Re: SpaceX Falcon Ready to Go - Again.
- From: John Schilling <schillin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 8 Dec 2005 14:19:27 -0800
In article <1134068797.823126.79520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tom Cuddihy
says...
>John Schilling wrote:
>> >> BTW, there has been a lot of talk about how wonderful
>> >> a place Kwaj is for launching rockets. The truth is that
>> >> there are so many occupied islands in the region to the
>> >> east that launch azimuths are suprisingly limited.
>> >> Azimuths from 55 degrees to 110 degrees present
>> >> downrange problems, for example.
>> >How much of a problem is that really though? If a 1 mi^2 island 100
>> >miles to the northwest is downrange, the chances that any kind of
>> >launch would actually hit there are miniscule. At Vandenburg, on the
>> >other hand, if a rocket launched east came down and missed Lompoc, it
>> >could still hit Bakersfield or maybe some dude's ski lodge at Bear
>> >Mountain or whatever (I don't actually know the geogrpahy that well out
>> >there). I think there's a statistical difference there between a 1 in a
>> >million chance of landing on some tiny podunk island and a 1/1 chance
>> >of landing SOMEWHERE in California if it goes down.
>> There is essentially a 0/1 chance of a rocket launched out of Vandenberg
>> landing anywhere in California, on account of California is the land mass
>> north and east of Vandenberg and rockets launched from Vandenberg only
>> ever fly south, where California isn't. And they don't even fly south
>> if there's a strong wind out of the west to potentially blow debris
>> towards land.
>Thereby missing the entire point of my post about probability, not
>policy.
The two are not unrelated.
The probability of a rocket launched from Kwajelain landing on a small
inhabited island, is approximately zero, because the policy of the
Kwajelain launch site operators is to never launch a rocket on an azimuth
that would overfly any inhabited islands. Even if this is inconvenient
to some potential customers.
The probability of a rocket launched from Vandenberg landing on any
part of California, is approximately zero, because the policy of the
Vandenberg launch side operators is to never launch a rocket on an azimuth
that would overfly any part of California. Even if this is inconvenient
to some potential customers.
If they did not have this policy, the probability of a rocket out of
Vandenberg falling on California would be high. But they do have this
policy, because of that probability, and the operators of most other
launch sites have similar policies for similar reasons.
I had understood you to be arguing, "because we launch rockets out of
Vandenberg that have a high probability of landing on California, we
ought to be able to launch rockets out of Kwajelain that have a small
probability of landing on an island". Did I misunderstand?
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schillin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
.
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