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Clipper Graham

Clipper Graham

The McDonnell Douglas DC-X, better known as the Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an unmanned prototype of a reusable single stage to orbit launch vehicle developed in conjunction with NASA and the DOD SDIO from 1991 to 1993. According to Jerry Pournelle: "DC-X was conceived in my living room and sold to National Space Council Chairman Dan Quayle by General Graham, Max Hunter, and me." The DC-X was built as a one-third scale prototype of the envisioned orbital launch vehicle. Once testing with the DC-X was completed, the plan called for a second, larger prototype vehicle titled the DC-Y and eventually, a full-size orbital launch vehicle called the DC-1. The DC-X was never designed to achieve orbital altitudes or velocity, but instead to demonstrate a radical new concept of vertical take off and landing. The rocket would take off vertically like standard rockets, but also land vertically with the nose up. This innovative design used attitude control thrusters and retro rockets to control the descent, allowing the craft to begin reentry nose-first, but then roll around and gently touch down on landing struts at its base. The craft could be refueled where it landed, and take off again from exactly the same position — a trait that allowed unprecedented turnaround times. Another focus of the DC-X project was minimized maintenance and ground support. To this end, the craft was highly automated and required only three people to man its control centre (two for flight operations and one for ground support). The DC-X flew a series of flight tests successfully, with Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad at the ground-based controls for some flights. However, on the eighth flight in July 1995, a hard landing cracked the aeroshell. The DC-X program was transferred from SDIO to NASA. The craft was rebuilt and upgraded with new fuel/oxygen tanks and an improved control system. The upgraded vehicle was called the DC-XA, renamed the Clipper Advanced/Clipper Graham, and resumed flight in 1996. The DC-XA reached a maximum altitude of 3140 m and set a world record of a 26-hour turnaround between launches of a reusable rocket. On the fourth DC-XA test flight, the craft flew correctly, but was destroyed on landing. During testing, one of the LOX tanks had been cracked. When a landing strut failed to extend due to a disconnected hydraulic line, the DC-XA fell over and the tank leaked. Normally the structural damage from such a fall would constitute only a setback, but the LOX from the leaking tank caught fire and severely burned the DC-XA, completely destroying it. Pete Conrad priced a new DC-X at 50 million dollars, and NASA decided not to rebuild the craft in light of the budget constraints. Rather, NASA focused development on the Lockheed Martin VentureStar which it felt answered some criticisms of the DC-X; specifically the requirement for astronauts to wear a Hazmat suit when egressing the vehicle after landing and the fact that many NASA engineers preferred the "clean" airplane-like landing of the VentureStar over the "dirty" landing of the DC-X.

The future of the DC-X

Several engineers who worked on the DC-X have since been hired by Blue Origin, and it is rumored that their vehicle is based on the DC-X design. Also, the DC-X provided inspiration for many elements of Armadillo Aerospace's, Masten Space Systems', and TGV's spacecraft designs. Returning the DC-X design to NASA's active research portfolio has been considered for some time now. Some NASA engineers believe that the DC-X could provide a solution for a manned Mars lander. Some design changes proposed include using hydrogen for fuel with oxygen and adding a fifth leg for increased stability during and after landing. Recently NASA's Centennial Challenges program has announced a Suborbital Lunar Lander Analog Challenge which is a prize for the first team to build a VTVL rocket that is capable of lunar landing and take-off speeds.

External links


- [http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/dcx.htm Astronautix Page on the Delta Clipper]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x-33/dc-xa.htm Data for individual DC-X test flights]
- [http://redstone.ae.gatech.edu/~olds/mm/Miscellaneous/clipper_graham_crash.mov Movie of the Clipper Graham crash]
- [http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/DCX/ About the DCX] – includes a first-person account and video
- [http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html Getting to Space] – explains X programs and SSTO
- [http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/simages/dcxpic.html Birth of the DC-X] – selling the DC-X to Dan Quayle DC-X

Single-stage to orbit

A single-stage to orbit (or SSTO) vehicle would be a vehicle that could reach orbital velocity without the use of multiple stages. The main problem in constructing such a vehicle is to make the engine efficient and the vehicle structure lightweight enough, to make it unnecessary to drop away parts of the vehicle, whilst still delivering a reasonable payload to orbit. It is believed by some that reusable vehicles, particularly SSTO reusable vehicles, would lead to much reduced costs for access to space and allow aircraft-like operations. No actual SSTO launch vehicles have been constructed - current orbital launches are either performed by multi-stage fully expendable rockets, or like the Space Shuttle which is multi-stage and partially reusable, since it is assisted by a drop tank and solid rocket boosters that are jettisoned during the climb. Several research spacecraft have been designed and constructed, most notably the DC-X, the X-33, and the Roton SSTO; but none of them have been anywhere near an orbital launch. So far, SSTOs have been unsuccessful due to technical and/or economic difficulties.

Why SSTO?

Many in the aerospace community have come to the conclusion that the best way to solve the problems of high cost is with an entirely self-contained and preferably largely or completely reusable vehicle. The idea behind such a vehicle is to reduce the processing requirements. This is not the case for staged vehicles, which typically have complex "range safety" requirements as the stages detach and fall back to earth. Range safety is one of the main reasons that the US launches from Florida, where the rocket's flight path takes it out over open water almost immediately. It also causes issues for Russian launches- certain orbital inclinations are inaccessible since stages would fall on areas of dense habitation. An SSTO craft might allow inclusion of "all-aspect abort," meaning that the craft could abort the mission at any point in the launch cycle. The lack of such abort modes on the Shuttle requires incredible failure avoidance costs and massive overhauls. Soyuz possesses all-aspect abort, and has not seen a loss of crewmember over several decades. Combine these advantages with more reliable systems and a more fully automated maintenance system, and the cost of operations is considerably reduced. If there is anything requiring attention, only then will the system require maintenance. If not, the only requirement is to add propellants and fly again.

The SSTO problem

An SSTO vehicle has one major problem - it needs to lift its entire structure into orbit. To reach orbit with a useful payload the rocket requires careful and extensive engineering to save weight. This is much harder to design and engineer. A staged rocket greatly reduces the total mass that flies all the way into space; the rocket is continually shedding fuel tanks and engines that are now dead weight. Single stage rockets were once thought to be beyond reach, but the rapid advances in materials technology and construction techniques have shown it to be possible. For example, calculations show that the Titan II first stage, launched on its own, would have a 25 to 1 ratio of fuel to vehicle hardware. It possesses a sufficiently efficient engine to make orbit, but without carrying much payload. It is now clear that it is possible to build an SSTO vehicle, but it is less clear whether or not a reusable SSTO with an economic payload can be built. The chances get better as components like guidance avionics become lighter and new materials and construction techniques are developed.

