Updates
July 12, 2021: it appears investors in Virgin Galactic were as excited about the flight to "the near the edge of space" as the rest of us. SPCE dropped 17.3% today; lost $8.51 per share, closing at $40.69.
July 12, 2021: before the year is over, we're going to hear a lot about the Karman line. From wiki:
The Kármán line is an attempt to define a boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, which is important for legal and regulatory purposes: aircraft and spacecraft fall under different jurisdictions and are subject to different treaties.
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international standard-setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics, defines the Kármán line as the altitude of 100 kilometres (54 nautical miles; 62 miles; 330,000 feet) above Earth's mean sea level.
Not all organizations recognize this definition.
NASA, the US Space Force, US Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration define the boundary as 50 miles (80 km) above sea level. International law does not define the edge of space, or the limit of national airspace.
The Kármán line is named after Theodore von Kármán (1881–1963), a Hungarian American engineer and physicist who was active in aeronautics and astronautics. He was the first person to determine the altitude at which the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aeronautical flight, which Kármán calculated as 275,000 ft (84 kilometres). A vehicle above this altitude would not be able to use aerodynamic lift to support itself. This is also close to the upper boundary of mesosphere, which is estimated to end at about 80–90 km.
According to Andrew G. Haley, the 100 km line is an effect of agreement between U.S. and Soviet Union delegates of FAI. Coincidently 100 km is also approximately an altitude of turbopause, below which atmospheric gases (oxygen, nitrogen etc) are well-mixed and above 100 km heavier molecules tend to occupy lower parts of atmosphere due to gravitational separation.
Original Post
Flight into space: done; anti-climactic. Expensive carnival ride. With enough money, anyone can be labeled an "astronaut." Four firsts (corrected from original entry; huge thanks to a reader):
- Alan Shepard -- first American in space
- John Glenn -- first American to orbit
- Neil Armstrong -- first man on extraterrestrial body
- Sir Richard Branson -- first billionaire in almost-space on a plane with several close friends
NASCAR: now, 2:30 p.m. CT.
PGA golf: on but I'm not interested
NBA: this evening, 7:00 p.m. CT
On another note, any American who has "trouble" with America or is "embarrassed" to be an American, should read the wiki entry for Giannis Adetokunbo, and then read the wiki entry for Nigeria.
Video
Wow, I just watched the shorter-than-90-second video of Virgin Galactic. NASCAR is more exciting. I doubt one can tell the difference between mach 1 and mach 2. Branson reached mach 2 momentarily. Every USAF F-15 fighter pilot has flown in excess of mach 1, and way more than once. The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" regularly flew mach 3+ and at altitudes in excess of 85,000 feet. All personnel on board wore spacesuits.
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Tweets By Dan Riffle Today
Congrats to Richard Branson on going to almost-space in a plane, thus adding to the long list of billionaire "achievements" that are really just mediocre versions of much cooler things we already did decades ago through collective endeavors financed by taxes.
Excited to watch the biggest televised sports event of the day: John Smoltz and Vinny Del Negro dueling it out at an amateur golf tournament.
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Hilarious
Hilaria Baldwin.
While Hilaria apologized and clarified in February that she was born in Boston and was simply raised in a household that admired Spanish culture due to her father’s undergraduate degree in Spanish literature, she has remained adamant that she feels a "deep connection to two cultures."
Her parents later moved to Mallorca in 2011, which reportedly contributed to her affinity for the Spanish language and culture.
On the other hand, Alex really was hilarious in 30 Rock.
Only thing that would have Bransons ride better than NASCAR... dare I say it, "There's a crash in turn 3..." Probably would not of turned out well... Yup, I'm bored
ReplyDeleteThe entire day was pretty boring. Gave me an opportunity to do a bit of swimming.
DeleteAlan Shepard was first American in space. Glenn was first to orbit.
ReplyDeleteThey actually did the launches in order of best performing astronauts and Glenn was third within the seven. But happened to get the first orbit, because they cut short the suborbital flights and moved on to orbiting, before finishing the planned seven suborbitals. But Shepard was still first in space.
Thank you. Huge error on my part. Thank you for catching that. And the additional information, very nice. Great for my granddaughters to read. Much appreciated. I corrected my error in the post.
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