Kirtland Air Force Base Research Articles

Observations of persistent Leonid meteor trails 3. The “Glowworm”

A spectacular, well‐observed Leonid meteor of visual magnitude −14.3 appeared on 17 November 1998 and left a lingering trail, dubbed the Glowworm, that was well studied. From a location on Kirtland Air Force Base, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, we obtained CCD images of the trail from 94 to 203 s after the meteor and recorded a video with an intensified camera for even longer. From information obtained with a sodium lidar half an hour after the meteor, we have determined that a gravity wave with a vertical wavelength of 2.4 km was responsible for the right‐angled appearance of the trail. The trail ended abruptly at 85 km, and its uppermost altitude may have been no greater than 91 km. We designate the Glowworm a Type I trail: one that is wide (1 km), cloudy in appearance, has high diffusion rates (800 m2 s−1), high total line emission rates (1.5×1018 photons m−1 s−1), and is optically thicker than Type II trails. The lower parts of the Diamond Ring, another Leonid lingering trail that appeared 38 min earlier than the Glowworm, define the Type II trails, which appear as narrow, optically thinner parallel trails, with low diffusion rates (12 m2 s−1) and total line emission rates (1–3×1016 photons m−1 s−1). No explanation is offered for the two orders of magnitude difference in these quantities. The Glowworm meteor produced infrasound [ReVelle and Whitaker, 1999], from which a meteoroid mass estimate of 522 g was made. We compare our photometry to a detailed numerical modeling of the shape of the trail and emission from the Glowworm made by Zinn et al. [1999], who find that the largest contributors to emission recorded by our CCD and video cameras are atmospheric O2 vibrational bands. Compared to our measurements, their calculated emission is too high by two orders of magnitude, but since most of O2 emission may be absorbed by atmospheric O2 before it reaches the ground, this may indeed be the primary contributor to the observed flux. Although the calculations of Zinn et al. lead to a hollow cylinder appearance which may be appropriate for the Glowworm, it is not pronounced enough to account for the complete darkness between the parallel structures seen in Type II trails. An upper limit to backscattering from dust of 3.7 × 10−5 of the expected return was found from directing a 180 W copper vapor laser at the Glowworm.

Observations of persistent Leonid meteor trails: 2. Photometry and numerical modeling

During the 1998 Leonid meteor shower, multi‐instrument observations of persistent meteor trains were made from the Starfire Optical Range on Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, and from a secondary site in nearby Placitas, New Mexico. The University of Illinois Na resonance lidar measured the Na density and temperature in the trains, while various cameras captured images and videos of the trains, some of which were observed to persist for more than 30 min. The Na density measurements allow the contribution of Na airglow to the observed train luminescence to be quantified for the first time. To do this, persistent train luminescence is numerically modeled. Cylindrical symmetry is assumed, and observed values of the Na density, temperature, and diffusivity are used. It is found that the expected Na luminosity is consistent with narrowband CCD all‐sky camera observations, but that these emissions can contribute only a small fraction of the total light observed in a 0.5–1 μ bandwidth. Other potential luminosity sources are examined, in particular, light resulting from the possible excitation of monoxides of meteoric metals (particularly FeO) and O2(b1∑g+) during reactions between atmospheric oxygen species and meteoric metals. It is found that the total luminosity of these combined processes falls somewhat short of explaining the observed brightness, and thus additional luminosity sources still are needed. In addition, the brightness distribution, the so‐called hollow cylinder effect, remains unexplained.

Meteor trail advection observed during the 1998 Leonid Shower

Sodium resonance lidar observations of meteor trails are reported from the 1998 Leonid shower experiment at the Starfire Optical Range, Kirtland Air Force Base, NM (35.0° N, 106.5° W). The lidar was operating in a spatially scanning mode that allowed tracking for up to one half‐hour. Three trails are presented here whose motion allowed inference of radial as well as vector wind components and apparent diffusivities. The winds are derived independently using the narrow linewidth sodium (Na) resonance Doppler lidar technique and are compared with the tracking results.