Dense versus hydrogen fuels

It might seem entirely obvious that hydrogen would be the fuel of choice for SSTO vehicles. When burned with oxygen, hydrogen gives the highest specific impulse of any commonly used fuel; around 450 seconds, compared with up to 350 seconds for kerosene. However, hydrogen suffers from some notable disadvantages: -
- It is deeply cryogenic - it must be stored at very low temperatures and thus needs heavy insulation.
- It escapes very easily from the smallest gap,
- Having a wide combustible range, it can be easily ignited and burns with a dangerously invisible flame.
- It tends to condense air which in turn is highly oxidizing to many common and flammable materials.
- A large coefficient of expansion for even small heat leaks. All of these issues can be dealt with, but usually with extra manpower and hence higher cost. Furthermore, and most significantly, the density of liquid hydrogen is much lower than other fuels, about 1/7 of the density of kerosene, for example. This means that, while tanks for kerosene can fairly easily be 1% of the weight of their contents, hydrogen tanks struggle to weigh even 10% of their contents. This is due partly to the low density, but is also a result of the additional insulation that is required to minimize boiloff (a problem which does not occur with kerosene and many other fuels). The low density of hydrogen further impacts the design of the rest of the vehicle - pumps and pipework need to be much larger in order to pump the fuel to the engine. The end result is that the thrust/weight ratio of hydrogen fueled engines is 30-50% lower than comparable engines using denser fuels. This inefficiency indirectly affects gravity losses as well; the vehicle has to hold itself up on rocket power until it reaches orbit. The lower thrust of the hydrogen engines means that the vehicle must angle its exhaust more steeply, and so less thrust acts sideways. This loss of sideways thrust means that it takes longer to reach orbit, and gravity losses are increased by at least 300m/s. This may not appear to be large amount, but the mass ratio to delta-v curve is very steep to reach orbit in a single stage, and this makes a 10% difference to the mass ratio, on top of the tankage and pump savings. The overall effect is that there is surprisingly little difference in overall performance between SSTOs that use hydrogen and those that use denser fuels, except that hydrogen vehicles may be rather more expensive to develop and buy. Careful studies[http://www.dunnspace.com] have shown that some dense fuels (for example liquid propane and LOX-- liquid oxygen) exceed the performance of hydrogen fuel when used in an SSTO launch vehicle by 10% for the same dry weight.

One engine for all altitudes

SSTO vehicles use the same engine for all altitudes, which is a problem for traditional engines with a bell shaped nozzle. Dependent on the atmospheric pressure, different bell shapes are optimal. Engines operating in the lower atmosphere have narrower bells than those designed to work in vacuum. Shape of the bell not optimized for the height makes the engine less efficient. One possible solution would be to use an aerospike engine, which can be effective in a wide range of ambient pressures. In fact, a linear aerospike engine was used in X-33 design.

Comparison with the Shuttle

The continual pressure on the budget of NASA, along with the high cost per launch of the Space Shuttle (a vehicle ironically designed to reduce launch costs), sparked interest throughout the 1980s in designing a cheaper successor vehicle of some sort. Several official design studies have been made, but most are basically smaller versions of the existing Shuttle concept. Most cost analysis studies of the Space Shuttle have shown that manpower is by far the single greatest expense. The original idea was to have a maintenance schedule comparable to that of a commercial airliner, with a two-week turnaround. The final vehicle required massive amounts of maintenance after every launch. This shift was partly a result of the removal of various abort systems, requiring the vehicle to be made safe via intensive inspection. In addition, the policy of using the most technically advanced engines and materials (seen as a NASA duty at the time) backfired in a number of ways, most notably resulting in equipment requiring constant maintenance. The end result is a vehicle that is almost completely disassembled after every mission. The engines are removed and rebuilt, large amounts of the structure are taken off for testing, and the entire refurbishing cycle takes months. Even without these problems the system still requires the various parts - the Orbiter, SRBs, and ET - to be collected and assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), which alone takes weeks. Given that there are 25,000 people working on Shuttle operations, the payroll alone is the Shuttle's single biggest operating cost. Many in the aerospace community have come to the conclusion that the best way to solve this problem was with an entirely self-contained and reusable vehicle. The idea behind such a vehicle is to reduce the processing requirements from those of the Shuttle.

Examples

Early versions of the Atlas rocket can be considered to be expendable SSTOs by some definitions. It is a "stage and a half" rocket, jettisoning two of its three engines during ascent but retaining its fuel tanks and other structural elements. However, by modern standards the engines ran at low pressure and thus not particularly high specific impulse and were not especially lightweight; using engines operating with a higher specific impulse would have obviated the need to drop engines in the first place. The first stage of the Titan II had the mass ratio required for single stage to orbit capability with a small payload. A rocket stage is not a complete launch vehicle but this demonstrates that an expendable SSTO was probably achievable with 1962 technology. The Orion project was potentially single stage to Mars (and back!); but this failed due to health concerns over nuclear fallout. A detailed study into SSTO vehicles was prepared by Chrysler Corporation's Space Division in 1970-1971 under NASA contract NAS8-26341. [http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shueserv.htm Their proposal] was an enormous vehicle with more than 50,000 kg of payload, utilizing jet engines for (vertical) landing. While the technical problems seemed to be solvable, NASA preferred a winged design that led to the Shuttle as we know it today. The unmanned DC-X technology demonstrator, originally developed by McDonnell Douglas for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program office was an attempt to build a vehicle that could lead to a SSTO vehicle. The 1/3 size test craft was operated and maintained by a tiny crew of three people based out of a trailer, and the craft was once relaunched less than 24 hours after landing. Although the test program was not without mishap (including a minor explosion), the DC-X demonstrated without any doubt that the maintenance aspects of the concept were indeed sound. However, that project ran into repeateded cost overruns, and was eventually cancelled. Today there is almost no SSTO research in the United States, much to the chagrin of those involved. There are, a number of efforts around the world to study SSTO, and several have recently progressed to active funding. Primary among these are the Japanese Kankoh-maru project and recent work in Europe on behalf of the ESA on projects like Skylon.

Alternative approaches to cheap spaceflight

Study after study has shown that the primary and most effective cost reduction technique across all vehicles, irrespective of technology is economies of scale. Merely launching a large total quantity reduces the manufactured costs of the equipment, in much the same way that mass-produced motor car costs are low; or large ships are cheaper than small boats per weight of boat. This has lead many others in the industry to declare that the solution to the launch-cost problem is the exact opposite of SSTO. Whereas reusable SSTOs look to save costs (mainly manpower costs) by making a high-tech vehicle that launches repeatedly, this outlook sees the technical advances as a source of the cost problem in the first place. Instead, this position advocates using pre-existing rocket technology to construct large multi-stage rockets built from cheap off-the-shelf parts which are dumped into the ocean after use. This is known as the "big dumb booster" approach. This is somewhat similar to what some previous systems have done, using simple engine systems with "low-tech" fuels, as the Russian and Chinese space programs still do. Although these nations' launchers are not as cheap as they could be, they are significantly cheaper than their western counterparts. The two stage to orbit approach is also of considerable interest in this field.

