From: Kathe Rich (krich@gi.alaska.edu)
To: pweeg@shore1.intercom.net
Subject: nasa team
Michael-
We're wearing the same kind of
clothes that we do during spring or fall in Salisbury. The
sounding rocket is bringing back measurments from the clouds
that it will fly through. Such as, how high, how dense, and
what they're made of. Yes, I have gotten a cold. My shoes
are converse one stars. We'll try to look you up when we
come back in August.
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JW-
I'm sorry, we don't have the equiptment to
send pictures on the computers. We did enjoy seeing your's.
The rockets go about 1200 meters per second. If the
indians see the rocket they let NASA know so they can
retreive it. No, I don't know any superstars, but, my
grandfather played B-ball for the Chicago Bulls.
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No, the indians don't mind that we set rockets off
on their land. They don't own the land that we launch the
rockets off of. Monkey's have been sent up in space but,
NASA doesn't do that anymore. Right now in Alaska it
is light out.
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Craig-
The sounding rockets travel about 1200 meters per
second. They go much faster than a space shuttle. I'm
sorry but, we don't have the equipment to send pictures.
No, I haven't seen polar bears but, i've seen grisly bears,
moose, caribou, dall sheep, muskox, bald eagles, and a
whorey marmette.
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Robert-
When the rocket comes back it's not bringing
anything back. It sends data about cloud measurements to
computers. A muskox is like a really hairy buffalo. They
have thicker hair than bison so they can survive in severe
weather. I like the mountains best of all things in
Alaska. The "MASTER" hamburger is great! Sometimes they
make it out of moose and reindeer. I play soccer, field
hockey, and softball. It is definantly not cheap in
Alaska. Clothing costs about the same in Alaska as it does
in Maryland.
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Felicia-
We don't know what started the fires but, they
aren't occuring anymore. We haven't yet launched the
rockets into the sky. I hope you do okay getting your
tonsils out. It won't be bad. You'll be good as new in no
time.
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Christina-
Noctilucent clouds are clouds that are significantly
higher in the sky. They're brighter than most clouds.
They effect the worlds climate. We have regular water lines
and faucets as you do at home. Because of daylight savings
we're 4 hours behind we'd normally be 5 hours behind.
------------------------------------------------------------
Anna-
Tracy's been really busy working on the rocket so he
asked me to write you back. The clouds are very bright,
they reflect the sunlight but, they don't glow. It's not
like an aurora type brightness. No the clouds don't float
above your house. They're very far to the North. Delmar
isn't far from where we live and i'm going into 9th grade
at WiHi.
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Thankyou for writing us while we were here. It's good to
know that other kids are interested in NASA'S program. We
enjoyed reading your letters , answering your questions,
and seeing your pictures. It was as much fun for
us as it was for you guys.
Your friend,
Kate McCarthy
; )
Patti,
Hi, sorry we haven't written for a couple of days.
We have been busy with the rocket, our work stations are
not near the computers and sometimes we are on standby and
can't leave our areas. Please explain this to the kids
as best you can. I hope you get this in time for your last
class and if possible tell Felicia we hope that she is well
and has a good summer. We will miss hearing from the kids,
this has been an excellent experience for all of us.
That's wounderful about Felicia's grandmother. We
were talking the other day about the kinds of things we
would have been doing over the summer at that age and we all
agreed that it would not have had anything to do with
school ar a computer. Kid's are so technologically advanced
these days its amazing. Some know more by Jr & Sr high
school than we learned in college. I missed the older girls
mail at first, sorry we were slow responding. I hope they
can continue to write.
We are GMT-8 hours here, four hours behind Salisbury. We
still have not launched the first rocket yet. The
observation sites have not been clear enough to see the
clouds. It's cloudy and raining tonight and its predicted
to be the same for the next couple of days. Maybe a hole
will open up in the sky and we can get this off soon.
Weathermen have been wrong before!!!
Counting is a method we use to do checks and make
sure that everything is working and ready to be launched.
The scientist establishes a "window" of time that the
conditions will be right for launch. We start a clock
several hours before the "window" begins that counts
backwards until T=0 (launch). While the clock is counting
backwards, everyone has jobs to do at certian times to make
sure that eveything is working. The rockets we launch are
unguided, so we measure the wind speed and direction every
so often so that we can correct the aiming of the rocket.
We measure the winds with balloons that are tracked by radar
systems that follow where they go. We also must notify the
military and airlines at the right times so that there will
be airplanes in the area. We establish a hold time usually
T-10 min that we stop the clock at and wait at once the
window begins. The scientist has instruments on the ground
that he can measure the clouds with and talks on the phone
with his observers at different sites. When he determines
the conditions are right he says "pick up the count" the
clock starts it's final 10 min and we launch when it reaches
0. When the rocket takes off the experiment instruments are
turned on and its measurments are sent back by a radio link
and are recorded for the scientist to study later. So far
we have only reached the T-10 min and holding point each
night. While the clock is holding at T-10 min everyone is
at their stations waiting for the moment when the clock will
start. Hopfully soon the clock will start.
Bye for now,
Bill
Patti,
Sorry we haven't had time for answering everyone's
questions. I'll try to answer some of the questions for your
class. I should be in Australia in a couple of months, and
if we can get a connection to the internet, I think it would
be great to be able to share the trip with your group.
I've been traveling for close to thirty years now, and this
is the first for this type of thing. I think it's great,
just difficult to find time.
Felicia...
You asked how we put parachutes on rockets, and that's a
good question. When the payload re-enters the atmosphere,
the speed increases to a point and then actually slows down
due to the density of the atmosphere. The parachute is
deployed when the payload descends to a pre-determined
altitude, usually about 20,000 feet. The parachute comes out
in 4 stages to slow that falling payload. The parachutes are
very different than the type used for sky diving.
Craig..
This sounding rocket will reach a speed of 1155 meters per
second. This would be a good exercise for you. Convert that
into Miles Per Hour.
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