Investigation of intense electromagnetic transient phenomenon and Paschen curves for hydrogen and helium in subnanosecond regime

One of the major drivers of pulsed power innovation is ultrawide-band technology. Subnanosecond risetimes with nanosecond or less pulse durations place this technology in a temporal regime that corresponds to microwave frequencies. These ultrawide-band devices have pushed pulsed power technology into a parameter space where there is little published data on breakdown. This paper describes the experimental determination of the Paschen curve for two gases under the application of intense, transient, electric fields. This experiment utilized the Hindenberg series of hydrogen gas switched pulsers at the Air Force Research Laboratory located at Kirtland Air Force Base. The Paschen curves for hydrogen and helium are presented. For subnanosecond risetime pulses, there are typically very few free electrons in the discharge space generated by external radiation sources such as cosmic rays. The occurrence of cosmic ray ionization in the gap is unlikely in such a short period of time. Therefore, electric field emission plays a very important role in these discharges. However, a small number of discharges are effected by ionization from external radiation, with the resulting data lying along classic Paschen curves. As a verification of this effect, an intense continuous ultraviolet (UV) source was utilized for supplying seed electrons and the expected Paschen curves of hydrogen and helium were obtained.

Comparison of reconstruction-algorithm performance for optical-phase tomography of a heated air flow

Lenore McMackin Air Force Research Laboratory, VSSS 3550 Aberdeen Avenue SE Kirtland Air Force Base New Mexico 87117-5776 Abstract. An existing high-speed optical tomography system built at the Air Force Research Laboratory uses Hartmann wavefront sensors to obtain the optical path projections necessary for two-dimensional tomographic reconstruction of the temperature (or equivalently the index of refraction) in a heated jet of air. Conventional optical tomography algorithms require optical-path-length projection data obtained at a number of angles through the flow. However, Hartmann sensors detect the first derivative of the path length. Conventional reconstruction algorithms thus require integration of the measured gradients. New iterative algorithms can reconstruct directly from the measured gradients. Using computer simulation, we compare the accuracy of reconstructions made directly from optical-path-length gradients with the accuracy of reconstructions based on the optical path length obtained by integrating gradient measurements for several iterative tomographic algorithms employing local and global basis functions. For a data-limited tomography system, our studies have shown that accuracy of reconstructions depends on both the choice of algorithm and the structure of the flow under observation. © 2000 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(00)01603-2]

Laboratory characterization of non-aqueous phase liquid/tracer interaction in support of a vadose zone partitioning interwell tracer test

Contaminant characterization is important for successful remediation of non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) in the unsaturated zone. A partitioning interwell tracer test (PITT) can provide a good estimate of average subsurface NAPL saturations. Screening experiments were completed in the laboratory to evaluate several gas tracers for a PITT study to be completed in the vadose zone at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM. Four perfluorocarbon tracers were found to be suitable for this PITT. Further laboratory column studies were completed using contaminated field soil to measure the partition coefficients between the tracers and the NAPL. The results from the column studies showed that the air/NAPL tracer partition coefficients ranged from 8.8±0.6 to 71±3. This range of partition coefficients is suitable for detection of NAPL saturations in the field of 0.002 to 0.14.

Vadose Zone Characterization at a Contaminated Field Site Using Partitioning Interwell Tracer Technology

The partitioning interwell tracer test (PITT) has been demonstrated to be effective in determining volume and spatial distribution of residual nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) in the saturated subsurface. Use of PITT technology in the vadose zone has been limited to this point. Two PITTs were completed in the vadose zone of a NAPL contaminated site at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM. The PITTs were completed before and after a thermally enhanced soil vapor extraction remediation effort, to provide performance assessment. Methane was used as a nonpartitioning tracer. Four perfluorocarbons (perfluoromethylcyclohexane, perfluoro-1,3-dimethylcyclohexane, perfluoro-1,3,5-trimethylcyclohexane, and perfluorodecalin) were utilized as air−NAPL partitioning tracers. Difluoromethane was used as an air−water partitioning tracer to estimate water saturation. The complex light NAPL (LNAPL) consisted of hydrocarbon fuels ranging from approximately 12−70 carbons in size. Laboratory experimental data and thermodynamic modeling were used to characterize compositional changes in the NAPL due to the remediation effort. About 260 kg of NAPL were removed from the subsurface by the remediation effort. The PITT assessment of the remediation was compared favorably to the results from soil borings taken at the site. The PITT has been shown to be a useful technology for both NAPL characterization and remedial performance assessment in the vadose zone.