See also


- HOTOL
- Mass fraction
- Skiffplane
- Skylon
- spacecraft propulsion
- space transport
- aerospike engine

External links


- [http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_single_stage_to_orbit_thought_experiment.shtml A Single-Stage-to-Orbit Thought Experiment]
- [http://www.ghg.net/redflame/launch.htm#theory11 Why are launch costs so high?], an analysis of space launch costs, with a section critiquing SSTO Category:Spacecraft propulsion

Department of Defense

:Note: DOD redirects here. For other uses, please see DOD (disambiguation) The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated as DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. The Department of Defense controls the U.S. military and is headquartered at The Pentagon. It is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is currently Donald Rumsfeld.

History

Proposals to coordinate the activities of the military services were initially considered by U.S. Congress in 1944. Specific plans were put forth in 1945 by the Army, the Navy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a special message to U.S. Congress on December 19, 1945, President Harry Truman proposed creation of a unified Department of National Defense, which came under the Department of Transportation. A proposal reached Congress in April 1946, but was held up by the Naval Affairs Committee held hearings in July 1946 due to objections to the concentration of power in a single department. Truman eventually sent new legislation to Congress in February 1947, where it was debated and amended for several months. On July 26, 1947, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which set up the National Military Establishment to begin operations on September 18, 1947, the day after the confirmation of James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. The Establishment had the unfortunate abbreviation 'NME' (the obvious pronunciation being "enemy"), and was renamed the "Department of Defense" on August 10, 1949; in addition, the secretary was given greater authority over the military departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Department of Defense is based in The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia outside Washington, DC, across the Potomac River. It was created by combining the War Department (founded in 1789) with the Navy Department (founded in 1798; formerly the Board of Admiralty, founded in 1780), and the newly created Department of the Air Force. The department was formed in order to reduce interservice rivalry which was believed to have reduced military effectiveness during World War II. It includes the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, as well as non-combat agencies such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. In wartime, the Department of Defense also has authority over the Coast Guard; in peacetime, that agency is under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to the creation of DHS, the Coast Guard was under the control of the Department of Transportation. The Coast Guard has not been formally militarized since World War II, although it has participated in various military and law enforcement operations over the years. The DoD's annual budget is roughly $425 billion (~$1,600 per capita), which does not include tens of billions more in supplemental expenditures allotted by Congress throughout the year. The command structure of the Department of Defense is defined by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Under the act, the chain of command runs from the President of the United States, through the Secretary of Defense, to the regional commanders within one of several commands who command all military forces within their area of operation. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the several Chiefs of Staff are responsible for readiness of the U.S. military and serve as the President's military advisers, but are not in the chain of command. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States. On February 22, 2002, the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General has reported that DOD has not and will not account for $1.1 trillion of "undocumentable adjustments." In addition, there have been several high-profile Government Accountability Office investigations of the Department of Defense. As part of the September 11, 2001 attacks, terrorists crashed a plane into one of the sections of The Pentagon, causing part of it to collapse, killing 189 people.

Organization


- Office of the Secretary of Defense
  - Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee
  - Office of Net Assessment
  - Office of Inspector General
    - Defense Criminal Investigative Service
- Military Departments
  - Department of the Army including the U.S. Army
  - Department of the Navy including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps
  - Department of the Air Force including the U.S. Air Force
- Joint Chiefs of Staff
  - United States Naval Observatory
- Unified Combatant Commands
  - Central Command (CENTCOM)
  - European Command (EUCOM)
  - Joint Forces Command (JFCOM)
  - Northern Command (NORTHCOM)
  - Pacific Command (PACOM)
  - Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)
  - Special Operations Command (SOCOM)
  - Strategic Command (STRATCOM)
  - Transportation Command (TRANSCOM)
- Defense Agencies
  - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  - Defense Commissary Agency
  - Defense Contract Audit Agency
  - Defense Contract Management Agency
  - Defense Finance and Accounting Service
  - Defense Information Systems Agency
  - Defense Intelligence Agency
  - Defense Legal Services Agency
  - Defense Logistics Agency
  - Defense Security Cooperation Agency
  - Defense Security Service
  - Defense Threat Reduction Agency
  - Missile Defense Agency
  - National Security Agency
  - National Reconnaissance Office
  - National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
  - Pentagon Force Protection Agency
- Department of Defense Field Activities
  - American Forces Information Service
  - Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
  - Department of Defense Education Activity
    - Department of Defense Dependents Schools
  - DoD Human Resources Activity
  - Office of Economic Adjustment
  - Tricare Management Activity
  - Washington Headquarters Services In 2003, the National Communications System was moved to the United States Department of Homeland Security. United States Department of Homeland Security

See also


- Military badges of the United States Department of Defense
- The Berry Amendment, a USC law that requires most goods used by the armed forces to be produced domestically.

Related legislation


- 1947 - National Security Act of 1947
- 1958 - Department of Defense Reorganization Act PL 85-899
- 1963 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act PL 88-149
- 1963 - Military Construction Authorization Act PL 88-174
- 1967 - Supplemental Defense Appropriations Act PL 90-8
- 1984 - Department of Defense Authorization Act PL 98-525
- 1986 - Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 or Department of Defense Reorganization Act PL 99-433
- 1996 - Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act PL 104-132

External links


- [http://www.defenselink.mil/ United States Department of Defense website]
- Defense ko:미국 국방부 ja:アメリカ国防総省

Strategic Defense Initiative Organization

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the U.S. Department of Defense to oversee President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Under the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, its name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and its emphasis was shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense, i.e. from global to regional (and more feasible) coverage. Category:United States organizations

Dan Quayle

James Danforth Quayle (born February 4, 1947) was the 44th Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). He unsuccessfully sought the 2000 Republican party presidential nomination.

Early life

Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana to James C. Quayle and Corrine Pulliam Quayle. He has often been incorrectly referred to as James Danforth Quayle III. In his memoirs, he points out that his birth name was simply James Danforth Quayle. His maternal grandfather, Eugene C. Pulliam, was a wealthy and influential publishing magnate who founded Central Newspapers, Inc., owner of over a dozen major newspapers such as the Arizona Republic and The Indianapolis Star. James C. Quayle moved his family to Arizona in 1955 to run a branch of family's publishing empire. After spending much of his youth in Arizona, he graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, Indiana in 1965. He then matriculated at DePauw University, where he received his B.A. degree in political science in 1969, and where he was a member of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon. After receiving his degree, Quayle joined the Indiana National Guard and served from 1969-1975. While serving in the Guard, he earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1974 at Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis. Quayle's public service began in July 1971 when he became an investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Indiana Attorney General's Office. Later that year, he became an administrative assistant to Governor Edgar Whitcomb. From 1973-1974, he was the Director of the Inheritance Tax Division of the Indiana Department of Revenue. Upon receiving his law degree, Quayle worked as associate publisher of his family's newspaper, the Huntington Herald-Press, and practiced law with his wife in Huntington.

