
“To a Top Scientist at Woomera Rocket Range, South Australia” (2009) - CarolineW
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/to-top-scientist.html
======
gumby
The " _AUSTRALIAN_ MARKINGS" comment makes a lot of sense to me. I drew
endless pictures of the Apollo rockets, the command module, the lander, and of
various exotic planes and the _ALL_ had Australian flags on them. Picture of
an astronaut on the moon with a flag too. I don't think I was being
nationalistic, I think it simply didn't occur to me to do otherwise. Those
were the flags I saw every day.

Which I had forgotten until I recently walked through my Palo Alto
neighbourhood and what did I see: some kids had drawn planes in chalk on the
pavement -- with Aussie flags on them! Those old memories all came back in a
rush.

(I was super excited when NASA was landing people (men) on the moon. I was
only five when Apollo 11 landed but I feel like I remember it well -- probably
I remember later landings).

------
Gravityloss
Air breathing engines are better suited for long distance constant speed
cruise than space flight, which is an acceleration mission to far higher
speeds and mostly happening outside the atmosphere.

I don't think it's accurate to always mention spaceflight here. It's a bit
like saying your spreadsheet plugin that iterates rows with visual basic
enabled more efficient big data. Will maybe work for those who don't know the
field.

So far air breathers can produce thrust up to Mach 10, or 3 km/s, and most
peter out much earlier (X-43 was Mach 7). A body stays in orbit if it goes
horizontally 8 km/s, so it's a whole different ballgame. Usually these
hypersonic related flights consist of an ordinary rocket (not air breathing)
boosting a tiny air breather model inlet for some kind of materials or cold
flow test.

------
signa11
this is excellent : 'You were clearly going to be an excellent Program
Manager' (commenting on 'you put in the other details')

------
tgb
Looks like this is approximately the rocket the reply originally had a picture
to: [http://www.popsci.com/nasa-and-australia-successfully-
test-h...](http://www.popsci.com/nasa-and-australia-successfully-test-
hypersonic-rocket)

------
themartorana
Answering letters like this, while tedious, probably helps cement the path
forward for a young child with the brain and curiosity for engineering.

This one was a bit late, obviously.

------
ENTP
Love Australia!

~~~
socceroos
Me too. But hey, I live here.

------
api
Today this would be a Reddit self post to /r/space.

