Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-05-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 29,1991. PAGE 5. Flights of fantasy Fly me to the moon and let me sing among the stars. Let me see what spring is like On Jupiter or Mars. Here's a date to circle in your Daytimer: October 12, 1992. That's the day when 20 well-heeled and unusually adventurous travellers will each toss back a noggin of champagne, strap themselves into a tastefully appointed three-stage rocket and blast off to spend seven fun-filled days orbiting around the planet Earth. They will collect no scientific data. They will take no prize-winning photos nor file any breathtaking first-person commentaries. The trip is strictly for pleasure. Tourists in space. It had to happen. Actually, don't deface your daytimer. It won't be happening. Not on October 12, 1992, anyway. That was the target date set by a travel agency called Society Expeditions a few years back. The company even sold a few tickets (only $52,000 U.S. for the round-trip — and that included in­ flight breath mints). Alas, the plan was ahead of its time for our current state of interplanetary travel technology. The ticket money was refunded. Society Expeditions now offers only earth- Faster than a speeding bullet One of the things that I have wanted to do during my life was to fly faster than Mach 1; unfortunately I have yet to achieve that goal. My wife begs to disagree; she claims that I routinely drive faster than that when I am on the German four-lane highways. Most people will, I am sure, know that, when I talk about Mach 1, I am really discussing the speed of sound. The reason we don't give it a specific number like 750 miles an hour is that the speed varies with the altitude; this means that a specific figure is valid only at one height. If you want more details on that, contact your local physics teacher. It was inevitable that, as pilots flew faster and faster in planes, sooner or later they would come to the problem of flying faster than the speed of sound. They ran into all sorts of problems al the beginning; the closer they got, the more buffeting there was and some planes literally fell apart. Because of this it is not surprising that the expression "sound barrier" came into frequent use. It really was not a barrier but we did not know that at the time. As our knowledge of flight grew, so did our ability to exceed the speed of sound. As aircraft did just that, it caused another problem. At Mach 1 there are shock waves set off that cause what is known as a sonic boom. You will know it when you hear it; there is nothing like it. My first experience with it was when I watched the famous but ill-fated Avro Arrow, without a doubt the finest aircraft ever built in Canada. Il was so powerful that I saw (and heard) it go through the sound barrier in an almost vertical climb. There are any number of military jets that routinely go through the sound barrier; in fact they frequently exceed Mach 2 or even 3. However, as a commercial venture, it has been something of a flop. The Americans and the Russians bound travel packages. But that's not to say it was a dumb idea — just a little premature. Humans were fantasizing about space travel long before Old Blue Eyes warbled the lyrics to Fly Me To The Moon. Shakespeare wrote about singing songs at Heaven's Gate. H.G. Wells wrote a pot­ boiler that took his early 20th century readers for an extended moonwalk. Even Chester Gould, the crusty and eccentric creator of the cartoon strip Dick Tracy occasionally filled his panels with drawings of a proto-typical space vehicle of sorts. It looked like an oversized wastepapcr basket but it had a special quality: it wasn’t subject to the rules of gravity. Gould often portrayed his gumshoe hero white-knuckling the rim of the anti-gravity bucket with one hand and clamping down his trademark yellow fedora with the other as he whisked off to battle evil-doers lurking anywhere from a gang hideout in Teaneck, New Jersey to a crater on the moon. At the bottom of the last cartoon panel, Gould would print cryptically: THE NATION THAT CONTROLS GRAVITY CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE Which is true, though largely meaningless. Gould might as easily have said the nation that controls oxygen controls the universe. But Gould, like so many other Homo Sapiens, was space-struck. For him, as for the misguided visionaries behind Society both started out to design one but gave up on it because it was costing too much. The French and British persisted and finally, after an expenditure that ran into the billions of dollars, turned out a commercial jet, called the Concorde, that could fly at about Mach 2.2. However, to their dismay, nobody bought any and the net result was that only 14 were built, 7 for British Airways and 7 for Air France. They are still in operation and, if you are in a real hurry to get across the North Atlantic and have money to pay for a ticket, which is first class fare plus 30 per cent, I would imagine that it is the best way to go. Right now the world aircraft manufacturers are talking about a second generation supersonic jet. Frankly there is not one country, let alone one manufacturer, which can afford the development costs and, in addition, there is an additional problem, that of the environment. We are not certain what will be the effects of a large number of such aircraft on our environment. One problem in particular is emission of nitrogen oxides which could damage the ozone levels. Since they are not in very good shape even now, what would be the effect of this additional threat? Obviously much more Get involved in the future THE EDITOR, If you are an adult or a teenager living in North Huron, this letter is for you. On Wednesday night, June 5, you will have an opportunity to have a say in the future plans for your community. These plans could involve the environment, education, recreation, the future of farming, the economy, jobs, health services, etc. It will be up to the people at the meeting to decide. There is no hidden agenda. You may have seen newspaper articles or received a