Early political career

In 1976, Quayle was elected to the U.S. Congress from Indiana's Fourth Congressional District, defeating an eight-term incumbent Democrat. He won reelection in 1978 by the greatest percentage margin ever achieved to that date in the northeast Indiana district. In 1980, at age 33, Quayle became the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. Senate from the State of Indiana, defeating three-term incumbent Democrat Birch Bayh. Making Indiana political history again, Quayle was reelected to the Senate in 1986 with the largest margin ever achieved to that date by a candidate in a statewide Indiana race. During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Quayle became widely known for his legislative work in the areas of defense, arms control, labor, and human resources. With his service on the Armed Services Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Labor and Human Resources Committee, he became an effective Senator, respected by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. In 1982, working with Senator Edward Kennedy, Quayle authored the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). This was the only major legislation that ever bore Quayle's name the entire time he served in both the House and the Senate. In 1986, Quayle received much criticism from his fellow Senators for championing the cause of Daniel Manion, who was a candidate to be a federal judge. It was later revealed that Manion was a member of the John Birch Society and that the American Bar Association had evaluated him as unqualified. The nomination was later withdrawn.

Vice Presidency

In August 1988, at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, George H. W. Bush called on Quayle to be his running mate in the general election. This decision was criticized by many who felt that Quayle did not have enough experience to be president should something happen to Bush. Questions were raised about Quayle's apparent use of family connections to get into the Indiana National Guard and thus avoid possible combat service in the Vietnam War. Many in the media also portrayed him as a lightweight unable to handle the job. This came to a head in the 1988 vice-presidential debate, in which Quayle compared his experience to that of John Kennedy when he became president. Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen said in rebuttal, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Quayle responded, "That was uncalled for, Senator," in one of the defining moments of the 1988 campaign. Ads supporting Michael Dukakis and Bentsen showed a beeping heart monitor and an announcer saying, "Quayle: just a heartbeat away," with the implication that Quayle was not up to the job of the presidency should he have to assume it. The ads, however, seemed to have little effect. Although Republicans were trailing by up to 15 points in public opinion polls taken prior to the convention, the Bush/Quayle ticket went on to win the November election by a convincing 54-46 margin, sweeping 40 states and capturing 426 electoral votes. Quayle was the 44th Vice President of the United States from January 20, 1989, to January 20, 1993. As Vice President, Quayle was the first chairman of the National Space Council, a space policy body reestablished by statute in 1988. On February 9, 1989, President Bush named Quayle head of the Council on Competitiveness. Throughout his time as Vice President, Quayle was widely ridiculed in the media and by many in the general public, in both the USA and overseas, as a mental lightweight. One reason was that he sometimes made confused or garbled statements, although this tendency led to his being "credited" with apocryphal quotations. [http://www.snopes.com/quotes/quayle.htm] Some of the comments he actually did make have been attributed to other politicians, such as George W. Bush. He received the satirical Ig Nobel Prize for "demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education" in 1991. Other critics facetiously remarked that he was a good reason for even Bush's critics to pray for his health and that he was only Vice President to make Bush "impeachment-proof." Most famous was his correcting a student's spelling of potato as potatoe at an elementary school spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey on June 15, 1992. Quayle was said to have been relying on a spelling-bee card on which the word had been misspelled by the teacher. The event became the single most memorable and lasting part of Quayle's career. It was widely lambasted by comedians and commentators, and purportedly demonstrated defective execution of official duties. The misspelling remains a source of intense criticism of Quayle's leadership abilities. On May 19, 1992, Quayle gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California on the subject of the Los Angeles riots. In this speech Quayle blamed the violence in L.A. on a decay of moral values and family structure in American society. In an aside, he specifically cited the fictional title character in the television program Murphy Brown as an example of how popular culture contributes to this "poverty of values", saying: "[i]t doesn't help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman—mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice.'" Quayle drew a firestorm of criticism from feminist and liberal organizations and was widely ridiculed by late night talk show hosts for this remark. The "Murphy Brown speech" and the resulting media coverage damaged the Republican ticket in the 1992 presidential election and became one of the most memorable incidents of the 1992 campaign. In the 1992-93 season premiere of Murphy Brown, Brown, the character, watched Quayle's comments on television and responded on the fictitious news show F.Y.I.. Later in the episode, she hired a truck to dump a ton of potatoes on Quayle's doorstep. In 2002, Candice Bergen, the actress who played Brown, said "I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless, but his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."

1992 Election

During the 1992 election, Bush and Quayle were challenged in their bid for reelection by Democrats Gov. Bill Clinton and Sen. Al Gore. Quayle faced off against Gore in the vice-presidential debate, and, due in part to exceeding low expectations and staying on the offensive by tactics such as criticizing passages in Gore's book Earth in the Balance, Quayle was generally seen to have at least tied Gore, faring much better than he had against Bentsen four years earlier. (During planning negotiations for the upcoming televised debates, Vice-President Quayle's team insisted that he be able to hold a copy of Gore's book for dramatic effect -- the Gore team retorted that Gore ought to be able to hold up a potatoE.) Republicans were largely relieved and pleased, and Quayle's camp hailed his performance as an upset triumph against a veteran debater. However, it was ultimately a minor factor in the election, which Bush and Quayle were eventually to lose. Quayle would have been a logical opponent of President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Post-vice presidency

In April 1999, he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2000 Presidential Election. In the first contest among the Republican candidates, the Iowa straw poll of August 1999, he finished eigth. He withdrew from the race the following month. Quayle was out of the public eye by 2000. 1999 He serves as an advisor to the firm Cerberus Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar international hedge fund, and president of Quayle and Associates. He is an Honorary Trustee Emeriti of the Hudson Institute. Quayle also authored his memoir, Standing Firm, which became a nationwide bestseller. His second book, The American Family: Discovering the Values that Make Us Strong, came out in the spring of 1996 and Worth Fighting For came out in 1999. The former vice president also writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column, serves on a number of corporate boards, chairs several business ventures, and was chairman of Campaign America, a national political action committee.

Personal

Quayle, the oldest of four children, has two brothers and a sister: Chris, Mike, and Martha. He is the son of Jim and Corinne Quayle of Huntington, Indiana. In November 1972, Quayle married the former Marilyn Tucker of Indianapolis. They are the parents of three children: Tucker, Benjamin, and Corinne. Quayle enjoys golf, tennis, basketball, skiing, horseback riding, fly fishing, and reading. He particularly enjoys watching his children as they participate in team sports. He is of Manx descent, as evidenced by his surname.

