sabovich, who heavily lobbied the state for the airport districts creation and ran EKAD until 2002. During the 1970s, commuter air carrier Golden West Airlines provided scheduled service operated with de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprops direct to Los Angeles. On November 20,2012, the EKAD Board of Directors voted to change the name of the district to the Mojave Air, officials said that the spaceport name is well known around the world, but EKAD is not
11.
Catastrophic failure
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A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure, the term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many other disciplines in which total and irrecoverable loss occurs. Such failures are investigated using the methods of engineering, which aims to isolate the cause or causes of failure. In firearms, catastrophic failure usually refers to a rupture or disintegration of the barrel or receiver of the gun when firing it. A failure of this type, known colloquially as a kaboom, or kB failure, can pose a threat not only to the user, in chemical engineering, thermal runaway can cause catastrophic failure. The bridge was designed and its replacement was built as a separate structure upstream of the old. The failure of the South Fork Dam in 1889 released 4.8 billion US gallons of water, the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 released 12.4 billion US gallons of water, resulting in a death toll of nearly 600 people. The collapse of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge of 1940, where the deck of the road bridge was totally destroyed by dynamic oscillations in a 40 miles per hour wind. The De Havilland Comet disasters of 1954, later determined to be failures due to metal fatigue that had not been anticipated at the corners of square windows used by the Comet 1. The 62 Banqiao Dams failure event in China in 1975, due to Typhoon Nina, approximately 86,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died from subsequent diseases, total of 231,000 deaths. The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse of 1981, where a walkway in a hotel lobby in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed completely, killing over 100 people on. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986, in which an O-ring of a rocket booster failed, the nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant, which exploded in 1986 causing the release of a substantial amount of radioactive materials. The collapse of the Warsaw radio mast of 1991, which had up to that point held the title of worlds tallest structure, the Sampoong Department Store collapse of 1995, which happened due to structural weaknesses, killed 502 people and injured 937. The terrorist attacks and subsequent fire at the World Trade Center on September 11,2001, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of 2003, where damage to a wing during launch resulted in total loss upon re-entry. The collapse of the multi-span I-35W Mississippi River bridge on August 1,2007, what Do You Care What Other People Think. Lewis, Peter R. Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879
12.
Flight test
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The flight test phase can range from the test of a single new system for an existing vehicle to the complete development and certification of a new aircraft, launch vehicle, or reusable spacecraft. Therefore, the duration of a flight test program can vary from a few weeks to many years. There are typically two categories of flight test programs – commercial and military, commercial flight testing is conducted to certify that the aircraft meets all applicable safety and performance requirements of the government certifying agency. Since commercial aircraft development is funded by the aircraft manufacturer and/or private investors. These civil agencies are concerned with the safety and that the pilot’s flight manual accurately reports the aircraft’s performance. The market will determine the suitability to operators. Normally, the certification agency does not get involved in flight testing until the manufacturer has found. Military programs differ from commercial in that the government contracts with the manufacturer to design. These performance requirements are documented to the manufacturer in the aircraft specification, in this case, the government is the customer and has a direct stake in the aircraft’s ability to perform the mission. Since the government is funding the program, it is involved in the aircraft design. Often military test pilots and engineers are integrated as part of the flight test team. The final phase of the aircraft flight test is the Operational Test. OT is conducted by a government-only test team with the dictate to certify that the aircraft is suitable, Flight testing of military aircraft is often conducted at military flight test facilities. The US Navy tests aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, the U. S. Air Force Test Pilot School and the U. S. Naval Test Pilot School are the programs designed to teach military test personnel. In the UK, most military flight testing is conducted by three organizations, the RAF, BAE Systems and QinetiQ, all launch vehicles, as well as a few reusable spacecraft, must necessarily be designed to deal with aerodynamic flight loads while moving through the atmosphere. Many launch vehicles are flight tested, with more extensive data collection. Reusable spacecraft or reusable booster test programs are more involved. For both commercial and military aircraft, as well as vehicles, flight test preparation begins well before the test vehicle is ready to fly
13.
Michael Alsbury
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Michael Tyner Alsbury was an American test pilot for Scaled Composites. He was killed on 31 October 2014 during test flight PF04 of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise, Alsbury had been a flying enthusiast since childhood. He graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering, Alsbury was married to Michelle Saling for 12 years and had two children, aged 7 and 10 at the time of his death. Alsbury joined Scaled Composites in 2001 and began working as a project engineer, in April 2013, he served as copilot to Mark Stucky on the first powered flight for VSS Enterprise and SpaceShipTwo. In 2013, he received the Ray E. Tenhoff Award for the most outstanding technical paper at the Society of Experimental Test Pilots symposium along with Mark Stucky and Clint Nichols. At the time of his death, he had 1800 flight hours,1600 of them as a test pilot, in 2013, he was the co-recipient of the Ray E. Tenhoff Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. On 31 October 2014 Alsbury was test flying the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, pilot error resulted in the craft breaking up in-flight and a total loss of VSS Enterprise, which crashed in the California Mojave Desert. Alsbury was unable to exit the spacecraft, and his remains were still strapped to his seat in the fuselage. It was the time that Alsbury had flown aboard the aircraft. On 4 November 2014, Episode 5 of BBC Ones Human Universe, presented by Brian Cox, was dedicated to Alsbury, as it had a sequence on Virgin Galactic test pilot David Mackay
14.
Peter Siebold
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Peter Siebold is a member of the Scaled Composites astronaut team. He is their Director of Flight Operations, and was one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo, the experimental spaceplanes developed by the company. On April 8,2004, Siebold piloted the second powered test flight of SpaceShipOne, flight 13P, which reached a top speed of Mach 1.6 and an altitude of 32.0 kilometers. Peter Siebold, a 1990 graduate of Davis Senior High School in Davis, California and he has been a design engineer at Scaled Composites since 1996. Siebold holds a degree in engineering from California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. Siebold was responsible for the simulator, navigation system, and ground control system for the SpaceShipOne project at Scaled. Although he was one of four qualified pilots for SpaceShipOne, Siebold did not pilot the craft during the later in 2004 to meet the requirements of the Ansari X Prize. Although Siebold flew SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 32 km, he did not cross the 100 km Kármán line—the international standard for reaching space, for his contribution to the SpaceShipOne project, Siebold, along with Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, received the 2004 Iven C. Kincheloe Award presented by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Siebold became the Director of Flight Operations at Scaled. He was the pilot who flew the White Knight Two on its flight on December 21,2008. Kincheloe Award a second time in 2009, this time individually, for his work on the first WhiteKnightTwo, VMS Eve, VSS Enterprise crashed in the California Mojave Desert. Siebold survived a descent from about 50,000 feet at Mach 1 speed with just a flightsuit, the parachute deployed automatically at about 20,000 feet, and, after landing, he was taken to the hospital for treatment. Scaled Composites biography Biography on Encyclopedia Astronautica List of American Astronauts
15.
