[AR] Re: Just where does space start?
- From: "Monroe L. King Jr." <monroe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 12:51:17 -0700
The FAI is also the governing body I'd submit an altitude or speed
record attempt too if I wanted an official record.
Monroe
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [AR] Re: Just where does space start?
> From: Paul Mueller <paul.mueller.iii@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Sun, August 31, 2014 12:23 pm
> To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> I did a little searching on wikipedia and it seems the 100 km number does
> have a mathematical basis derived by Theodore von Karman (more than just a
> round number in the vicinity of where the atmosphere gets really thin):
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line (that URL has funny
> characters because of the accents over the "a"s in Karman).
>
> It is the number used by the generally accepted governing body for
> aeronautical and astronautical records, the Federation Aeronautique
> Internationale (FAI). The only one who use 50 miles is the US Air Force,
> from the days of awarding Astronaut wings to X-15 pilots who flew that high.
>
> Paul M
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 12:35 PM, David Weinshenker <daze39@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Bill Claybaugh wrote:
> > > Perhaps it would be best to simply accept the mathematically
> > > convenient "100 km" number proposed by the EU and apparently
> > > accepted by this community for the last 20 years.
> >
> > I prefer to accept the (equally mathematically convenient) "400 k ft."
> > figure of the Space Shuttle "entry interface" threshold. This at least
> > is a convenient number with the weight of an engineering (rather than
> > a political) decision behind it: that's the value someone came up with
> > for the altitude of the boundary between "coasting" and "gliding" flight.
> >
> > No doubt it's biased on the high side, as is perfectly appropriate for
> > the intended use: the guidance logic would want to stop "zeroing out"
> > the dynamic pressure effects before they actually reached significant
> > levels. I'm not sure what the altitude is where the aero effects were
> > actually noticeable in the numbers.
> >
> > -dave w
> >
> >
> >
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