Published material


- Worth Fighting For, W Publishing Group, July 1999, ISBN 0849916062

Further reading


- Dan Quayle, Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir, Harper Collins, May 1994. hardcover, ISBN 0060177586; mass market paperback, May, 1995; ISBN 0061093904; Limited edition, 1994, ISBN 0060176016
- What a Waste It Is to Lose One's Mind: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Dan Quayle, Quayle Quarterly (published by Rose Communications), April 1992, ISBN 0962916226
- Joe Queenan, Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle in America and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else, Hyperion Books; October 1992 (1st edition). ISBN 1562829394
- Richard F. Fenno , The Making of a Senator: Dan Quayle, Cq Pr, January 1989. ISBN 0871875063

External links


- [http://www.vicepresidentdanquayle.com/ Official Dan Quayle Site]
- [http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Dan_Quayle.php Campaign contributions made by Dan Quayle]
- [http://www.mfc.org/pfn/95-12/quayle.html Speech to the Commonwealth Club of California] ("Murphy Brown speech")
- [http://www.quaylemuseum.org/ Vice Presidential Museum at the Dan Quayle Center] Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle, Dan Category:Pro-life politicians ja:ダン・クエール

Rocket

A rocket is a vehicle, missile or aircraft which obtains thrust by the reaction to the ejection of fast moving exhaust gas from within a rocket engine. Often the term rocket is also used to mean a rocket engine. In military terminology, a rocket generally uses solid propellant and is unguided. These rockets can be fired by ground-attack aircraft at fixed targets such as buildings, or can be launched by ground forces at other ground targets. During the Vietnam era, there were also air launched unguided rockets that carried a nuclear payload designed to attack aircraft formations in flight. A missile, by contrast, can use either solid or liquid propellant, and has a guidance system. This distinction generally applies only in the case of weapons, though, and not to civilian or orbital launch vehicles. In all rockets the exhaust is formed from propellant which is carried within the rocket prior to its release. Rocket thrust is due to accelerating the exhaust gases (see Newton's 3rd Law of Motion). There are many different types of rockets, and a comprehensive list can be found in spacecraft propulsion- they range in size from tiny models that can be purchased at a hobby store, to the enormous Saturn V used for the Apollo program. Rockets are used to accelerate, change orbits, de-orbit for landing, for the whole landing if there is no atmosphere (e.g. for landing on the Moon), and sometimes to soften a parachute landing immediately before touchdown (see Soyuz spacecraft). Most current rockets are chemically powered rockets (internal combustion engines). A chemical rocket engine can use solid propellant (see Space Shuttle's SRBs), liquid propellant (see Space shuttle main engine), or a hybrid mixture of both. A chemical reaction is initiated between the fuel and the oxidizer in the combustion chamber, and the resultant hot gases accelerate out of a nozzle (or nozzles) at the rearward facing end of the rocket. The acceleration of these gases through the engine exerts force ('thrust') on the combustion chamber and nozzle, propelling the vehicle (in accordance with Newton's Third Law). See rocket engine for details. Not all rockets use chemical reactions. Steam rockets, for example, release superheated water through a nozzle where it instantly flashes to high velocity steam, propelling the rocket. The efficiency of steam as a rocket propellant is relatively low, but it is simple and reasonably safe, and the propellant is cheap and widely available. Most steam rockets have been used for propelling land-based vehicles but a small steam rocket was tested in 2004 on board the UK-DMC satellite. There are proposals to use steam rockets for interplanetary transport using either nuclear or solar heating as the power source to vaporize water collected from around the solar system. Rockets where the heat is supplied from other than the propellant, such as steam rockets, are classed as external combustion engines. Other examples of external combustion rocket engines include most designs for nuclear powered rocket engines. Use of hydrogen as the propellant for external combustion engines gives very high velocities. Due to their high exhaust velocity (mach ~10+), rockets are particularly useful when very high speeds are required, such as orbital speed (mach 25). The speeds that a rocket vehicle can reach can be calculated by the rocket equation; which gives the speed difference ('delta-v') in terms of the exhaust speed and ratio of initial mass to final mass ('mass ratio'). Rockets must be used when there is no other substance (land, water, or air) or force (gravity, magnetism, light) that a vehicle may employ for propulsion, such as in space. In these circumstances, it is necessary to carry all the propellant to be used. Common mass ratios for vehicles are 20/1 for dense propellants such as liquid oxygen and kerosene, 25/1 for dense monopropellants such as hydrogen peroxide, and 10/1 for liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. However, mass ratio is highly dependent on many factors such as the type of engine the vehicle uses and structural safety margins. Often, the required velocity (delta-v) for a mission is unattainable by any single rocket because the propellant, structure, guidance and engines weigh so much as to prevent the mass ratio from being high enough. This problem is frequently solved by staging - the rocket sheds excess weight (usually tankage and engines) during launch to reduce its weight and effectively increase its mass ratio. Typically, the acceleration of a rocket increases with time (even if the thrust stays the same) as the weight of the rocket decreases as fuel is burned. Discontinuities in acceleration will occur when stages burn out, often starting at a lower acceleration with each new stage firing.

History

Origins of rocketry

staging The ancient Chinese invention of gunpowder by Taoist chemists, and their use of it in various forms of weapons: (fire arrows), bombs, and cannons, resulted in the development of the rocket. They were initially developed for religious proceedings that were related to the worship and celebration of the Chinese Gods in the ancient Chinese religion. They were the precursors to modern fireworks and, after extensive research, were adapted for use as artillery in warfare during the 10th century to 12th century. Some of the ancient Chinese rockets were stationed at the military fortification known as the Great Wall of China, and employed by the elite soldiers stationed there. Rocket technology first became known to Europeans following their use by the Mongols Genghis Khan and Ogodei Khan when they conquered Russia, Eastern Europe, and parts of Central Europe(i.e. Austria). The Mongolians had stolen the Chinese technology by conquest of the northern part of China and also by the subsequent employment of Chinese rocketry experts as mercenaries for the Mongol military. Additionally, the spread of rockets into Europe was also influenced by the Ottomans at the siege of Constantinople in 1453. Although it is very likely that the Ottomans themselves were influenced by the Mongol invasions of the previous few centuries. Nevertheless, for several more centuries rockets remained misunderstood curiosities to those in the West. For over two centuries, the work of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nobleman Kazimierz Siemienowicz, "Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima" ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part". also known as "The Complete Art of Artillery"), was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. The book provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It contained a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets (for both military and civil purposes), including multi-stage rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing stabilizers (instead of the common guiding rods). At the end of the 18th century, rockets were successfully used militarily in India against the British by Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore during the first Mysore War. The British then took an active interest in the technology and developed it further during the 19th century. The major figure in the field at this time was William Congreve. From there, the use of military rockets spread throughout Europe. At the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, the rockets fired on Fort McHenry by the rocket vessel HMS Erebus were the source of the rockets' red glare described by Francis Scott Key in The Star-Spangled Banner. Early rockets were very inaccurate. Without the use of spinning or any gimballing of the thrust, they had a strong tendency to veer sharply off course. The early British Congreve rockets reduced this somewhat by attaching a long stick to the end of a rocket (similar to modern bottle rockets) to make it harder for the rocket to change course. The largest of the Congreve rockets was the 32 pound (14.5 kg) Carcass, which had a 15 foot (4.6 m) stick. Originally, sticks were mounted on the side, but this was later changed to mounting in the center of the rocket, reducing drag and enabling the rocket to be more accurately fired from a segment of pipe. gimbal The accuracy problem was mostly solved in 1844 when William Hale modified the rocket design so that thrust was slightly vectored to cause the rocket to spin along its axis of travel like a bullet. The Hale rocket removed the need for a rocket stick, travelled further due to reduced air resistance, and was far more accurate.