Scaled Composites White Knight Two
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The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two is a jet-powered cargo aircraft that is used to lift the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, WK2 is based on the successful mothership to SpaceShipOne, White Knight, which itself is based on Proteus. Virgin Galactic has ordered two White Knight Two vehicles, together, WK2 and SS2 form the basis for Virgin Galactics fleet of suborbital spaceplanes. As of 2015, it is not clear how many SS2, the first White Knight Two is named VMS Eve after Richard Bransons mother Eve Branson, it was officially unveiled on July 28,2008, and flew for the first time on December 21,2008. The second is expected to be named VMS Spirit of Steve Fossett after Bransons close friend Steve Fossett, during 2012–2014, Virgin Galactic was also considering use of the WhiteKnightTwo as the air-launch platform for a new two-stage liquid-fueled rocket small satellite launcher called LauncherOne. In the event—by late 2015—they decided to use a carrier aircraft for the job. White Knight Two is roughly three times larger than White Knight in order to perform a flight with the larger SpaceShipTwo spacecraft. The WK2 is similar in wingspan to a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, White Knight Two is a very modern aircraft, as even the flight control cables are constructed of carbon fiber, using a new patented design. WK2 will provide preview flights offering several seconds of weightlessness before the suborbital event and it is intended to have a service ceiling of about 60,000 ft, offering a dark blue sky to passengers. This will allow tourists to practice before the real flight, White Knight Two is of twin fuselage design with four jet engines mounted two on each wing. One fuselage is a replica of that of SpaceShipTwo. The design is different from the White Knight, both in size, use of tail, engine configuration and placement of cockpit. The White Knight uses two T-tails, but the White Knight Two uses two cruciform tails, engine configuration is also very different. White Knight Two has four engines hung underneath the wings on pylons while White Knights pair of engines are on side of its single fuselage. Virgin Galactic contracted aerospace designer Burt Rutan to build the mothership, on January 23,2008 the White Knight Two design was revealed. On July 28,2008 the completion and rollout of the first aircraft, Eve, Branson predicted that the maiden space voyage would take place in 18 months, It represents. The chance for our ever-growing group of astronauts and other scientists to see our world in a completely new light. On March 22,2010 the VMS Eve completed its 25th flight, in a flight of 2 hours 54 minutes, it ascended to an altitude of 45,000 ft
16.
Mach number
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In fluid dynamics, the Mach number is a dimensionless quantity representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. M = u c, where, M is the Mach number, u is the flow velocity with respect to the boundaries. By definition, Mach 1 is equal to the speed of sound, Mach 0.65 is 65% of the speed of sound, and Mach 1.35 is 35% faster than the speed of sound. The local speed of sound, and thereby the Mach number, depends on the condition of the surrounding medium, the Mach number is primarily used to determine the approximation with which a flow can be treated as an incompressible flow. The medium can be a gas or a liquid, the boundary can be the boundary of an object immersed in the medium, or of a channel such as a nozzle, diffusers or wind tunnels channeling the medium. As the Mach number is defined as the ratio of two speeds, it is a dimensionless number, if M <0. 2–0.3 and the flow is quasi-steady and isothermal, compressibility effects will be small and simplified incompressible flow equations can be used. The Mach number is named after Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, as the Mach number is a dimensionless quantity rather than a unit of measure, with Mach, the number comes after the unit, the second Mach number is Mach 2 instead of 2 Mach. This is somewhat reminiscent of the modern ocean sounding unit mark, which was also unit-first. In the decade preceding faster-than-sound human flight, aeronautical engineers referred to the speed of sound as Machs number, never Mach 1, Mach number is useful because the fluid behaves in a similar manner at a given Mach number, regardless of other variables. As modeled in the International Standard Atmosphere, dry air at sea level, standard temperature of 15 °C. For example, the atmosphere model lapses temperature to −56.5 °C at 11,000 meters altitude. In the following table, the regimes or ranges of Mach values are referred to, generally, NASA defines high hypersonic as any Mach number from 10 to 25, and re-entry speeds as anything greater than Mach 25. Aircraft operating in this include the Space Shuttle and various space planes in development. Flight can be classified in six categories, For comparison. At transonic speeds, the field around the object includes both sub- and supersonic parts. The transonic period begins when first zones of M >1 flow appear around the object, in case of an airfoil, this typically happens above the wing. Supersonic flow can decelerate back to only in a normal shock. As the speed increases, the zone of M >1 flow increases towards both leading and trailing edges
17.
Federal Aviation Administration
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The Federal Aviation Administration of the United States is a national authority with powers to regulate all aspects of civil aviation. The FAAs roles include, Regulating U. S, each LOB has a specific role within the FAA. Airports — plans and develops projects involving airports, overseeing their construction, Air Traffic Organization — primary duty is to safely and efficiently move air traffic within the National Airspace System. ATO employees manage air traffic facilities including Airport Traffic Control Towers, Aviation Safety — Responsible for aeronautical certification of personnel and aircraft, including pilots, airlines, and mechanics. Commercial Space Transportation — ensures protection of U. S. assets during the launch or reentry of commercial space vehicles, the FAA is headquartered in Washington, D. C. as well as the William J. The newly created Aeronautics Branch, operating under the Department of Commerce assumed primary responsibility for aviation oversight, in fulfilling its civil aviation responsibilities, the Department of Commerce initially concentrated on such functions as safety regulations and the certification of pilots and aircraft. It took over the building and operation of the system of lighted airways. The Aeronautics Branch was renamed the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1934 to reflect its status within the Department. As commercial flying increased, the Bureau encouraged a group of airlines to establish the first three centers for providing air traffic control along the airways, in 1936, the Bureau itself took over the centers and began to expand the ATC system. The pioneer air traffic controllers used maps, blackboards, and mental calculations to ensure the separation of aircraft traveling along designated routes between cities. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Act transferred the civil aviation responsibilities from the Commerce Department to a new independent agency. The legislation also expanded the role by giving them the authority. President Franklin D. Roosevelt split the authority into two agencies in 1940, the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Civil Aeronautics Board, CAA was responsible for ATC, airman and aircraft certification, safety enforcement, and airway development. CAB was entrusted with safety regulation, accident investigation, and economic regulation of the airlines, the CAA was part of the Department of Commerce. The CAB was an independent federal agency, on the eve of Americas entry into World War II, CAA began to extend its ATC responsibilities to takeoff and landing operations at airports. This expanded role eventually became permanent after the war, the application of radar to ATC helped controllers in their drive to keep abreast of the postwar boom in commercial air transportation. The approaching era of jet travel, and a series of midair collisions and this legislation gave the CAAs functions to a new independent body, the Federal Aviation Agency. The act transferred air safety regulation from the CAB to the new FAA, the FAAs first administrator, Elwood R. Quesada, was a former Air Force general and adviser to President Eisenhower
18.
VSS Unity
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VSS Unity, previously referred to as VSS Voyager, is a SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket-powered manned spaceplane. It is the second SpaceShipTwo to be built, and will be used as part of the Virgin Galactic Fleet, the spacecraft was rolled out on 19 February 2016, and completed ground-based system integration testing in September 2016, prior to its first flight on 8 September 2016. VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane for Virgin Galactic, is the first SpaceShipTwo built by The Spaceship Company, the ships name was announced on 19 February 2016. Prior to the announcement, the craft was referred to as SpaceShipTwo. There was speculation in 2004 that Serial Number Two would be named VSS Voyager, the name Unity was chosen by British physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawkings eye is used as the model for the eye logo on the side of Unity. The manufacture of Unity began in 2012, the spacecrafts registration, N202VG, was filed in September 2014. As of early November 2014, the build of Unity was about 90 percent structurally complete, on 21 May 2015, Unity reached the milestone of bearing the weight of the airframe on its own wheels. The spaceship was unveiled at an event on 19 February 2016, as Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson had projected in November 2015, ground. VSS Unity is the second SpaceShipTwo to be completed, the first, after rollout and unveiling, a phase of testing called Integrated Vehicle Ground Testing began on VSS Unity in February 2016. VSS Unity will undergo a test regimen similar to VSS Enterprise, the test flights are expected to be fewer, as Enterprise has already tested the designs responses under numerous conditions. For each flight test, the White Knight Two aircraft carries Unity to altitude, Testing began with captive carry flights, in which Unity was not released from its carrier aircraft. Testing then progressed to free-flight glide testing, and will continue with powered test flights and it is possible that only 2-3 flights under each regime previously tested will be performed, instead of the 5 or 10 that Enterprise performed. On 8 September 2016, Virgin Galactic commenced flight testing of Unity with a captive-carry flight, on 1 November 2016, Virgin Galactic conducted another captive-carry flight of Unity but cancelled the glide portion of the flight because of wind speed. On 3 November and 30 November, additional captive-carry flights took place, on 3 December 2016, Unity completed its first glide flight. It completed subsequent glide tests later in December,2016, rutan Voyager Space tourism Media related to SpaceShipTwo at Wikimedia Commons
19.
