From hrose-saa@ckdhr.com Sat Mar 31 16:43:06 1901 Path: bounce-back Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Date: 31 Mar 2001 16:43:06 From: "Ken Ishiguro" Subject: Re: Aircraft design question References: Message-ID: Approved: hrose-saa@ckdhr.com@ditka.Chicago.COM Sender: hrose-saa@ckdhr.com@ditka.Chicago.COM X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 985920059 209.179.240.81 (Thu, 29 Mar 2001 18:40:59 PST) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.179.240.81 "Dafydd ab Hugh" wrote in message news:airliners.2001.3@ditka.Chicago.COM... > Dear aerospace engineers; > > My wife is an aerospace engineering student at Cal Poly Pomona, and > for her senior thesis, she is supposed to design a passenger window > for a future single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle Part of engineering is capturing and meeting requirements in cost effective or unique ways. Why is there a requirement for a window? Presumably so the passenger can see out, and also so people don't become claustrophobic. As you and others have stated, there's a lot of factors involved. ISTM that an ergonomically designed cabin and lighting will provide an illusion of spaciousness. Airframe manufacturers and airlines put a lot of effort into cabin design to accomplish this. As far as seeing out, a camera system and an in-seat LCD display with individually selectable / changeable views will meet the "see out" requirement. I don't know how your wife's prof would view this approach...but in the real world, the lowest cost, safest, or "thinking out of the box" solution wins. Boeing has proposed this for their Blended Wing design, where only a small portion of seats would be near a window. My .02 worth. Ken Ishiguro