Modern rocketry

In 1903, high school mathematics teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) published Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами (The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Motors), the first serious scientific work on space travel. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation—the principle that governs rocket propulsion—is named in his honor. His work was essentially unknown outside the Soviet Union, where it inspired further research, experimentation, and the formation of the Cosmonautics Society. His work was republished in the 1920s in response to Russian interest in the work of Robert Goddard. Among other ideas, Tsiolkovsky accurately proposed to use liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as a nearly optimal propellant pair and determined that building staged and clustered rockets to increase the overall mass efficiency would dramatically increase range. Early rockets were grossly inefficient because of the heat energy that was wasted in the exhaust gases. Modern rockets were born when, after receiving a grant in 1917 from the Smithsonian Institution, Robert Goddard attached a supersonic (de Laval) nozzle to a rocket engine's combustion chamber. These nozzles turn the hot gas from the combustion chamber into a cooler, hypersonic, highly directed jet of gas; more than doubling the thrust and enormously raising the efficiency. In 1923, Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) published Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("The Rocket into Planetary Space"), a version of his doctoral thesis, after the University of Munich rejected it. This book is often credited as the first serious scientific work on the topic that received international attention. During 1920s, a number of rocket research organizations appeared in America, Austria, Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia. In the mid-1920s, German scientists had begun experimenting with rockets which used liquid propellants capable of reaching relatively high altitudes and distances. A team of amateur rocket engineers had formed the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (German Rocket Society, or VfR) in 1927, and in 1931 launched a liquid propellant rocket (using oxygen and gasoline). From 1931 to 1937, the most extensive scientific work on rocket engine design occurred in Leningrad, at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory. Well funded and staffed, over 100 experimental engines were built under the direction of Valentin Glushko. Work included regenerative cooling, hypergolic ignition, and fuel injector designs that included swirling and bi-propellant mixing injectors. Work was curtailed by Glushko's arrest during Stalinist purges in 1938. Similar but much less extensive work was also done by the Austrian professor Eugen Sänger. In 1932, the Reichswehr (which in 1935 became the Wehrmacht) began to take an interest in rocketry. Artillery restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles limited Germany's access to long distance weaponry. Seeing the possibility of using rockets as long-range artillery fire, the Wehrmacht initially funded the VfR team, but seeing that their focus was strictly scientific, created its own research team, with Hermann Oberth as a senior member. At the behest of military leaders, Wernher von Braun, at the time a young aspiring rocket scientist, joined the military (followed by two former VfR members) and developed long-range weapons for use in World War II by Nazi Germany, notably the A-series of rockets, which led to the infamous V-2 rocket (initially called A4). In 1943, production of the V-2 rocket began. The V-2 represented the biggest step forward in rocketry ever. The V-2 had an operational range of 300 km (185 miles) and carried a 1000 kg (2204 lb) warhead, with an amatol explosive charge. The vehicle was only different in details from most modern rockets, with turbopumps, inertial guidance and many other features. Thousands were fired at various Allied nations, mainly England, as well as Belgium and France. While they could not be intercepted, their guidance system design and single conventional warhead meant that the V-2 was insufficiently accurate against military targets. 2,754 people in England were killed, and 6,523 were wounded before the launch campaign was terminated. While the V-2 did not significantly affect the course of the war, it provided a lethal demonstration of the potential for guided rockets as weapons. At the end of World War II, competing Russian, British, and U.S. military and scientific crews raced to capture technology and trained personnel from the German rocket program at Peenemünde. Russia and Britain had some success, but the United States benefited most. The US captured a large number of German rocket scientists (many of whom were members of the Nazi Party, including von Braun) and brought them to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. There the same rockets that were designed to rain down on Britain were used instead by scientists as research vehicles for developing the new technology further. The V-2 evolved into the American Redstone rocket, used in the early space program. After the war, rockets were used to study high-altitude conditions, by radio telemetry of temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, detection of cosmic rays, and further research. This continued in the U.S. under von Braun and the others, who were destined to become part of the U.S. scientific complex. Independently, research continued in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Sergei Korolev. With the help of German technicians, the V-2 was duplicated and improved as the R-1, R-2 and R-5 missiles. German designs were abandoned in the late 1940s, and the foreign workers were sent home. A new series of engines built by Glushko and based on inventions of Aleksei Isaev formed the basis of the first ICBM, the R-7. The R-7 launched the first satellite, the first man into space and the first lunar and planetary probes, and is still in use today. These events attracted the attention of top politicians, along with more money for further research. Rockets became extremely military important in the form of ICBMs when it was realised that nuclear weapons carried on a rocket vehicle were essentially not defensible against once launched, and they became the delivery platform of choice for these weapons. Fuelled partly by the cold war, the 1960s became the decade of rapid development of rocket technology in the Soviet Union (Vostok, Soyuz, Proton) and in the United States (e.g. X-20 Dyna-Soar, Gemini), including research in other countries, such as Britain, Japan, Australia, etc., culminating at the end of the 60s with the manned landing on the moon via the Saturn V. Rockets remain a popular military weapon. The use of large battlefield rockets of the V-2 type has given way to guided missiles, but rockets are often used by helicopters and light aircraft for ground attack, being more powerful than machine guns, but without the recoil of a heavy cannon. In the 1950s there was a brief vogue for air-to-air rockets, including the formidable AIR-2 'Genie' nuclear rocket, but by the early 1960s these had largely been abandoned in favor of air-to-air missiles. However in the heart of many of the public, the most important use of rockets is manned spaceflight. Vehicles such as Soyuz for orbital tourism and Spaceship One for suborbital tourism show the way towards greater commercialisation of rocketry, away from government funding, and towards more widespread access to space.