RocketMotorTwo
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RocketMotorTwo is a family of hybrid rocket engines that are being developed for the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane. The first-generation engine was developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation, from the late 2000s to May 2014 and it was first ignited in flight during a SpaceShipTwo test launch in April 2013. This engine design was flown in only two additional flight tests during 2013 and January 2014. The second-generation RocketMotorTwo engine is a variant of the earlier SNC basic design, the second-generation engine is now made in-house by Virgin Galactic rather than by SNC. The design makes use of lessons learned during the development of the SpaceShipOne hybrid rocket motor, as of March 2013, Sierra Nevada had performed over 300 hybrid rocket test firings. The company also developed the engine for the first private spacecraft to reach space, SpaceShipOne. Sierra Nevada is also developing a hybrid engine, the Dream Chaser rocket engine. On 26 July 2007, during the early vehicle subsystem testing phase, the test included filling the oxidizer tank with 4,500 kg of nitrous oxide, followed by a 15-second cold flow injector test. The test did not ignite the engine and no solid fuel was involved. Three Scaled employees were killed and three injured, two critically and one seriously, by flying shrapnel when the nitrous oxide oxidizer spontaneously ignited and exploded, Scaled Composites performed a series of subscale rocket hot-firings between June 2005 and April 2009, before choosing a full-scale rocket motor design. News reports in early 2009 reported that the hot fire tests had been completed, by December 2012,21 full-scale hot-fire ground tests had been carried out on RocketMotorTwo. On 20 June 2012, the first hot-fire test under the control of SpaceShipTwos proprietary Rocket Motor Controller was successfully conducted, SpaceShipTwo conducted its first gliding test flight with the engine fully installed in December 2012. Additional ground rocket tests continued into March 2013 as the company prepared for powered test flights, VSS Enterprise conducted its first powered flight on 29 April 2013, marking the first flight test of RocketMotorTwo. The RM2 control system opened the oxidizer valve and fired the igniters inside the fuel case. The burn was completed at an altitude of 55,000 feet, by which point Enterprise was supersonic, SNC stated after the test that The rocket motor ignition went as planned, with the expected burn duration, good engine performance. The engineering and development work of the engine was done in-house. The plastic fuel was projected to have better performance and was expected to allow SpaceShipTwo to make flights to a higher altitude. On 31 October 2014, the new polyamide engine fuel formulation was used in flight for the first time in the powered test flight no.4 of SpaceShipTwo, at 10, 12am PDT, VSS Enterprise suffered a malfunction, and subsequently broke up in mid-flight
20.
Parachute
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A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are usually out of light, strong cloth, originally silk. Parachutes often take the shape of a dome, but shapes may vary including some taking the shape of an inverted dome, depending on the situation, parachutes are used with a variety of loads, including people, food, equipment, space capsules, and bombs. Drogue chutes are used to aid horizontal deceleration of a vehicle, the earliest evidence for the parachute dates back to the Renaissance period. The oldest parachute design appears in a manuscript from 1470s Renaissance Italy. As a safety measure, four straps run from the ends of the rods to a waist belt, shortly after, a more sophisticated parachute was sketched by the polymath Leonardo da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus dated to ca. Here, the scale of the parachute is in a more favorable proportion to the weight of the jumper, Leonardos canopy was held open by a square wooden frame, which alters the shape of the parachute from conical to pyramidal. It is not known whether the Italian inventor was influenced by the earlier design, the feasibility of Leonardos pyramidal design was successfully tested in 2000 by Briton Adrian Nicholas and again in 2008 by the Swiss skydiver Olivier Vietti-Teppa. The Croatian polymath and inventor Faust Vrančić examined da Vincis parachute sketch and he kept the square frame, but replaced the canopy with a bulging sail-like piece of cloth that he came to realize decelerates the fall more effectively. However, in book, John Wilkins wrote about flying. The modern parachute was invented in the late 18th century by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in France, Lenormand also sketched his device beforehand. Two years later, in 1785, Lenormand coined the word parachute by hybridizing a Latin prefix para, and chute, also in 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot-air balloon. Subsequent development of the focused on it becoming more compact. In 1797, André Garnerin made the first descent using such a parachute, Garnerin also invented the vented parachute, which improved the stability of the fall. In 1907 Charles Broadwick demonstrated two key advances in the parachute he used to jump from hot air balloons at fairs and he folded his parachute into a pack he wore on his back. And the parachute was pulled from the pack by a line attached to the balloon. When Broadwick jumped from the balloon, the line became taut, pulled the parachute from the pack. In 1911 a successful test took place with a dummy at the Eiffel tower in Paris, the puppets weight was 75 kg, the parachutes weight was 21 kg
21.
Lancaster, California
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Lancaster /ˈlæn. kæstər/ is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the Antelope Valley of the western Mojave Desert in Southern California. As of 2013, Lancaster was the 31st largest city in California, Lancaster is part of a twin city complex with its southern neighbor Palmdale and together they are the principal cities within the Antelope Valley region and Californias High Desert. Lancaster is located approximately 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and it is separated from the Los Angeles Basin by the San Gabriel Mountains to the south, and from Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley by the Tehachapi Mountains to the north. The population of Lancaster grew from 37,000 at the time of its incorporation in 1977 to over 156,000 in 2010, according to the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance report of 2015, Lancaster has a population of 168,049. The area where Lancaster is now located, known as the Antelope Valley, was home to the Paiute Indians. In 1876 the Southern Pacific completed the line through the Antelope Valley, linking San Francisco, train service brought passengers through the water-stop-turned-community, which, with the help of promotional literature, attracted new settlers. The following year, the Lancaster News started publication, making it the first weekly newspaper in the Antelope Valley, by 1890, Lancaster was bustling and booming, and thanks to adequate rainfall, farmers planted and sold thousands of acres of wheat and barley. Thanks to the construction of the 233-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct starting in 1908. In the 1980s through the end of the program, Edwards Air Force Base, the development of Air Force Plant 42 in 1958, augmented in the 1960s by construction of Lockheed Aircrafts Plant 10, created tens of thousands of jobs. High-wage employment hit its peak in the 1970s during the Lockheed L-1011 commercial wide body jetliner project, for which all assembly and some engineering,250 L-1011 aircraft were assembled and flown from this plant and airfield. Lancaster was a community in Los Angeles County until 1977. Lancaster State Prison opened in 1993 and before that Los Angeles County hosted no prisons, most of Lancasters civic leaders and residents opposed the building of the prison, and four inmates escaped from LAC in its first year of operation. Nevertheless, by 2000 a proposal to increase the proportion of maximum-security inmates received little criticism. In 2005, Hyundai Motor Co. announced the opening of a 4, 300-acre, $60 million Proving Ground. In 2010, the city opened The BLVD, a one-mile revitalized stretch of Lancaster Boulevard between 10th Street West and Sierra Highway, City leaders have set the ambitious goal of becoming the nations first Net-Zero municipality, wherein they will produce more clean energy than they consume. Much of the infrastructure including City Hall, local schools. In March 2013, Lancaster became the first city in the US to require solar panels on all new homes in an effort to make the community more carbon neutral, the rule took effect in January,2014. War Eagle Field is an airfield located in the Mojave Desert
22.
