Launch on the Shriek

First used: 1987

Definition

The operational command and organizing metaphor of the 1987 lightning-triggered rocket experiments: firing a TOW-wire-trailing rocket at the peak of a VLF whistler to invite a cloud-to-ground strike down the conductive filament. Later generalized as a stance toward timing any scheme to the storm's own rhythm rather than forcing it, surfacing again decades later when MIDI whistler input was patched into the Fire Kathedral control stack at Burning Man.

Sources