Expanding Partnerships for Small‐ and Medium‐Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Needed: The Right Kind of Support

Expanding Partnerships for Small‐ and Medium‐Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Needed: The Right Kind of Support

MMAE/MMAC control for bending with multiple uncertain parameters

A moving-bank multiple model estimator/controller (MMAE/MMAC) based on linear system, quadratic cost, and Gaussian noise (LQG) assumptions is used to quell unwanted vibrations in a simulated large flexible space structure. The structure, known as the Space Integrated Controls Experiment (SPICE), exists at Phillips Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. The structure consists of a large platform and a smaller platform connected by a tripod of flexible legs. The purpose of the control system is to maintain a very precise line-of-sight (LOS) vector through the center of the spacecraft. Kalman filtering, used to estimate the position and velocity of the bending modes of the structure, and LQG control techniques are the primary design tools used in the MMAE/MMAC algorithms. Implementing a parallel bank of filters increases robustness when uncertainties exist in the system model, here specifically allowing adaptation to uncertain and changing undamped natural frequencies of the bending modes of the structure. A moving-bank algorithm is utilized to reduce the computational loading. The MMAE/MMAC design provides a well-suited method of estimating variations in the vector of undamped natural frequencies and quelling vibrations in the structure. The MMAE/MMAC was able to track numerous parameter changes and jumps while providing adequate control for the structure.

The CIA and me

Reading Bruce Cumings's piece brought home to me that I am several months beyond age sixty-five and by no stretch of the imagination any longer young. After finishing what he had written and reflecting on my own close encounters with some of the people he mentions, I pulled out of a storage cabinet a rather battered old file called “U.S. Government” dealing with my activities as a consultant for the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and for the Sandia National Laboratories at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

United States, United Nations and the Berlin Blockade

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel F. HarringtonThe author is a historian at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. He wishes to acknowledge the generous financial support of the American Philosophical Society and the Harry S. Truman Library Institute.

The National Atomic Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico: Where "Weapon Shapes" Are Not Enough

Adobe buildings, Native American artifacts, and flat, dry landscapes punctuated by stubborn mesas-these are among the elements that determine one's initial impression of northern New Mexico, and it is from them that the country gains something of its timeless quality. But our own century has had an impact here, too; after all, Los Alamos, the birthplace of atomic weaponry, is one of the larger towns in the area. And not far away is a museum devoted to these weapons, the National Atomic Museum. The National Atomic Museum is located within the confines of Kirtland Air Force Base, southeast of downtown Albuquerque. To get to it, one has to enter the base through a checkpoint cut into an imposing fence. That done, there is little danger of missing the museum, marked as it is by an outdoor display of missiles, heavy artillery, and a gigantic B-52 bomber. These details of the museum's immediate context are not irrelevant; rather, they help in understanding the tone of the exhibits inside and the virtual absence of anything beyond a strictly military context. The museum was opened in 1969 under the aegis of the Defense Nuclear Agency, then was transferred to the Department of Energy in 1976. This may explain the presence of newer exhibits treating nuclear energy in more general terms. But the museum's core remains a display dating from the opening twenty years ago, a display of unclassified nuclear weapon shapes. This odd phrase, which appears in a museum flier, is striking in its aggressive neutrality. As it turns out, however, the words appear to have been chosen carefully. The exhibit's backdrop includes photographs and brief labels, mounted on walls into which are set a number of television monitors

The National Atomic Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico: Where “Weapon Shapes” Are Not Enough

THE NATIONAL ATOMIC MUSEUM, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO: WHERE “WEAPON SHAPES” ARE NOT ENOUGH KENNETH ARNOLD Adobe buildings, Native American artifacts, and flat, dry land­ scapes punctuated by stubborn mesas—these are among the ele­ ments that determine one’s initial impression of northern New Mexico, and it is from them that the country gains something of its timeless quality. But our own century has had an impact here, too; after all, Los Alamos, the birthplace of atomic weaponry, is one of the larger towns in the area. And not far away is a museum devoted to these weapons, the National Atomic Museum. The National Atomic Museum is located within the confines of Kirtland Air Force Base, southeast of downtown Albuquerque. To get to it, one has to enter the base through a checkpoint cut into an imposing fence. That done, there is little danger of missing the museum, marked as it is by an outdoor display of missiles, heavy artillery, and a gigantic B-52 bomber. These details of the museum’s immediate context are not irrelevant; rather, they help in understand­ ing the tone of the exhibits inside and the virtual absence of anything beyond a strictly military context. The museum was opened in 1969 under the aegis of the Defense Nuclear Agency, then was transferred to the Department of Energy in 1976. This may explain the presence of newer exhibits treating nuclear energy in more general terms. But the museum’s core remains a display dating from the opening twenty years ago, a display of “unclassified nuclear weapon shapes.” This odd phrase, which appears in a museum flier, is striking in its aggressive neutrality. As it turns out, however, the words appear to have been chosen carefully. The exhibit’s backdrop includes photographs and brief labels, mounted on walls into which are set a number of television monitors displaying newsreels from the 1930s and 1940s. In front are the weapon shapes themselves: Little Boy, Fat Man, Lulu, Davy Crockett, Mr. Arnold, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, is writing a dissertation entitled “Cabinets for the Curious: Science in English Museums, 1600—1759.”©1989 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/89/3003-0003$01.00 640 The National Atomic Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico 641 Honest John, and some twenty-five more empty casings lie scattered about a cavernous space like minimalist sculptures. The exhibit is explicitly structured around an enumeration of unadorned facts: “Free, Factual, Fascinating,” reads the flier. Walking around the exhibit, one is bombarded with details of “system versatility,” of “physical parameters,” of “delivery methods,” of “subcritical masses,” while the weapon shapes themselves are arranged in a strict chronol­ ogy: Mark 6 follows Mark 5 and is itself followed by Mark 7. But a collection of nuclear bomb casings inevitably produces an impression larger than a simple marshaling of chronology, technical specifications, and discrete “facts.” Even if one only pays attention to the straightforward mode of succession, another tale unfolds, one with which we are already familiar from displays in natural history museums. The story is quite simply one of evolution, with each successive shape the natural descendant of the one before. To be sure, the display embodies a more nuanced tale than that: There is an opening unit on German efforts to build the bomb; there are panels on the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge, and Hanford; there are descriptions of the shift from atmospheric to underground testing and of numerous “New Advances in Technology.” Yet this is all subsidiary to the real focus of interest, the weapon shapes themselves, especially Little Boy and Fat Man. The real fact is that these are neither sculptures nor natural history specimens. Rather, they are what instantaneously caused approximately 115,000 deaths with their combined 36 kilotons, virtually wiping out the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the two most deadly events of human history. However, this information is presented simply as another part of the factual picture. What is not mentioned is the psychological shadow that such weapons have cast ever since 1945, the way they forever altered the concept of warfare, and what they meant in real human terms. And...

Managing Organizational Mergers

Reimbursement, competition, and other significant trends in the health field have stimulated an increase in mergers among health care organizations. Mergers inevitably produce significant ramifications for clinicians. Nurses have discovered that mergers produce a greater need for efficient patient care, but not necessarily the mechanism or guidance for achieving this goal. Nursing administrators are responsible for minimizing the negative impact of a merger on nurses while simultaneously promoting merger goals. Despite this increase in mergers and the subsequent challenge to clinicians, little information is available about how to manage mergers. This article reviews the impact of the merger between the Veterans Administration Medical Center and the Kirtland Air Force Base Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A nursing perspective is used to understand what problems arise and how nursing administrators can effectively manage these problems.

Selenium kidney/liver ratios in rock squirrel populations from grassland and pinyon-juniper ecosystems

Selenium levels in liver and kidney tissues were determined for rock squirrels ( Spermophilus variegatus) trapped within a distinct elevational gradient (grassland to pinyon-juniper ecosystem; alkaline to acidic soil) within the confines of the Kirtland Air Force Base Military Reservation in central New Mexico. Selenium levels in tissues were determined by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Selenium kidney/liver ratios determined for rock squirrels decreased as elevational gradient increased ( r = −0.9403) in the pinyon-juniper ecosystem and increased as elevational gradient increased in the grassland ecosystem ( r = 0.9493). Other tests of significance ( t test, α 0.05) also support the inverse relationship between selenium kidney/liver ratios in grassland and pinyon-juniper ecosystems.

Collective acceleration of carbon ions to 170 MeV

The collective acceleration of carbon ions to a peak energy in the range 170–200 MeV has been achieved using a 6-MeV 190-kA 100-ns electron beam pulse generated by the Pulserad 1590 facility at Kirtland Air Force Base. Accelerated ions were detected using nuclear activation techniques.

Laser Wavefront Analyzer for Diagnosing High-Energy Lasers

The Laser Wavefront Analyzer (LWA) determines the intensity and phase of a CO2 laser operating over a spectral range from 9.1 pm to 10.7 pm. The LWA is a sliding reference interferometer and measures differential optical phase over a 32 x 32 element format of the input beam. A resolution element is scanned every 10 ptsec. The theory and general design aspects of the LWA are discussed in this paper. Phase and intensity data outputs obtained with the instrument during calibration tests performed by the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base are presented. These calibration data were obtained by utilizing low power CO2 gas lasers with appropriate optical components to magnify and alter the phase front of the beam entering the analyzer sensor aperture. Phase accuracy and precision data from these calibration tests are also presented.

LUNCHEON ADDRESS: NAVAL TECHNOLOGY—TODAY, TOMORROW, AND THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

LUNCHEON ADDRESS: NAVAL TECHNOLOGY—TODAY, TOMORROW, AND THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW