R. Net Fisher

R. NET FISHER

Johnny Lunchbucket, "Cyberspace Investor"

Reckoning Jet Maxima Over Florida

by R. Net Fisher

This past week, on top of life's more terrestrial worries (dead car battery, son's grades diving, mortgage rates soaring, roof leaking, etc.), a worry of a more effluvious nature forced its way into my consciousness. It became necessary for me to confront not just El Niño but that incredible force of nature, the winter jet stream. In particular, I came up against Jet Streaks (known in the business as "jet maxima") dominating the air above Cape Canaveral. They grabbed hold of my attention and over the next several days it came to dawn on me that my kids' college educations (looks like six years each if I'm lucky), future hopes and dreams, and perhaps the entire lifestyle my wife and I hope to enjoy in our golden years might be impacted by the movements of these cantankerous Streaks. It was only the beginning.

Don't be so fast with that smirk and false sense of security. It is likely that many of you, if you dare to lift your heads from the sand to the stars, also have the possibility of a lot more worry than you give yourself credit for. In fact, with an Internet connection to the vast amount of information now available at the click of a mouse, the caliber of worry, or shall we say, informed level of discomfort, possible is much, much greater than man has ever dreamed. As an example, let me give you a little background on my most recent worry worthy of mention, and the action I took to mitigate it.

Until recently I, perhaps like most of you, was vaguely aware that the jet stream is a current of fast-moving air doing its thing somewhere in the upper levels of the atmosphere. I didn't, however, know that it is typically thousands of kilometers long, only a few hundred kilometers wide, and although just a few kilometers thick, an extremely powerful weather force. Like a giant headless tapeworm in the sky, undulating and throwing its hips malevolently from side to side, as it recklessly chases its tail around the world at high speeds. Clouds are sent rolling off in all directions as it goes by.

They say if you were able to see it (the worm) from the ground you would look for it somewhere between 10-15 km (6-9 miles) above the earth's surface, traveling higher in the southern latitudes (hot air rises) like Florida.

Meteorologists typically find the jet stream by examining a 250-millibar map and simply looking for the fastest wind speeds. I was disappointed not to find a millibar map included in AAA's, blue vinyl member pack, so I searched and found a near real-time version as well as a basic education on this subject on the Web. You can do the same. I recommend that you start with the Pressure/Height/Temperature Graph, then continue with a primer onInterpreting Upper Level Observation Symbols Weather and Millibar Maps.

Before we go further, I'd better explain that it isn't that my line of work or home life that normally brings me into contact with issues involving high winds in the upper troposphere. In fact, I have to admit that other than the fact that they occasionally cause me slight annoyance, as they slow down a Friday evening western flight home, I haven't thought much about them at all until recently.

My worry developed from hearing a news report that mentioned a stock I own and the jet stream in the same sentence. Looking into the connection quite a bit further, I discovered that the position of the upper-level jet stream denotes the location of the strongest surface/upper atmosphere temperature differential, and the stronger the temperature contrasts, the stronger the upper-level winds.

Now place these winds in the wrong place at the wrong time, and mix in sufficient moist warm air at the surface, and you have the recipe that can spawn severe thunderstorms and raise havoc with (Egads! Alert! Alert! My head is spinning…) a freshly launched shuttle or satellite delivery rocket. In that moment it all hit home!

To put this in perspective, a significant part of my 401K (Social Security insurance), is hitched to the success of Loral Corporation'sGlobal Star Project and, nerve-wrackingly, the launch of the first four of what will be a 48-satellite constellation orbiting at 756 nautical miles above the earth and supporting worldwide mobile communications via a new generation of hand-held satellite telephones has been harshly frustrated by the wily Maxima.

Determining how to monitor these conditions seemed a natural approach to alleviating my growing feeling of helplessness. The current weather conditions at NASA Shuttle Facility, FL seemed a good place to start. Then, assuming it applies to unmanned launches also, I fed into my growing anxiety algorithm the KSC (Kennedy Space Center)Space Shuttle Weather Launch Commit Criteria.

Naturally, having been trained by the media to demand "everything" virtual, I hoped to monitor the actual launch via live web cams at KSC and, after searching other important launch sites at Patrick Air Force Base/Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, it was with extreme disappointment that I found I couldn't locate a cam trained on the launch pad I was so interested in. (Someday soon, I'm sure.)

During this delay caused by the Jets I had lots of time to culture, to full-blown anxiety attack levels, other major worry components associated with this venture. I took the precautionary action of setting a Sell Stop Limit order using the "On-line Advantage" of Charles Schwab.

Of course, what have I been thinking? The rocket itself could explode to smithereens long before the Maxima had a chance to grab it. Better look into that. As it turns out, our four family jewels are being hurtled into space aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket. The Delta II is a bomb. It has a total mass of 232,219 kg, liftoff thrust of 359,337 kgf, a core diameter of 2.4 m, and a total length of 35.8 m.

As the days of postponement caused by the Streaks drifted on, in my mind the rocket became a giant cylinder of restless, churning, nitroglycerin heating and expanding in the Florida sun. A huge stick of dynamite just waiting to be lit. My gosh, could a firefly could set it off? I staggered to my computer, planning to either douse or fan the bonfire of my fears with yet more information. I had to do something. A URL feast became my only solace. I found and devoured the history of the Delta IIs.

I calculated the ratio of successes v. failures and worked my way upward to the payload compartment to open the custom (means unproven) satellite dispenser module. I examined each and every satellite separation adapter disc attached to each of the four corners of the anti-Earth face of the satellite. I checked the design of the threaded studs used on each adapter disc. These engage a separation nut that is mounted on the dispenser side of the interface. I worried that at separation, the ordnance-activated separation nut would fail to be severed properly and the spring-loaded actuators mounted on the dispenser wouldn't be able to push the satellites away from the dispenser. I imagined a scenario in which the whole mess would become entangled together like a giant, broken, four-leaf clover high in the sky for all in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe to see. To see and to sell short long before anybody on Wall Street even had a chance to rub an eyeball!

I accessed my Swab account again! This time I tightened up the sell price on the stop limit order, making it a stop order at market in case of a panic that would prevent me from getting through. I stayed up all night to monitor, in near real-time, the conditions of the world's International Equity Markets and Indices as they were sequentially jump-started by the rising sun.

Like the payload on my rocket, it was a celebration of mass capitalism ebbing and flowing from east to west around the globe with the potential to explode and turn into a mass selling hysteria at a moment's notice. I needed every advantage.

Early Saturday morning I called the Boeing Launch Hotline at (714) 896-4770 one more time to check the latest launch window status. We were on!! Finally, the wait was over. The Jets had lost their patience or appetite and flown off north. The clouds rolled back on a beautiful launch window:

"A Boeing Delta II Delivered the First Four Globalstar satellites into orbit on February 14, 1998 at 9:34 AM EST"

I accessed my Swab account again! I canceled the sell order and placed a buy at market. Perhaps I would be the first in the queue to catch the leading edge of the celebratory buying binge (greed) that would surely follow. Then, having put my carefully nurtured worries to bed, I pulled up the covers and drifted off to enjoy sweet dreams of success!