Perlan II Project Aims To Fly a Glider To the Edge of Space 44
Zothecula writes: In an ambitious attempt to break every wing-borne sustained flight height record for a manned aircraft, the Perlan ll project intends to construct and fly a glider higher than any sailplane has gone before. Riding on the colossal stratospheric air waves generated over mountains, the team plans to fly their craft to more than 90,000 ft (27,000 m), which will shatter their own existing glider altitude record of 50,671 ft (15,400 m) set by Perlan l in 2008.
100km (Score:5, Insightful)
At 27km up, you're closer to ground than to the edge of space. Stop sensationalizing.
Re:100km (Score:4, Insightful)
That was my first thought as well. Don't get me wrong, it will be an impressive feat, but it's nowhere near 'the edge of space'. I haven't done the math or looked it up but one would probably see the curvature of the Earth more noticeably than at sea level, but still, the title of this entry is complete sensationalism.
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I'll give them this one, considering one of the purposes of this project is to prove the feasability of extraterrrestrial flight in atmospheres as thin as that of Mars.
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(...and I apparently have Tony the Tiger's spellchecker, since it completely missed that typo.)
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You're spell checker is Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!
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Ouch. s/you're/your/ My spell czecher sucks.
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If you do actually Google "where does space start" you'll get a popular definition of 100km, so yes, quite a bit short.
I'm also not sure yet about the claim that they had the previous record. If you visit http://www.fai.org/record-glid... [fai.org] you'll see that in 2006 the late great Steve Fossett has a claim to a little higher than the Perlan claim. The Perlan claim doesn't even show up on the site.
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Steve Fosset was one of the pilots of Perlan 1
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Self-penalty: no posting to Slashdot for at least two weeks.
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I agree.
These are exercises in Semantics and Sophistry rather than Spaceflight or Physis.
Lunatics --I choose that word with purpose-- without any sense of proportion have taken over 'Space'.
They prob. even think the moon is one small glide further out.
Re: 100km (Score:1)
Isn't something like 90+% of the atmosphere below you at that altitude? Only 10% more to go to reach vacuum. That seems to be the edge.
Re: 100km (Score:5, Informative)
Something on the order of 97% of the atmosphere's mass is below 90,000'. 100km is an arbitrary value for the start of space, as the air at 100km is too thick to orbit and too thin to fly in (except dynamic soaring?). In imperial units, 100,000' seems to be the upper limit for flying and 100 miles is about the lower limit for orbiting.
The Perlan II sounds like it will handle like an unpowered U2 - where the planes ceiling will be defined by the "coffin corner" were the low speed stall (classic stall) approaches the high speed stall (Mach tuck from transonic airflow). Perhaps they will be using a more refined airfoil than the U2 to increase the Mach number for high speed stall.
IIRC, the pre-Perlan I sailplane altitude record of approx 47,000 feet was set sometime in the 1960's, surprising it took that long for someone to break that.
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The "lower limit" is lower than that, the Zenit sattelites had a perigree of 135km, or 84 miles.
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100k is probably within a factor of two of the limit any time soon for things that depend on air.
So the "limit for things that depend on air" will fall between 1,000 feet and 10,000,000 feet?
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Isn't something like 90+% of the atmosphere below you at that altitude? Only 10% more to go to reach vacuum. That seems to be the edge.
When you stand at sea level, 99.99999% of the earth's mass is below you. So we are all at the edge of space.
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At 27km up, you're closer to ground than to the edge of space. Stop sensationalizing.
At 27km up your above 98% of the atmosphere if you go by density. It's not sensationalizing at all.
Re:100km (Score:4, Informative)
The Kármán line [wikipedia.org], or Karman line, lies at an altitude of 100 kilometres (62 mi) above the Earth's sea level, and commonly represents the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. This definition is accepted by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which is an international standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. By saing "edge of space" and then "90,000ft" (27.4km) they are making a mockery of the "Edge of space". When has 27.4% towards a goal ever been "close" to a goal? They further exagerate using this [gizmag.com] artist's rendering. The curvature of the earth would be much less. Here is an actual photo taken at 90,000ft.
In the end 27.4kM is not close to 100km and therefore not close to the edge of space. Sorry but you can't re-define something that has been internationally agreed upon to make your aircraft look better.
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Yeah!!! If God had wanted us to fly, he would have given us first class tickets!!
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No, Uranus.
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sorry, didn't you get the memo? They changed the name to put that tired old joke to rest once and for all.
It's now "Urectum".
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"Rectum"? Heck, I hardly knew him.
Or something like that.
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But that isn't space, you're still in the Earth's atmosphere. Why not just call it "Aeronautics" and stop invoking all the emotional space bullshit? And you don't need a person in there either.
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maybe they want controllable to the point of a safely retrievable and significant (by mass, not necessarily nature) payload? Also, human reflexes can adapt to unexpected aerodynamic situations much more intuitively than a computer can (I personally don't know of any system which can make an autonomous recovery from a flat spin), which ironically makes the mission more survivable. As to cabin safety, it's as simple as a pressure suit and a parachute. Remember we're dealing with an experimental aircraft here,
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maybe they want controllable to the point of a safely retrievable and significant (by mass, not necessarily nature) payload?
Sure, maybe they do? I read their goals though, that's not in there anywhere. They want to set an altitude record, prove the aerodynamics work, and the meteorology simulations. Their third goal goal of inspiring young people might somehow justify putting a person in it. Anyway, if as you said they want to prove it can carry some weight, throw in a fancy video camera or something, of h
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Why manned? Because the record they are planning to break is for manned wing-borne flight. Atmospheric flights capable of carrying people and food have been limited by the need to carry fuel. Unmanned aircraft can already run indefinitely on solar power, but don't have the lift capacity to carry passengers and all the supplies they need.
"and designed to fly near transonic speed" (Score:2)
Err , how exactly do they plan on getting to those speeds? Sure , you could get to those speeds in a dive but to do a dive you've got to get up that high in the first place which requires already going at those speeds. Catch 22. And the air currents sure as hell won't be strong enough to do it so unless they plan on having an SR-71 tow them up there I don't see this happening.
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