letter about Community Expeditions Ltd., the fantasy of slipping the bonds of earth had become somewhat of an obsession. It seems to be a disease that's going around of late. I hear that scientists at NASA arc currently kicking around a new intergalactic agricultural discipline called Terraforming — literally "making earth". The idea is to lake a barren planet -- Mars, say -- and by installing solar reflectors and various sophisticated gas producing facilities, to alter the planetary climate and make it conducive to the formation of Life. At least as we know it. One might ask whether mankind's dismal track record even entitles us to another crack at planetary husbandry, but the question is redundant. We will go Out There, whether or not it’s a sound idea. And the solar reflectors of tomorrow will give way to Golden Arches the day after that. Symbolically, however, it's a shame the New Age couldn't have started as Society Expeditions Ltd. planned — with the world's first space tourist shuttle on October 12, 1992. That's a pretty significant date, after all. Exactly five centuries from the day another whacky visionary arrived at a destination much of the world thought impossible. The destination was the island of Hispaniola. 'Hie visionary was an Italian tourist by the name of Columbus. research is needed before any designs of such commercial jets leave the drawing boards. In the meantime there are plans to build a small supersonic business jet by, would you believe, an American and Russian company. Glasnost, it seems, works in strange places. The Russian company, Sikhoi, has considerable experience in supersonic jet engines and is mating its expertise with the Americans. There would only be a small number of such jets built; the purchase price would be in megabucks and again I wonder if they are all that important. Surely in the age of telecommunications, is it so important to go from point A to point B faster than a speeding bullet? Twenty years ago I followed the development of the Concorde with rapt attention and hence my desire to fly faster than the speed of sound. However, my priorities for this planet have changed considerably since that time. Right now I am quite content to fly the Atlantic al about 600 m.p.h. which is over twice as fast as my first flight over and much more comfortable. Let's pul these supersonic jets on the back burner for a while and get on with more important things. Development meetings in North Huron. The initial meeting will be held at F. E. Madill Secondary School in Wingham. Future meetings will be held in different areas of North Huron. This will also be decided by the people at the meeting. Huron County is leading the way in its approach to community development. Undoubtedly, other counties will be watching to see if residents respond to the invitation from the Huron County Planning and Development Department to get Continued on page 6. Letter from the editor It's got to come from somewhere BY KEITH ROULSTON If you've read the newspapers recently, especially the financial pages, you probably realize by now that the red hordes have taken over Ontario. Listen to the business leaders of the province and you'd probably think we were right up there with Poland as a basket case of the world. All of which probably makes a lot of Ontario voters figure they did the right thing in electing the NDP last September. After all, if what the government is doing is not in the best interests of big business, it just might be in the best interests of the little guy. I was reassured when I heard Premier Bob Rae speak at a breakfast at the annual convention of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association in March. It was a tough audience for the Premier. Newspaper people are always leery of politicians, constantly on guard unless the politicians try to manipulate them. On top of that many in the room were publishers of chains of newspapers, the kind of people who aren't likely to vote NDP. But the Premier was reassuring in his promises that there was common sense in the policies of the new government. A lot of business people would argue about how much common sense there has been since. The budget was a major disappointment to people who worry about the bottom line. There are hints of legislation on a number of fronts that scare people in business. What is frightening is the feeling that people in this government don't understand that in business, unlike government, there is a bottom line. If you spend more than you take in you go broke, no matter how important the service you supply. And if the public thinks that government can provide everything, the government seems to think that business can pay for it. There's no doubt business has abused its power al times but there's also no doubt that business isn’t a money tree that can be picked for the funds to provide any dream the politicians want to impress the voters with. Businesses that are big enough to cope will, in that situation, simply raise their prices enough to cover the new taxes and the consumer will pay the price anyway (and politicians will claim the businesses are scamming the people). Businesses that must take the price of the market instead of selling their prices, will go broke trying to bear the new taxes without being able to pass them on. And the thing that really has business people irate right now is that if they go broke, the owners or businesses officers of the new company will be responsible for not only any back pay owing to employees, but up to six months of severance pay under new legislation being planned.The legislation would mean if a bank foreclosed and forced the business into bankruptcy, the employees would be assured severance pay while the guy who has already lost the business might also lose his house and all his personal belongings. The legislation is designed to protect workers but it means that many businesses if they get into trouble are likely to shut down early rather than risk being forced into receivership or bankruptcy. Not only for-profit businesses, but non-profit businesses are affected at this Continued on Page 6.