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Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

NASA to use Virginia site to launch five rockets in experiment visible along Eastern Seaboard

Later this month, NASA is launching a volley of five rockets in the course of …

NASA is launching five rockets for the ATREX mission, including two Terrier-Improved Orions (left), one Terrier-Oriole (center), and two Terrier-Improved Malemutes (right).

Listening to the nightly news, you'll often hear the weather forecaster mention jet streams moving weather systems around. These are located about 10 km above sea level, where they also affect commercial aircraft. Much higher up, around 100 km above the surface of the Earth, there is a high-altitude jet stream that moves a lot of air around from the equator to the poles—at nearly 100 m/s. We don’t understand this jet stream as well, but it coincides with regions of strong electrical turbulence that can affect radio and satellite communications.

In order to study the processes that generates the high-altitude jet stream, NASA is launching the Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX). Five sounding rockets will be launched in five minutes from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia between March 14 and April 4, depending on the weather. (Sounding rockets are specifically designed for sub-orbital research, reaching altitudes between 50 and 1500 km.) The five rockets include two Terrier-Improved Orions, one Terrier-Oriole, and two Terrier-Improved Malemutes.

The ATREX rockets will release a chemical tracer into the jet stream, producing white milky clouds that scientists will use to visualize the winds. These clouds will also be visible to the public for up to 20 minutes along the Eastern Seaboard, from New Jersey to South Carolina. Instruments on two of the rockets will also measure the atmospheric pressure and temperature at the altitude of the high-speed jet stream.

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5 Reader Comments

  1. \tinfoil\ CHEMTRAILS! (no.. just kidding... I've been out around Wallops Island, before. Didn't know they launched anything out of there, though.)
    2 posts | registered
  2. OMG they're moving it up out of range of our Orgone projectors!
    731 posts | registered
  3. Sounds cool. I'll try to see if I can spot them.

    A few weeks ago, I went outside at sunset, looking west, and I counted over 50 contrails; some of them based on height and position must have been a good 200 or more miles off in the low western horizon, meaning major traffic heading to/from the DC area. Since I'm only a hundred and or so miles from Wallops as the crow flies, I should get a nice view. Nice to see their using SM-2 based missiles, though; I wonder why they don't ask a Navy ship to fire these as a live exercise since these Terriers would be able to be fired from an Aegis CG or DDG with only minor changes, and the Navy would love to get "free" live fire exercises for these ships.

    And as far as chemtrails.... Air Elementals? REALLY? Someone has been studying D&D too long. I'm normally willing to listen to the pointy tinfoil hat crowd for amusement, but seriously, they can do better than that. The NWO stuff is good, they can expand on that, but the Sylph stuff is just too bizarre to give credence for the folks doing that. And it doesn't explain why Chemtrails never occur in Africa......... or (properly) why China would be exempt, since the NWO would want to reduce population in the biggest bangs possible, and that would be an obvious spot for it. You would think that someplace like Australia, Brazil, or South Africa would be favored (though I can see not favoring the Aussies.... too ingrained over democratic principles for NWO believers to make them think it's possible to properly steer the people after the depopulation). These NWO/tinfoil hat brigade folks need to put some more thought into the backstory if they want to make it sound more believable next time. And isn't that the key to the game? Have an outrageous claim that at least makes surface sense and can be believed by the gullible?
    944 posts | registered
  4. Where can I sign up to get an alert before this happens? I want to be outside when it all goes down (or, uh, up).
    10678 posts | registered
  5. Wheels Of Confusion wrote:

    Yes. Ars, please post a follow up on this when the schedule has been confirmed.
    1361 posts | registered

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