Nylon
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Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers, more specifically aliphatic or semi-aromatic polyamides. They can be melt-processed into fibers, films or shapes, the first example of nylon was produced on February 28,1935, by Wallace Carothers at DuPonts research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station. Nylon polymers have significant commercial applications in fibers, in shapes. Nylon is made of repeating units linked by bonds and is a type of polyamide and is frequently referred to as such. Nylon was the first commercially successful synthetic thermoplastic polymer, commercially, nylon polymer is made by reacting monomers which are either lactams, acid/amines or stoichiometric mixtures of diamines and diacids. Mixtures of these can be polymerized together to make copolymers, Nylon polymers can be mixed with a wide variety of additives to achieve many different property variations. Nylon was invented accidentally by Julian W. Hill, a chemist for DuPont under Wallace Carotherss supervision and it was only given this name at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. The patents were owned by DuPont, Nylon was intended to be a synthetic replacement for silk and substituted for it in many different products after silk became scarce during World War II. It replaced silk in military applications such as parachutes and flak vests, after initial commercialization of nylon as a fiber, applications in the form of shapes and films were also developed. The main market for nylon shapes now is in auto components, in 1940, John W. Eckelberry of DuPont stated that the letters nyl were arbitrary and the on was copied from the suffixes of other fibers such as cotton and rayon. A later publication by DuPont explained that the name was intended to be No-Run. Since the products were not really run-proof, the vowels were swapped to produce nuron, for clarity in pronunciation, the i was changed to y. Most nylons are made from the reaction of an acid with a diamine or a lactam or amino acid with itself. In the first case, the structure is so-called ABAB similar to polyesters and polyurethanes, in the second case, the repeating unit corresponds to the single monomer. It is difficult to get the proportions exactly correct, and deviations can lead to termination at molecular weights less than a desirable 10,000 daltons. To overcome this problem, a crystalline, solid nylon salt can be formed at room temperature, using an exact 1,1 ratio of the acid, the salt is crystallized to purify it and obtain the desired precise stoichiometry. Heated to 285 °C, the salt reacts to form nylon polymer with the production of water, Wallace Carothers at DuPont patented nylon 66, but overlooked the possibility to use lactams. That synthetic route was developed by Paul Schlack at IG Farben, leading to nylon 6, the peptide bond within the caprolactam is broken with the exposed active groups on each side being incorporated into two new bonds as the monomer becomes part of the polymer backbone
23.
Nitrous oxide
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Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or nitrous, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula N 2O. At room temperature, it is a colorless, odorless non-flammable gas, at elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizer similar to molecular oxygen. Nitrous oxide has significant medical uses, especially in surgery and dentistry and its name laughing gas is due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as a dissociative anaesthetic. It is also used as an oxidizer in rocket propellants, Nitrous oxide occurs in small amounts in the atmosphere, but has been found recently to be a major scavenger of stratospheric ozone, with impact comparable to that of CFCs. It is estimated that 30% of the N 2O in the atmosphere is the result of human activity, Nitrous oxide can be used as an oxidizer in a rocket motor. This has the advantages over other oxidisers in that it is not only non-toxic, as a secondary benefit it can be readily decomposed to form breathing air. Its high density and low storage pressure enable it to be competitive with stored high-pressure gas systems. In a 1914 patent, American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard suggested nitrous oxide, Nitrous oxide has been the oxidiser of choice in several hybrid rocket designs. The combination of nitrous oxide with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene fuel has been used by SpaceShipOne and it is also notably used in amateur and high power rocketry with various plastics as the fuel. Nitrous oxide can also be used in a monopropellant rocket, in the presence of a heated catalyst, N 2O will decompose exothermically into nitrogen and oxygen, at a temperature of approximately 1,070 °F. Because of the heat release, the catalytic action rapidly becomes secondary as thermal autodecomposition becomes dominant. In a vacuum thruster, this can provide a monopropellant specific impulse of as much as 180 s, while noticeably less than the Isp available from hydrazine thrusters, the decreased toxicity makes nitrous oxide an option worth investigating. Nitrous oxide is said to deflagrate somewhere around 600 °C at a pressure of 21 atmospheres, at 600 psi for example, the required ignition energy is only 6 joules, whereas N 2O at 130 psi a 2500-joule ignition energy input is insufficient. In vehicle racing, nitrous oxide allows the engine to burn more fuel by providing more oxygen than air alone, the gas itself is not flammable at a low pressure/temperature, but it delivers more oxygen than atmospheric air by breaking down at elevated temperatures. Therefore, it is mixed with another fuel that is easier to deflagrate. Nitrous oxide is a strong oxidant roughly equivalent to hydrogen peroxide, Nitrous oxide is sometimes injected into the intake manifold, whereas other systems directly inject right before the cylinder to increase power. The technique was used during World War II by Luftwaffe aircraft with the GM-1 system to boost the output of aircraft engines. Originally meant to provide the Luftwaffe standard aircraft with superior high-altitude performance, accordingly, it was only used by specialized planes like high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, high-speed bombers, and high-altitude interceptor aircraft
24.
Atmospheric entry
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Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet or natural satellite. Technologies and procedures allowing the atmospheric entry, descent and landing of spacecraft are collectively abbreviated as EDL. Atmospheric drag and aerodynamic heating can cause atmospheric breakup capable of completely disintegrating smaller objects and these forces may cause objects with lower compressive strength to explode. Manned space vehicles must be slowed to subsonic speeds before parachutes or air brakes may be deployed, such vehicles have kinetic energies typically between 50 and 1800 MJoules, and atmospheric dissipation is the only way of expending the kinetic energy. While the high temperature generated at the surface of the shield is due to adiabatic compression. Other smaller energy losses include black body radiation directly from the hot gasses, ballistic warheads and expendable vehicles do not require slowing at re-entry, and in fact, are made streamlined so as to maintain their speed. Uncontrolled, objects accelerate through the atmosphere at extreme velocities under the influence of Earths gravity, most controlled objects enter at hypersonic speeds due to their suborbital, orbital, or unbounded trajectories. Various advanced technologies have developed to enable atmospheric reentry and flight at extreme velocities. Practical development of systems began as the range and reentry velocity of ballistic missiles increased. For early short-range missiles, like the V-2, stabilization and aerodynamic stress were important issues, medium-range missiles like the Soviet R-5, with a 1200 km range, required ceramic composite heat shielding on separable reentry vehicles. The first ICBMs, with ranges of 8000 to 12,000 km, were possible with the development of modern ablative heat shields. In the U. S. this technology was pioneered by H. Julian Allen at Ames Research Center, over the decades since the 1950s, a rich technical jargon has grown around the engineering of vehicles designed to enter planetary atmospheres. It is recommended that the review the jargon glossary before continuing with this article on atmospheric reentry. When atmospheric entry is part of a landing or recovery, particularly on a planetary body other than Earth, entry is part of a phase referred to as entry, descent and landing. When the atmospheric entry returns to the body that the vehicle had launched from. These four shadowgraph images represent early reentry-vehicle concepts, if the reentry vehicle is made blunt, air cannot get out of the way quickly enough, and acts as an air cushion to push the shock wave and heated shock layer forward. Since most of the hot gases are no longer in contact with the vehicle. The Allen and Eggers discovery, though initially treated as a secret, was eventually published in 1958
25.
National Transportation Safety Board
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The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U. S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine accidents, pipeline incidents. When requested, the NTSB will assist the military and foreign governments with accident investigation, the NTSB is also in charge of investigating cases of hazardous materials releases that occur during transportation. The agency is based in Washington, D. C, as of December 2014, it has four regional offices located in Anchorage, Alaska, Denver, Colorado, Ashburn, Virginia, and Seattle, Washington. The agency also operates a training center at its Ashburn facility. The origin of the NTSB was in the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the USAs first independent Air Safety Board was established in 1938, it lasted only fourteen months. In 1940, this authority was transferred to the Civil Aeronautics Boards newly formed Bureau of Aviation Safety, in 1967, Congress created a separate cabinet-level Department of Transportation, which among other things established the Federal Aviation Administration as an agency under the DOT. At the same time, the NTSB was established as an independent agency which absorbed the Bureau of Aviation Safetys responsibilities. However, from 1967 to 1975, the NTSB reported to the DOT for administrative purposes, while conducting investigations into the Federal Aviation Administration, also a DOT agency. To avoid any conflict, Congress passed the Independent Safety Board Act, as of 2015, the NTSB has investigated over 140,000 aviation incidents and several thousand surface transportation incidents. Formally, the National Transportation Safety Board refers to a five-manager investigative board whose five members are nominated by the President, no more than three of the five members may be from the same political party. This board is authorized by Congress under Chapter 11, Title 49 of the United States Code to investigate civil aviation, highway, marine, pipeline, and railroad accidents and incidents. This five-member board is authorized to establish and manage separate sub-offices for highway, marine, aviation, railroad, pipeline, collectively, National Transportation Safety Board, the Safety Board or NTSB is used to refer to the entire investigative agency established and managed by this five-member board. As of December 2015, Christopher A. Hart is Chairman of the NTSB, the board also includes Robert L. Sumwalt and Earl F. Weener, and has one vacant seat. Based on the results of investigations within its jurisdiction, the NTSB issues formal safety recommendations to agencies, the NTSB considers safety recommendations to be its primary tool for preventing future civil transportation accidents. However, the NTSB does not have the authority to enforce its safety recommendations, the NTSB is the lead agency in the investigation of a civil transportation accident or incident within its sphere. The go team can have as few as 3-4 people or as many as a dozen, following the investigation, the agency may then choose to hold public hearings on the issue. Ultimately, it will publish a report which may include safety recommendations based on its findings
26.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
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On February 1,2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering Earths atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. The disaster was the tragedy in the Space Shuttle program after Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. During the launch of STS-107, Columbias 28th mission, a piece of foam broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank. A few previous shuttle launches had seen damage ranging from minor to major from foam shedding, NASA managers limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, as they had been after the Challenger disaster. Commander, Rick D. Husband, a U. S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer, payload Commander, Michael P. Anderson, a U. S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, physicist, and mission specialist who was in charge of the science mission. Payload Specialist, Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force, Mission Specialist, Kalpana Chawla, aerospace engineer who was on her second space mission. Mission Specialist, David M. Brown, a U. S. Navy captain trained as an aviator, Mission Specialist, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a U. S. Navy captain and flight surgeon. The shuttles main fuel tank is covered in thermal insulation foam intended to prevent ice from forming when the tank is full of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, such ice could damage the shuttle if shed during lift-off. Mission STS-107 was the 113th Space Shuttle launch, planned to begin on January 11,2001, the mission was delayed 18 times and eventually launched on January 16,2003, following STS-113. About 82 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Centers LC-39-A, a piece of foam broke off from the External Tank. At the time of the strike, the orbiter was at an altitude of about 66,000 feet. The Left Bipod Foam Ramp is an approximately three-foot long aerodynamic component made entirely of foam, the foam, not normally considered to be a structural material, is required to bear some aerodynamic loads. Because of these requirements, the casting-in-place and curing of the ramps may be performed only by a senior technician. Bipod Ramp insulation had been observed falling off, in whole or in part, on four flights, STS-7, STS-32, STS-50. All affected shuttle missions completed successfully, NASA management came to refer to this phenomenon as foam shedding. This phenomenon was termed normalization of deviance by sociologist Diane Vaughan in her book on the Challenger launch decision process. As it happened, STS-112 had been the first flight with the ET Cam, after STS-112, NASA leaders analyzed the situation and decided to press ahead under the justification that he ET is safe to fly with no new concerns of further foam strikes
27.
Burt Rutan
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Elbert Leander Burt Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. With his VariEze design, Rutan is responsible for popularizing the canard configuration, Rutan has five aircraft on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. United States, SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, Voyager, Quickie, born in 1943 in Estacada, Oregon,30 miles southeast of Portland, and raised in Dinuba, California, Burt Rutan displayed an early interest in aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old he was designing and building model aircraft and his first solo flight piloting an airplane was in an Aeronca Champ in 1959. In 1965 he graduated third in his class from the California Polytechnic State University with a BS degree in aeronautical engineering and he left to become Director of Development of the BD-5 aircraft for Bede Aircraft in Newton, Kansas, a position he held until 1974. In June 1974, Rutan returned to California to establish the Rutan Aircraft Factory, in this business he designed and developed prototypes for several aircraft, mostly intended for amateur builders. His first design, executed while he was still at Bede, was the VariViggen, the canard would become a feature of many Rutan designs, notably the very popular VariEze and Long-EZ. In April 1982, Rutan founded Scaled Composites, LLC, which has one of the worlds pre-eminent aircraft design. Scaled Composites is headquartered in Mojave, California, at the Mojave Air & Space Port and that same year, Beechcraft contracted Rutans Scaled Composites to refine the design and build the prototype Beechcraft Starship. In a 2010 interview, Rutan articulated his motivation for developing suborbital technology projects with SpaceShipOne and he was developing suborbital spaceflight technology because in this we can achieve some breakthroughs, making such flight orders of magnitude safer and orders of magnitude more affordable. Rutan is married to Tonya Rutan and he retired from Scaled Composites in April 2011. That same year, he recognized as a Living Legend of Aviation. In 2012, Rutan spoke on Innovation and the Space Race to the World Affairs Council, flying magazine ranked him at number 18 on their 2013 list,51 Heroes of Aviation. Rutan was also a recipient of the prestigious Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 2015, in a 45-year career, each of Rutans designs have often been quite dissimilar from their predecessors. His airplanes and spacecraft take on all types of shapes and sizes. In all, Rutan has come up with 367 individual concepts — of which 45 have flown, VariViggen and VariViggen SP In 1968, he began building his first design, the VariViggen, which first flew in April 1972. It had the wing, forward canard, and pusher configuration design elements which became his trademarks. In lieu of wind tunnel testing, Rutan developed aerodynamic parameters for the VariViggen using a model rigged atop his station wagon, the VariViggen was the Rutan model 27
28.
Transonic
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This condition depends not only on the travel speed of the craft, but also on the temperature of the airflow in the vehicles local environment.2, when most of the airflow is supersonic. Between these speeds some of the airflow is supersonic, but a significant fraction is not, most modern jet powered aircraft are engineered to operate at transonic air speeds. Transonic airspeeds see an increase in drag from about Mach 0.8. Attempts to reduce wave drag can be seen on all high-speed aircraft, most notable is the use of swept wings, but another common form is a wasp-waist fuselage as a side effect of the Whitcomb area rule. Severe instability can occur at transonic speeds, shock waves move through the air at the speed of sound. When an object such as an aircraft also moves at the speed of sound, transonic speeds can also occur at the tips of rotor blades of helicopters and aircraft. This puts severe, unequal stresses on the blade and may lead to accidents if it occurs. It is one of the factors of the size of rotors. At transonic speeds supersonic expansion fans form intense low-pressure, low-temperature areas at various points around an aircraft, if the temperature drops below the dew point a visible cloud will form. These clouds remain with the aircraft as it travels and it is not necessary for the aircraft as a whole to reach supersonic speeds for these clouds to form. Typically, the tail of the aircraft will reach supersonic flight while the bow of the aircraft is still in subsonic flight, a bubble of supersonic expansion fans terminating by a wake shockwave surround the tail. As the aircraft continues to accelerate, the supersonic expansion fans will intensify and this is Mach one and the Prandtl–Glauert singularity. In astrophysics, wherever there is evidence of shocks, the close by must be transonic. Interestingly, all black hole accretions are transonic, many such flows also have shocks very close to the black holes. The outflows or jets from young stellar objects or disks around black holes can also be transonic since they start subsonically, supernovae explosions are accompanied by supersonic flows and shock waves. Bow shocks formed in solar winds are a result of transonic winds from a star. It has been thought that a bow shock was present around the heliosphere of our solar system. This was recently found not to be the case according to IBEX data, anti-shock body Subsonic flows Supersonic flows Hypersonic flows Supersonic expansion fans
29.
George T. Whitesides
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George Thomas Whitesides is CEO of Virgin Galactic, a firm developing commercial space vehicles. From 2004 to 2008, Whitesides served as the Executive Director of the National Space Society and he is the co-creator of Yuris Night. He has served as Senior Advisor to Virgin Galactic, Richard Bransons space tourism company, Whitesides was the Chairman of the Reusable Launch Vehicle Working Group of COMSTAC, the advisory committee for the FAAs Commercial Space Transportation Division. He was a member of Astronomers Without Borders and the Space Generation Foundation. He has served as a coach for Zero Gravity Corporations parabolic flight service, George is married to Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides, and they plan to be the first couple to honeymoon in space. His father is George M. Whitesides, a professor of chemistry at Harvard University and his brother is the lead singer of The Joggers, a Portland, Oregon-based band. George attended Princeton University, graduating from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and he served for four years on Princetons Board of Trustees upon graduation. He has an MPhil in Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing from Kings College, Cambridge and he was Fulbright Scholar in Tunisia
30.
Richard Branson
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Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which more than 400 companies. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age, at the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business, in 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Bransons Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic airline, in March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for services to entrepreneurship. For his work in retail, music and transport, his taste for adventure, in 2002 he was named in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. In January 2016, Forbes listed Bransons estimated net worth at $5.2 billion, Branson was born in Blackheath, London, the eldest of three children of Eve Branson, a former ballet dancer and air hostess, and Edward James Branson, a barrister. His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice, Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Berkshire, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex. His third great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793 and his father, Harry Wilkins Branson, later joined him in Madras. On the show Finding Your Roots, Branson was shown to have 3. 9% South Asian DNA, Branson attended Stowe School, an independent school in Buckinghamshire until the age of sixteen. Branson has dyslexia and had poor performance, on his last day at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson. Bransons parents were supportive of his endeavours from an early age, One of her most successful ventures was building and selling wooden tissue boxes and wastepaper bins. Branson started his business from a church where he ran Student magazine. Branson interviewed several prominent personalities of the late 1960s for the magazine including Mick Jagger, Branson advertised popular records in The Student and it was an overnight success. Trading under the name Virgin, he records for considerably less than the High Street outlets. Branson once said, There is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration, the name Virgin was suggested by one of Bransons early employees because they were all new at business. At the time, many products were sold under restrictive marketing agreements that limited discounting, Branson eventually started a record shop in Oxford Street in London. In 1971, Branson was questioned in connection with the selling of records in Virgin stores that had been declared export stock, the matter was never brought before a court because Branson agreed to repay any unpaid tax and a fine
31.
European Space Agency
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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of about 2,000. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching, after World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States. The meeting was attended by representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey. The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned with developing a system, ELDO, and the precursor of the European Space Agency. The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962, from 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites. ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, ESA has 10 founding member states, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, during this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, ESA joined NASA in the IUE, the worlds first high-orbit telescope, which was launched in 1978 and operated very successfully for 18 years. A number of successful Earth-orbit projects followed, and in 1986 ESA began Giotto, its first deep-space mission, to study the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup. Hipparcos, a mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses. Recent scientific missions in co-operation with NASA include the Cassini–Huygens space probe, as the successor of ELDO, ESA has also constructed rockets for scientific and commercial payloads. Ariane 1, launched in 1979, brought mostly commercial payloads into orbit from 1984 onward, the successor launch vehicle of Ariane 5, the Ariane 6 is already in the definition stage and is envisioned to enter service in the 2020s. The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like NASA, JAXA, ISRO, CSA and Roscosmos, one of the major participants in scientific space research. Although ESA had relied on co-operation with NASA in previous decades, especially the 1990s, changed circumstances led to decisions to rely more on itself, a 2011 press issue thus stated, Russia is ESAs first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. ESA maintains its scientific and research projects mainly for astronomy-space missions such as Corot, launched on 27 December 2006 and this is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. It has always been so, and it will be more important in the future. ESA describes its work in two overlapping ways, For the general public the various fields of work are described as Activities, Member states participate to varying degrees in the mandatory and optional space programmes
32.
Fault tolerance
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Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of some of its components. Fault tolerance is particularly sought after in high-availability or life-critical systems, the ability of maintaining functionality when portions of a system break down is referred to as graceful degradation. A fault-tolerant design enables a system to continue its operation, possibly at a reduced level, rather than failing completely. That is, the system as a whole is not stopped due to either in the hardware or the software. However, if the consequences of a system failure are catastrophic, or the cost of making it sufficiently reliable is very high, a better solution may be to use some form of duplication. In any case, if the consequence of a failure is so catastrophic. This is similar to recovery but can be a human action if humans are present in the loop. A highly fault-tolerant system might continue at the level of performance even though one or more components have failed. For example, a building with a electrical generator will provide the same voltage to wall outlets even if the grid power fails. In computers, a program might fail-safe by executing a graceful exit in order to prevent data corruption after experiencing an error, a similar distinction is made between failing well and failing badly. Fail-deadly is the strategy, which can be used in weapon systems that are designed to kill or injure targets even if part of the system is damaged or destroyed. A system that is designed to experience graceful degradation, or to fail soft operates at a level of performance after some component failures. In fault-tolerant computer systems, programs that are considered robust are designed to continue operation despite an error, exception, or invalid input, software brittleness is the opposite of robustness. Likewise, a fail-fast component is designed to report at the first point of failure, rather than allow downstream components to fail and this allows easier diagnosis of the underlying problem, and may prevent improper operation in a broken state. If each component, in turn, can continue to function when one of its subcomponents fails, this will allow the total system to continue to operate as well. Using a passenger vehicle as an example, a car can have run-flat tires, the punctured run-flat tire may be used for a limited time at a reduced speed. Redundancy is the provision of functional capabilities that would be unnecessary in a fault-free environment and this can consist of backup components that automatically kick in should one component fail. For example, large trucks can lose a tire without any major consequences
33.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
34.
Jeffrey Kluger
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The latter work was the basis for Ron Howards film Apollo 13. He is also the author of two books for adults, Nacky Patcher and the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats and Freedom Stone. Kluger attended Pikesville High School in Pikesville, Maryland, a northwest suburb of Baltimore. He attended the University of Maryland and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in science in 1976, and the University of Baltimore Law School. He is an attorney, and was admitted to the state bar in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From June 1992 to September 1996, Kluger was a writer for Discover magazine. He also worked as a writer and editor for the New York Times, Business World Magazine, Family Circle magazine, Kluger began his work with TIME in 1996 specializing in science coverage. He was named a senior writer in 1998, during his time at TIME magazine Kluger has written articles covering the Mars Pathfinder landing and the 2003 Columbia disaster. Kluger has taught journalism at New York University, Kluger has authored numerous books, most notably Lost Moon, The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, with coauthor Jim Lovell. Lost Moon would become the basis for the Ron Howard film Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks, Kluger would later be a technical consultant for, and appear in, the movie Apollo 13, The IMAX Experience. He also authored a number of books about the program including, Jeffrey Kluger. The Apollo Adventure, The Making of Apollo Space Program and the Movie Apollo 13, journey Beyond Selene, Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System. Moon Hunters, NASAs Remarkable Expeditions to the Ends of the Solar System, other topics Kluger has written about include, Jeffrey Kluger. Splendid Solution, Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio, Nacky Patcher & the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats. CS1 maint, Uses authors parameter Jeffrey Kluger, Simplexity, Why Simple Things Become Complex. The Sibling Effect, What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, klugers biography at TIME Magazines website Review of Simplexity at Letters On Pages
35.
The Wall Street Journal
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The Wall Street Journal is an American business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, the newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The Wall Street Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, the Journal had a circulation of about 2.4 million copies as of March 2013, compared with USA Todays 1.7 million. The newspaper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes through 2015 and derives its name from Wall Street in the heart of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8,1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, the Journal also publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine WSJ. They were later aggregated in a daily summary called the Customers Afternoon Letter. In 1896, The Dow Jones Industrial Average was officially launched and it was the first of several indices of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journals Review & Outlook column, which still today, appeared for the first time. Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902, circulation was then around 7,000, Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism. In 1921, Barrons, Americas premier financial weekly, was founded, Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly affected the Great Depression in the United States. Barrons descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007, the Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, under Kilgore, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for William Henry Grimess editorials. In 1970, Dow Jones bought the Ottaway newspaper chain, which at the time comprised nine dailies, later, the name was changed to Dow Jones Local Media Group. In 2007 News Corp. acquired Dow Jones, a luxury lifestyle magazine, was launched in 2008. A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online, was launched in 1996, in 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journals print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements. In 2007, it was believed to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web. Since then, online subscribership has fallen, due in part to rising subscription costs, in May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. By June 2013, the monthly cost for a subscription to the edition was $22.99, or $275.88 annually
36.
Wired (magazine)
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Wired is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California, several spin-offs have been launched including, Wired UK, Wired Italia, Wired Japan and Wired Germany. In its earliest colophons, Wired credited Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan as its patron saint, from its beginning, the strongest influence on the magazines editorial outlook came from techno-utopian co-founder Stewart Brand and his associate Kevin Kelly. From 1998 to 2006, Wired magazine and Wired News had separate owners, however, Wired News remained responsible for republishing Wired magazines content online due to an agreement when Condé Nast purchased the magazine. In 2006, Condé Nast bought Wired News for $25 million, the founding designers were John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr, beginning with a 1991 prototype and continuing through the first five years of publication, 1993–98. Wired, which touted itself as the Rolling Stone of technology, a great success at its launch, it was lauded for its vision, originality, innovation and cultural impact. In its first four years, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and one for Design. The founding executive editor of Wired, Kevin Kelly, was an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Review, six authors of the first Wired issue had written for Whole Earth Review, most notably Bruce Sterling and Stewart Brand. However, the first issue did contain a few references to the Internet, including online-dating and Internet sex, the last page, a column written by Nicholas Negroponte, was written in the style of an e-mail message, but contained obviously fake, non-standard email addresses. Wired was among the first magazines to list the email address of its authors and contributors, associate publisher Kathleen Lyman was brought on board to launch Wired with an advertising base of major technology and consumer advertisers. The magazine was followed by a companion website HotWired, a book publishing division, HardWired, a Japanese edition. Wired UK was relaunched in April 2009, in 1994, John Battelle, co-founding editor, commissioned Jules Marshall to write a piece on the Zippies. The cover story broke records for being one of the most publicized stories of the year and was used to promote Wireds HotWired news service, HotWired spawned websites Webmonkey, the search engine HotBot, and a weblog, Suck. com. In June 1998, the magazine launched an index, The Wired Index. The fortune of the magazine and allied enterprises corresponded closely to that of the dot-com bubble, in 1996, Rossetto and the other participants in Wired Ventures attempted to take the company public with an IPO. The initial attempt had to be withdrawn in the face of a downturn in the stock market, the second try was also unsuccessful. Rossetto and Metcalfe lost control of Wired Ventures to financial investors Providence Equity Partners in May 1998, Wired was purchased by Advance Publications, who assigned it to Advances subsidiary, New York-based publisher Condé Nast Publications. Wired survived the bubble and found new direction under editor-in-chief Chris Anderson in 2001
37.
Space.com
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Space. com is a space and astronomy news website. Its stories are syndicated to other media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo. Space. com was founded by former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and Rich Zahradnik, at that time, Dobbs owned a sizeable share of the company, and, in an unexpected move, left CNN later that year to become Space. coms chief executive officer. The move came as a surprise to many and was the source of media speculation. The company struggled to turn a profit in its days. Co-founder Rich Zahradnik had left his position as president less than two months after the start of the company, former astronaut Sally Ride took his place, as it expanded, it acquired other web sites such as Starport. com and Explorezone. com. It also acquired Sienna Software and Space News, despite some growth, Space. com was never able to achieve what Dobbs had hoped for and in 2001, he returned to CNN. He remains on its board and still owns a minority stake, Space. com has enjoyed the participation of several key space-related public figures, Neil Armstrong, Alexei Leonov, Eugene A. Cernan, and Thomas Stafford. In 2003, for its coverage of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in May 2004, Space. coms parent company changed its name from Space. com to Imaginova and in 2009 sold Space. com and other properties to Purch, an online publishing company. Media Life Magazine 2 January 2001 Imaginova. com About Us Space. com ouramazingplanet. com
38.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
39.
