}}}}} JOURNAL ARCHIVE: From: Kerry Burgess
To: Kerry Burgess
Sent: Mon, February 13, 2006 1:18:17 PM
Subject: Re: Sleep journal 2/13/06
Kerry Burgess wrote:
Not sure about this dream from when I finally got back to sleep this morning. I wanted to stay awake to watch the morning news but I was feeling the urge to watch my favorite anchorperson. If I watch her, I am going to talk and who knows how many sociopaths out there are listening to all this. How can this continue??? In this latest dream, there is a recurring theme, lately it always seems to involve sand. Today I was driving a pickup along a road on a sandy hill. I was trying to stop to talk to someone that was walking along. But then I was traveling backwards, down the hill I think. I put on the brakes but I still keep traveling down the hill and away from the person I wanted to talk to. Then I put the transmission in Drive and pressed the accelerator, but all the wheels did was spin and I kept moving fast backwards, I felt frustrated. I eventually stopped and the person I wanted to talk to caught up with me but I don't remember anything after that.
There was some other stuff going on, possibly it was dream manipulation to respond to my metaphor about being in an H-bomb experiment. But the recurring theme has something to do with traveling backwards
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrorocket
Retrorocket
A retrorocket (short for retrograde rocket) is a rocket engine used to provide thrust opposing the motion of a spacecraft, thereby causing it to decelerate.
Use in de-orbital maneuvers
When a spacecraft in orbit is slowed sufficiently, its altitude decreases to the point at which aerodynamic forces begin to rapidly slow the motion of the vehicle, and it returns to the ground. Without such rockets, spacecraft would remain in orbit for years until their orbits naturally slow, and reenter the atmosphere at a much later date; in the case of manned flights, long after life support systems have been expended. Therefore it is critical that spacecraft have extremely reliable retrorockets.
Use in the Apollo program
The Apollo program did not require retrorockets for lunar flights, as the flight from the moon was directed to fly the spacecraft directly back to earth, and not enter orbit. However, the flights in earth orbit for tests required retrorockets, so the large, versatile Service Propulsion Module on the Service Module was used to decelerate the spacecraft. The Space Shuttle would use a similar multipurpose engine for reentry.
Use in the Space Shuttle program
The Space Shuttle Orbital maneuvering system provides the vehicle with a pair of powerful liquid fueled rockets for both reentry and orbital maneuvering. One is sufficient for a successful reentry, and if both systems should fail, the Reaction control system can slow the vehicle enough for reentry.
Use in landers
Retrorockets are also used in landing spacecraft on other astronomical bodies, such as the Moon and Mars, as well as enabling a spacecraft to enter an orbit encircling such a body, when otherwise it would scoot past and off into space again. As pointed out above (in connection with Project Apollo) the main rocket on a spacecraft can be re-oriented to serve as a retrorocket.
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html
SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_mes.html
MISSION EVENTS SUMMARY
DEORBIT
Deorbit guidance, navigation and flight control software operates through the transition DAP to provide maneuvering of the spacecraft to the OMS deorbit ignition attitude, OMS thrusting commands, OMS engine gimbaling for thrust vector control and RCS thrusting commands, in conjunction with use of the DAP similar to that for orbit insertion.
In returning home, the orbiter must be sufficiently decelerated by an OMS retrograde burn that when it enters the atmosphere, it maintains control and glides to the landing site. For the nominal end of mission, a retrofiring of approximately 2.5 minutes is performed at the appropriate point in the vehicle's trajectory. For this maneuver, the orbiter is positioned in a tail-first thrusting attitude.