Regulation

Under international law, the nationality of the owner of a launch vehicle determines which country is responsible for any damages resulting from that vehicle. Due to this, some countries require that rocket manufacturers and launchers adhere to specific regulations to indemnify and protect the safety of people and property that may be affected by a flight. In the US any rocket launch that is not classified as amateur, and also is not "for and by the government," must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST), located in Washington, DC.

Accidents

Because of the enormous chemical energy in all useful rocket fuels (greater weight for weight than in explosives), accidents can and have happened. The number of people injured or killed is usually small because of the great care typically taken, but this record is not perfect. See List of space disasters

Future


- Nuclear thermal rockets have also been developed, but never deployed, they are particularly promising for interplanetary use because of their high efficiency.
- [http://www.neofuel.com Neofuel] - Nuclear/solar steam rockets for interplanetary use, using abundant extraterrestrial ice.
- Nuclear pulse propulsion rocket concepts give very high thrust and exhaust velocities. Another class of rocket-like thrusters in increasingly common use are ion drives, which use electrical rather than chemical energy to accelerate their reaction mass.

See also


- Timeline of rocket and missile technology
- List of rockets
- Bipropellant rocket
- Hybrid rocket
- Model rocket
- Pulse jet engine
- Pulsed Rocket Motors
- Rocket fuel
- Rocket launch
- Rocket propelled grenade
- Rocket sled
- Sounding rocket
- Skyrocket
- Solid rocket
- Spacecraft propulsion
- Stalin Organ
- Tripropellant rocket
- Water rocket
- Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
- Fire Arrow
- Shin Ki Chon

Patents of interest


- - Rocket apparatus - R. H. Goddard
- - Rocket apparatus - R. H. Goddard

External links

; Governing agencies
- [http://ast.faa.gov/ FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation]
- [http://www.nasa.gov National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)]
- [http://www.nar.org National Association of Rocketry]
- [http://www.tripoli.org Tripoli Rocketry Association]
- [http://www.canadianrocketry.org Canadian Association of Rocketry]
- [http://www.hobby.org Hobby Industry Association]
- [http://www.rchta.org Radio Control Hobby Trade Association]
- [http://www.ja-r.net Japan Association of Rocketry (site in Japanese)]
- [http://www.isro.org Indian Space Research Organisation] ; Information sites
- [http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ Encyclopedia Astronautica - Rocket and Missile Alphabetical Index]
- [http://space.skyrocket.de Gunter's Space Page - Complete Rocket and Missile Lists] Category:Rocket-powered aircraft Category:Rocketry ja:ロケット ms:Roket

Pete Conrad

Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999), was an American astronaut and the third man to walk on the moon. He served on Gemini 5 & 11, Apollo 12, and Skylab 2 missions, and may have been scheduled for the Apollo 20 mission, which was canceled. Conrad was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton University in 1953 he entered the United States Navy, where he became a test pilot and later an instructor. He was one of the second group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1962 - he had previously been considered and turned down for the Mercury Seven. Regarded as one of the best pilots in the group he was one of the first of his group to be assigned a Gemini mission. As pilot of Gemini 5 he set a new space endurance record of 8 days - the time it would take to get to the moon and back - and tested many spacecraft systems essential to the Apollo program. Conrad was also one of the smallest of the astronauts in height and build so he found the confinement of the Gemini capsule less onerous. He was then back up Commander for Gemini 8 and commander of Gemini 11 in which a first orbit rendevous and docking was achieved as well as using the Agena to boost the crew to a new altitude record of 800 miles. Conrad was due to be back-up commander of the first flight of the full Saturn V/Apollo into high earth orbit. When NASA created the Apollo 8 mission both prime and back-up crews were switched. But for this Conrad would have been in-line to command Apollo 11. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, and went to work for American Television and Communications Company. He worked for McDonnell Douglas from 1976, and during the 1990s he was the ground-based pilot for several test flights of the Delta Clipper experimental single stage to orbit launch vehicle. Although the third man to walk on the moon, he was the first right-handed man to do so. After stepping onto the lunar surface, Conrad joked about his own small stature by remarking: :Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me. He later revealed that this was in order to win a bet he had made with Oriana Fallaci. In 1999, while motorcycling in Ojai, California with friends, he ran off of the road and crashed. His injuries were first thought to be minor, but he died from internal bleeding about six hours later. In the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Conrad was played by Peter Scolari (in the first episode, "Can We Do This?") and by Paul McCrane in episode 7, "That's All There Is"). A month before he died, Conrad appeared on ABC News Nightline and said, "I think the Space Shuttle is worth one Billion dollars a launch. I think that it is worth two Billion dollars for what it does. I think the Shuttle is worth it for the work it does."

External link


- [http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/conrad-c.html NASA Bio of Pete Conrad]

Scientific References related to Apollo 12 & Charles Conrad

# O'Keefe, J.A. (June 5, 1970) "Tektite glass in Apollo 12 sample". Science, Vol 168, 1209–1210. Conrad,Pete Conrad,Pete Conrad, Pete Conrad,Pete Conrad, Pete Conrad, Pete Conrad, Pete

1995

1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. It was the first year of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2005): http://www.unesco.org/culture/indigenous/

Events

January


- January 1 - Austria, Finland and Sweden enter the European Union
- January 1 - Fred West, accused of mass murder, hangs himself in Winson Green Prison, Birmingham
- January 1 - World Trade Organization is established to replace GATT
- January 2 - Former President of Somalia, Siyad Barre died. He had been ousted in 1991.
- January 6-January 7 - A chemical fire occurs in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines. Policemen led by watch commander Aida Fariscal and investigators find a bomb factory and a laptop computer and disks that contain plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, is arrested one month later
- January 9 - Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station breaking a duration record
- January 17 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake called "the Great Hanshin earthquake" occurs near Kōbe, Japan, causing great property damage and killing 6,433 people
- January 24 - The prosecution delivers its opening statement in the O. J. Simpson murder trial
- January 25 - The Norwegian Rocket Incident - A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway to study the Northern Lights, is mistaken by the Russians as a nuclear attack and the russian missile command is put into combat mode before realizing the misunderstanding.
- January 31 - United States President Bill Clinton invokes emergency powers to extend a $20 trillion loan to help Mexico avert financial collapse.