Associated Press
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The Associated Press is an American multinational nonprofit news agency headquartered in New York City that operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. The AP is owned by its contributing newspapers and radio and television stations in the United States, all of which stories to the AP. Most of the AP staff are members and are represented by the Newspaper Guild, which operates under the Communications Workers of America. As of 2007, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television, the photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The AP operates 243 news bureaus in 120 countries and it also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, as part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. The AP employs the inverted pyramid formula for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the storys essentials. Cutbacks at rival United Press International in 1993 left the AP as the United States primary news service, although UPI still produces and distributes stories and photos daily. Other English-language news services, such as the BBC, Reuters, some historians believe that the Tribune joined at this time, documents show it was a member in 1849. The New York Times became a member shortly after its founding in September 1851, initially known as the New York Associated Press, the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press, which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, when the AP was founded, news became a salable commodity. The invention of the press allowed the New York Tribune in the 1870s to print 18,000 papers per hour. During the Civil War and Spanish–American War, there was a new incentive to print vivid, Melville Stone, who had founded the Chicago Daily News in 1875, served as AP General Manager from 1893 to 1921. He embraced the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity, the cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and, the Middle East. He introduced the telegraph typewriter or teletypewriter into newsrooms in 1914, in 1935, AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave AP a major advantage over other media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually AP had its network across the whole United States, in 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. The decision facilitated the growth of its main rival United Press International, AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations, it created its own radio network in 1974
40.
Reuters
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Reuters /ˈrɔɪtərz/ is an international news agency headquartered in London, England. It is a division of Thomson Reuters, until 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data. Since the acquisition of Reuters Group by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, Reuters transmits news in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Urdu, and Chinese. The Reuter agency was established in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter in Britain at the London Royal Exchange, Paul Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions in 1848. Upon moving to England, he founded Reuters Telegram Company in 1851, headquartered in London, the company initially covered commercial news, serving banks, brokerage houses, and business firms. The first newspaper client to subscribe was the London Morning Advertiser in 1858, Reuters agency built a reputation in Europe and the rest of the world as the first to report news scoops from abroad. Reuters was the first to report Abraham Lincolns assassination in Europe, for instance, in 1872, Reuters expanded into the far east, followed by South America in 1874. Both expansions were made possible by advances in overland telegraphs and undersea cables, in 1883, Reuters began transmitting messages electrically to London newspapers. In 1923, Reuters began using radio to transmit news internationally, in 1925, The Press Association of Great Britain acquired a majority interest in Reuters, and full owners some years later. During the world wars, The Guardian reported that Reuters came under pressure from the British government to national interests. In 1941 Reuters deflected the pressure by restructuring itself as a private company, the new owners formed the Reuters Trust. In 1941, the PA sold half of Reuters to the Newspaper Proprieters Association, the Reuters Trust Principles were put in place to maintain the companys independence. At that point, Reuters had become one of the major news agencies. In 1961, Reuters scooped news of the erection of the Berlin Wall, in 1981, Reuters began making electronic transactions on its computer network, and afterwards developed a number of electronic brokerage and trading services. Reuters was floated as a company in 1984, when Reuters Trust was listed on the stock exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange. Reuters published the first story of the Berlin Wall being breached in 1989, share price grew during the dotcom boom, then fell after the banking troubles in 2001. In 2002, Brittanica wrote that most news throughout the world came from three major agencies, the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse, Reuters merged with Thomson Corporation in Canada in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters. In 2009, Thomson Reuters withdrew from the LSE and the NASDAQ, instead listing its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the last surviving member of the Reuters family founders, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died at age 96 on 25 January 2009
41.
Business Insider
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Business Insider is a German-owned American news website that also operates international editions in Australia, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Italy, and the UK. It also operates a local language German and Polish news site, Business Insider launched in February 2009 and is based in New York City. Founded by DoubleClicks former CEO Kevin P. Ryan, Dwight Merriman, and Henry Blodget, in addition to providing and analyzing business news, the site aggregates top news stories on various subjects from around the web. In 2011, the online newsroom employed a staff of 50, in June 2012, it had 5.4 million unique visitors. It now averages around 70 million unique visitors, monthly, Business Insider also hosts industry conferences, such as IGNITION, which explores the emerging business models of digital media. The site publishes numerous annual editorial franchises, such as the Digital 100, on September 29,2015, Axel Springer SE announced that it had acquired 88% of the stake in Business Insider, Inc. for a reported $343 million. After the purchase, Axel Springer SE will hold a stake of approximately 97%, in October 2016, Business Insider launched Markets Insider, a globally-focused markets data and news service based on Yahoo Finance. Data is provided by Germany-based finance portal Finanzen. net, another Axel Springer holding, in January 2017, Business Insider announced that it would be launching a new sub-saharan site in partnership with Ringier Africa Digital Publishing. Business Insiders CEO and Editor-In-Chief Henry Blodget is a Yale history graduate who worked on Wall Street until he was charged with securities fraud in 2003. Nicholas Carlson, whose past experiences include Internet. com and Gawker Medias Silicon Valley gossip blog, Valleywag, and Senior Editor Jim Edwards previous position was Managing Editor at Adweek. In January 2009, the Clusterstock section appeared in Times Best 25 Financial Blogs,2009 also saw Business Insiders selection as an official Webby honoree for Best Business Blog. In 2012, Business Insider was named to the Inc.500, in 2013, the publication was once again nominated in the Blog-Business category at the Webby Awards. In January 2014, The New York Times reported that Business Insiders web traffic was comparable to that of The Wall Street Journal, in 2017, Digiday included imprint Insider as a candidate in two separate categories––Best New Vertical and Best Use of Instagram––at their annual Publishing Awards. The website has, however, faced criticism for its clickbait-style headlines, in 2013, The New Yorker criticized the website for prioritizing publishing speed over accuracy
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Aviation accidents and incidents
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If the aircraft is destroyed or severely damaged so that it must be written off, it is further defined as a hull loss accident. Annex 13 further defines an aviation incident as an occurrence, other than an accident,583, The Tenerife airport disaster, which occurred on March 27,1977, remains the accident with the highest number of airliner passenger fatalities. 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted to take off without clearance, there were no survivors from the KLM aircraft,61 of the 396 passengers and crew on the Pan Am aircraft survived. Pilot error was the cause, as the KLM captain began his takeoff run without obtaining air traffic control clearance. A contributing factor was the dense fog, the KLM flight crew could not see the Pan Am aircraft on the runway until immediately before the collision. The accident had a influence on the industry, particularly in the area of communication. An increased emphasis was placed on using standardized phraseology in air traffic control communication by controllers and pilots alike. Furthermore, all members of the crew are now able to question the captains judgment concerning the safety of the airliner. 520, The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 on August 12,1985, is the disaster with the highest number of fatalities,520 people died on board a Boeing 747. Pilots were able to keep the plane flying for 32 minutes after the mechanical failure before crashing into a mountain, all 15 crew members and 505 of the 509 passengers on board died. The death toll was exacerbated by delays in the rescue operation, although a number of people survived the impact, by the time the Japanese rescue teams arrived at the crash site all but four had succumbed to their injuries. 349, On November 12,1996, the worlds deadliest mid-air collision was the Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision involving Saudia Flight 763 and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 over Charkhi Dadri, the collision was mainly the result of the Kazakh pilot flying lower than the assigned clearance altitude. All 349 passengers and crew on both aircraft died. The Ramesh Chandra Lahoti Commission, empowered to study the causes, recommended the creation of the semi-circular rule,346, On March 3,1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed in a forest northeast of Paris, France. The London-bound plane crashed shortly after taking off from Orly airport and it was later determined that the cargo door detached, which caused an explosive decompression, this caused the floor just above to collapse. The collapsed floor severed the control cables, which left the pilots without control of the elevators, the plane entered a steep dive and crashed. It was the deadliest plane crash of all time until the Tenerife disaster in 1977,329, On June 23,1985, Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747-237B crashed off the southwest coast of Ireland when a bomb exploded in the cargo hold. All 307 passengers and 22 crew members died, one passenger had checked in as M. Singh
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