Delta Heavy Rocket

[ancona]

Well, I'm sitting here waiting for the latest NRO satellite to be launched in to space on a Delta IV Heavy this hot, muggy a.m. We call this one the "Window Breaker" because the harmonic tremors will break windows in Titusville and as far south as Port St. John.

It should be picture perfect, since there is not a cloud in the sky.

 

[benjamen]

1) I totally thought this thread was going to be about the skyrocketing PM prices this morning!

2) Do the property owners get reimbursed for thier window damage?

3) Pictures!

 

[ancona]

New launch time is 9:15.

No pictures, I am in an area where that is a strict NO-NO!

Fix your own damn windows, we were here first. [I'm not kidding either]

 

[DCFusor]

A good sound recording ought to be possible...but most devices you could slip into a pocket wouldn't hack the super low frequencies...

 

[ancona]

AWESOME LAUNCH!!

I accidentally snapped a pic with my smart-phone......

Man, that is a fucking powerful beast. I was six thousand yards away, and it felt like my whole body was being expanded and pushed back with each pulse of the rocket.

Sometimes, they will find a wild hog or something within a half mile or so of the pad, and it's internal organs have been liquified by the pressures generated by the noise waves.

 

[ADK]

That's fascinating... I would have loved to seen that in person!

 

[ancona]

SLC 37 will be busy all summer, so if you want to see one, simply roll down to Florida during a launch window. I suggest you allow four or five days, since the weather can play hell on rocket launches. The last Dragon launch from 40 was a nail biter, with a one second launch window for each of six days. That was a cool launch, and I watched it from the parking lot of Hangar A O, CCAFS.

I have actually witnessed two of them explode. One of them was being launched from 41 about fifteen years ago, and it got about a thousand feet or so in the air when range safety pushed the destruct button, blowing it to tiny little flaming bits all over the beach. I remember watching the red, donut shaped ring of hydrazine vapor and hoping it didn't drift my way.

Another was being launched from SLC-17, and it was destroyed at a very low altitude because of a booster failure. That one rained solid rocket fuel chunks all over the parking lot and contractor lay-down area, leaving molten piles of smoldering crap where vehicles and project trailers used to be.

My firm actually disposed of the fragments they gathered up to figure out what went wrong. I remember the carbon fiber dust started getting in to the ventilation system at the hangar where they reconstructed the thing, and was shorting out electronic equipment. We went in with lint free rags and HEPA vacuums to clean the building from top to bottom, and inside out. After we disposed of the rocket carcass of course.

I have been very lucky for two decades, and have seen some incredible shit up close and personal. I once sat on the roof of the Mobile Service Tower at SLC-36 many years ago, and watched a dusk launch of the Space shuttle. That my friends was incredible.

 

[69mach351]

That's fascinating... I would have loved to seen that in person!

A wild hog with liquified organs or the rocket?

 

[ADK]

A wild hog with liquified organs or the rocket?

Eh, well, both... I guess. Preferably the rocket.

Ancona --- Great write up. Maybe someday I'll get down there to check out a launch. I've always loved that stuff. A few nights ago I went outside to see the International Space Station cruise overhead.

Back 15 years ago or so I had a radio setup rigged up to make a contact with the MIR Space Station. That was cool. You could hear the signal come up when it crested the horizon and slowly fade away minutes later when it departed. I have the confirmation card from that contact somewhere in the house...

ADK

 

[rblong2us]

i recall reading about experimental sonic weapons in WW1.
They apparently built a large scale refs ( pea) whistle and on first tryout they destroyed someones internal organs .......

a work in progress i suspect -

According to the Working Paper on Infrasound Weapons produced by Hungary for the United Nations in 1978 4, the frequency that is thought to be most dangerous to humans is between 7 and 8Hz. This is the resonant frequency of flesh and, theoretically, it can rupture internal organs if loud enough. Seven hertz is also the average frequency of the brain’s alpha rhythms; thus this frequency has been described as dangerous but also relaxing. Whether exposure to such infrasound can trigger epileptic seizures, as some fear, remains unclear; experimental data on exposure to such frequencies gives a variety of results. It should be noted, however, that the strobe light effect associated with triggering epileptic seizures flashes at an equivalent rhythm. Frequencies below 50Hz commonly lose their coherence and are perceived to pulse or fluctuate, which is analogous to the strobing beat of a modulated light.

It was NASA scientists in the early 1960s who produced most of the documentation of the effects of infrasound on the human body; they were particularly keen to discover how proximity to the low frequencies produced by rocket engines would affect their astronauts, especially during launching. Their extensive tests confirmed that, at certain volumes, infrasound did indeed have various physiological consequences. According to results published by NASA researcher GH Mohr, frequencies between 0Hz and 100Hz, at up to 150-155dB, produced vibrations of the chest wall, changes in respiratory rhythm, gagging sensations, headaches, coughing, visual distortion, and post-exposure fatigue. Subsequent research has determined that the frequency that causes vibration of the eyeballs – and therefore distortion of vision – is around 19Hz.