February


- February 9 - Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. makes history as the first African American astronaut to walk in space.
- February 13 - United Nations tribunal on human rights violation in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serb commanders with genocide and crimes against humanity
- February 15 - Hacking: Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure" computers systems.
- February 17 - Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and later receives a 200+ year sentence
- February 21 - Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria; 4 guards and 96 prisoners killed in a day and a half.
- February 21 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon
- February 23 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33 -- The Dow's first ever close above 4,000.
- February 26 - The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank collapses after a securities broker Nick Leeson has lost $1.4 billion by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
- February 27 - In Denver, Colorado, the old Stapleton Airport closes: it is replaced by a new Denver International Airport, the largest airport in the United States.
- February 28 - Members of the Group Patriot's Council are convicted in Minnesota for manufacturing ricin

March


- March 1 - Attack Submarine USS-Seahorse (now ex-Seahorse SSN-669) starts to be deactivated
- March 1 - Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Jozef Oleksy
- March 1 - Daniel Sleator announces his intentions to commercialize the Internet Chess Server (ICS) himself, renames it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charges a yearly membership fee of $49 to howls of protest
- March 1 - Muntinlupa City, Philippines officially becomes a city.
- March 1 - In Moscow, Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is killed by a gunman.
- March 2 - Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
- March 3 - In Somalia, the United Nations peacekeeping mission ends.
- March 6 - Adrianus Jacobs, chairman of Internationale Nederlanden Groep NV announces that his company would buy bankrupt Barings PLC bank for a nominal prize
- March 14 - Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle.
- March 20 - Terrorist incident: Members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult release sarin gas on five separate railway trains in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring hundreds.
- March 22 - Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in space. Also, the Schengen treaty comes into force.
- March 24 - For the first time in twenty six years, no British soldiers patrol the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
- March 30 - Police officer tries to assassinate Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency of Japan
- March 31 - The president of Selena fan club, Yolanda Aldivar, kills the star in Corpus Christi, Texas

April

Corpus Christi, Texas
- April 19 - Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma city was bombed. 168 people, including 8 Federal Marshals and 19 children, were killed. Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols set off the bomb.
- April 24 - Unabomber bomb kills lobbyist Gilbert Murray in Sacramento, California

May


- May 7 - Jacques Chirac elected president of France.
- May 11 - In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
- May 14 - The Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
- May 16 - Japanese police besieges the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo near Mount Fuji and arrest cult leader Shoko Asahara.
- May 16 - Jacques Chirac assumes the presidency of France.
- May 23 - Oklahoma City bombing: In Oklahoma City, the remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building are imploded.
- May 24 - AFC Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0 to win the Champions League.
- May 25 - Egan v. Canada - Supreme Court of Canada rules that sexual orientation is a prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- May 27 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition, ending his career.
- May 28 - Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killing at least 2000 people (2/3rd of the towns population).

June


- June 1 - The busiest hurricane season in 62 years begins. (see 1995 Atlantic hurricane season).
-
- EarthBound is released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the U.S.
- June 2 - United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone. O'Grady survives on bugs and grass until he is rescued.
- June 2 - SS captain Erich Priebke extradited from Argentina to Italy
- June 5 - Bose-Einstein condensate created.
- June 6 - U.S. astronuat Norman Thagard broke NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, one hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.
- June 8 - Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
- June 13 - French president Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
- June 15 - While on trial for murder, O.J. Simpson put on a pair of gloves that were found soaked with blood at the murder scene. The gloves appear not to fit.
- June 20 - Oil multinational Shell caves in to international pressure and abandons plans to dump the Brent Spar oil rig at sea.
- June 22 - Japanese police rescues 365 hostages from a hijacked Nippon Airlines 747 at Hakodae airport. The hijacker was armed by a knife and demanded release of Shoko Asahara
- June 24 - The New Jersey Devils sweep the Detroit Red Wings in 4 games in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals.
- June 29 - Lisa Clayton completes her 10-month solo circumnavigation from the northern hemisphere.
- June 29 - The Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.
- June 29 - The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
- Summer - Iraq disarmament crisis: According to UNSCOM, the unity of the UN Security Council begins to fray, as a few countries, particularly France and Russia, are starting to become increasingly more interested in making financial deals with Iraq than disarming the country.

July

Iraq
- Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq threatens to end all cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA, if sanctions against the country are not lifted by Thursday, August 31, 1995
- Midwestern United States heat wave: An unprecedented heat wave strikes the Midwestern United States for most of the month. Temperatures exceed 104°F (40°C) in the afternoon in numerous cities for 5 straight days. At least 3000 people die, 750 in Chicago, Illinois alone.
- July 1 - Iraq disarmament crisis: In response to UNSCOM's evidence, Iraq admits for first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.
- July 4 - The UK Prime Minister, John Major, has won his battle to remain leader of the Conservative Party.
- July 8 - Volcanic eruption begins in the island of Montserrat
- July 11 - Bosnian Serbs march into Srebrenica while UN Dutch peacekeepers leave. Large numbers of Bosniak men and boys are killed in the Srebrenica massacre.
- July 13 - Dozens of cities, most notably Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, set all-time record high temperatures. Hundreds in these and other cities die as the July 1995 heat wave reaches its peak.
- July 17 - The Nasdaq Composite index closes above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
- July 18 - Fabio Casartelli, an Italian cyclist, dies in a crash during the Tour de France.
- July 21 - to July 26 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
- July 27 - In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated
- July 28 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
- Iraq disarmament crisis: Following the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al Majid, minister of industry and military industrialisation, Saddam Hussein makes new revelations about the full extent of Iraq's biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq also withdraws its last UN declaration of prohibited biological weapons and turns over a large amount of new documents on its WMD programs.

August


- Chrono Trigger is released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
- August 4 - Croatians launch Operation Storm against Serbian forces in Krajina and force them to withdraw to Bosnia
- August 5 - Croatian forces take Knin and continue to advance
- August 6 - Hundreds in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, and Tokyo mark the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb.
- August 7 - Operation Storm over, UN-brokered ceasefire, remaining Serbian forces start a surrender
- August 9 - Netscape launches IPO. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,1081456,00.html
- August 14 - Avalanche buries Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen - reported dead
- August 17 - 50th Indonesia Independence.
- August 24 - Microsoft releases Windows 95.
- August 28 - Serbian Mortar bomb near Sarajevo market square kills 37 civilians
- August 30 - NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia - continues into October

September


- September - DVD, optical disc storage media format, is announced.
- September 2 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland, Ohio
- September 4 - The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
- September 6 - With the jury absent, Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson
- September 6 - NATO air strikes continue after repeated attempts at a solution with the Serbs fail
- September 26 - Trial against former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, accused of Mafia connections, begins.
- September 27-September 28 - night - Bob Denard's mercenaries capture president Said Mohammed Djohor of the Comoros. Local army does not resist

October


- October 1 - 10 people are found guilty for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993
- October 3 - O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. (He would be found liable in a second civil trial in 1996)
- October 4 - France launches a counter-coup in the Comoros with 600 soldiers. They arrest Bob Denard and his mercenaries and take Denard to France. Caabi el-Yachroutu becomes new interim president
- October 9 - An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde,