• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Fake sonic booms

Lisa Simpson

Unregistered
Joined
Mar 2, 2004
Messages
21,960
My niece is taking an elective class this year at her middle school called "pop culture". Frankly, I'm pissed off over it anyway as they got rid of computer class for learning Marilyn Monroe's real name, but whatever. Thanks to the Governator, California kids are getting a top notch education in useless crap.

Anyway, the woman teaching the class believes in every conspiracy theory. JFK assassination magic bullet theory, bombs in the World Trade Center, moon Landing hoax - she believes them all. Not only does she believe we didn't land on the moon, she believes we've never been to outer space at all. When a student said "but what about the sonic booms" made by the re-entering space shuttles, she said "the government faked them".

So my question is - how difficult would it be to fake the double sonic booms we hear every time the shuttle comes home?
 
This woman is teaching? Get out of California yesterday!
 
fake a sonic boom? that originates from the sky? Unless there is someone on a mountain top with a very loud cannon, no one can fake that (especially in areas there aren't even mountains, LIKE IN Cape Canaveral florida)


By the way, I would suggest that you get this teacher out of the classroom by filing a formal complain with the California State Board of Education - http://www.cde.ca.gov/BE/ her nonsense belongs in no classroom
 
My husband suggested military airplanes flying overhead, but unless there's a lot of cloud cover, military planes are usually visible.

Her mom is going to speak with the school's principal first. She's especially concerned that the teacher doesn't allow any dissent. When my niece tried to challenge the magic bullet theory, she got in trouble.
 
So my question is - how difficult would it be to fake the double sonic booms we hear every time the shuttle comes home?


Easy. Hang loudspeakers from the chemtrail clouds. I wish I had a teacher like that, would have been a blast.
 
My husband suggested military airplanes flying overhead, but unless there's a lot of cloud cover, military planes are usually visible.

And if there is cloud cover, most times the Shuttle wont land at that point. The weather needs to be near perfect for the Shuttle at most times, otherwise they divert to another airforce base (ie White Sands)

Her mom is going to speak with the school's principal first. She's especially concerned that the teacher doesn't allow any dissent. When my niece tried to challenge the magic bullet theory, she got in trouble.

the teacher just created a hostile environment to learn, if she wont allow differing opinions or even be asked that she back up her claims with facts. This teacher needs to be put out as soon as possible. The school year just started; no way to let this abuse continue
 
My husband suggested military airplanes flying overhead, but unless there's a lot of cloud cover, military planes are usually visible.

Her mom is going to speak with the school's principal first. She's especially concerned that the teacher doesn't allow any dissent. When my niece tried to challenge the magic bullet theory, she got in trouble.

At least it's obvious your niece is well brought up. :D
 
My husband suggested military airplanes flying overhead, but unless there's a lot of cloud cover, military planes are usually visible.



You're forgetting that they could mount the same holographic projectors to this plane that they used to fake the planes on 9/11.



Hey, those suckers are expensive, we've got to get some more use out of them!
 
At least it's obvious your niece is well brought up. :D

Both of my nieces have heard a steady stream of critical thinking (at least from me). When my other niece was in third grade she announced loudly that Christopher Columbus did not discover the earth was round, people already knew that and mostly what he did was kill and enslave the native peoples.

Teacher also told my niece that any studies showing organic farming isn't more nutritious are funded by the meat industry. My niece asked why the meat industry would care about organic vegetable farming.
 
Both of my nieces have heard a steady stream of critical thinking (at least from me). When my other niece was in third grade she announced loudly that Christopher Columbus did not discover the earth was round, people already knew that and mostly what he did was kill and enslave the native peoples.

Teacher also told my niece that any studies showing organic farming isn't more nutritious are funded by the meat industry. My niece asked why the meat industry would care about organic vegetable farming.

Charming children, simply charming.
 
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that this teacher should be fired for her behavior. This sort of exposure to – no, forced acceptance of – delusional thinking is bordering on criminal.
 
Serious answer, it would be extremely difficult.

The Shuttle gives off a unique double boom, caused by its rather blunt structure and high speed. The shockwave is known as an oblique shock, and it always starts at the nose of an aircraft, and the shock front takes a conical shape, where the air inside is moving with the aircraft, the air outside moving at ambient speed -- the shock front itself is the discontinuity, and the air moves at totally different speeds on either side. That's what a shock is.

Now, the conical front has an angle determined by the speed. This angle takes some work to compute, but generally speaking, the faster the aircraft is moving, the narrower the cone. This is important for design, because you don't want any of the aircraft to lie outside this cone. If it does, it greatly increases the drag and the load on the structure. This is why the faster an airplane gets, the more swept back and narrower its wings, until you have things like the SR-71 that resembles an arrowhead more than a typical planform.

The Shuttle, however, doesn't really care about drag so much because it spends most of its performance outside the atmosphere entirely. As it descends, starting from extremely high speed, a good chunk of structure does in fact lie outside the oblique shock coming off the nose, and this sets up a second shock wave, approximately 30 meters behind the first one. This distance translates to a time delay on the ground, and thus a double shock is clearly audible, occuring about 0.08 seconds apart (or more, depending on temperature at altitude).

Modern fighter aircraft, on the other hand, only produce single shocks -- any additional shocks thrown off by structure are weaker, lying within the primary cone, and will be closer together to the point that they will combine with the main shock at any appreciable distance from the aircraft. To get a double boom, you would have to fly a pair of them in close formation, which could be done, I suppose. However, this would be easily detectable by observers with binoculars, and it would have to fly directly over heavily populated areas (the Los Angeles basin, and Orlando Florida, respectively). Good luck with that.

There is also the magnitude of the boom to consider. The Shuttle dives quite steeply at extreme speed and thus makes a particularly loud boom. This is quite different from the boom from fighters -- much more of a rumbling, earthquake-like shock than the simple *SNAP of a lighter aircraft, one that is trying to avoid drag and compressing the air much less.

So, in closing, to replicate the double boom, you'd need a different vehicle or series of vehicles with similar performance. I never got to hear the XB-70 Valkyrie at full tilt, nor does the Concorde or SR-71 fly any longer, so I can't imagine what that might be. This mystery vehicle would also have to look like the Shuttle, and follow its same route. In short, if it cracks like a duck, it probably is one.
 
Not only does she believe we didn't land on the moon, she believes we've never been to outer space at all. When a student said "but what about the sonic booms" made by the re-entering space shuttles, she said "the government faked them".


..but what about the ISS? It's visible to the naked eye at certain times of the day.
 
It sure is. Here is a particularly unmistakable amateur photograph from a while ago. Zoom in for details.
 
. . .
There is also the magnitude of the boom to consider. The Shuttle dives quite steeply at extreme speed and thus makes a particularly loud boom. This is quite different from the boom from fighters -- much more of a rumbling, earthquake-like shock than the simple *SNAP of a lighter aircraft, one that is trying to avoid drag and compressing the air much less.
. . .

You've got that right! I live fairly close to the Shuttle's flight path to Edwards AFB. I once ran outside expecting to see a tree had fallen on the house!
 
The last time the Shuttle came in to Edwards I was in my office, late in the day, and didn't know about it. I thought an air conditioning unit had fallen off and then slammed against a wall.

Another time, I was in the open, and my first instinct was that a transformer had exploded down the street.

In contrast, I've been up at Edwards for a few dozen supersonic flights, from quals on F/A-18s to testing the F-15S, and F-22 trials. Those are more like rifle shots. Not remotely comparable.
 
Good luck getting this teacher removed from the classroom. It is one thing to believe in conspiracy theories but quite another to teach them as fact to school students.
 
Thank you very much, R. Mackey. That is exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

R.Mackey is awesome. He is not only a fount of useful and detailed information on a plethora of scientific subjects, he is also a selfless educator whose knowledgeable and patient explanations (particularly in the 9/11 CT threads) never cease to amaze me.

[/shameless but well deserved exaltation]
 

Back
Top Bottom