This volume from the NASA History Series presents an overview of hypersonics that will appeal to readers interested in the history and future of aeronautics and astronautics. 2006 edition.
Hypersonics is the study of flight at speeds where aerodynamic heating dominates the physics of the problem. Typically this is Mach 5 and higher. Hypersonics is an engineering science with close links to supersonics and engine design. Within this field, many of the most important results have been experimental. The principal facilities have been wind tunnels and related devices, which have produced flows with speeds up to orbital velocity. Why is it important? Hypersonics has had two major applications. The first has been to provide thermal protection during atmospheric entry. Success in this enterprise has supported ballistic-missile nose cones, has returned strategic reconnaissance photos from orbit and astronauts from the Moon, and has even dropped an instrument package into the atmosphere of Jupiter. The last of these approached Jupiter at four times the speed of a lunar mission returning to Earth. Work with re-entry has advanced rapidly because of its obvious importance. The second application has involved high-speed propulsion and has sought to develop the scramjet as an advanced airbreathing ramjet. Scramjets are built to run cool and thereby to achieve near-orbital speeds. They were important during the Strategic Defense Initiative, when a set of these engines was to power the experimental X-30 as a major new launch vehicle. This effort fell short, but the X-43A, carrying a scramjet, has recently flown at Mach 9.65 by using a rocket. Atmospheric entry today is fully mature as an engineering discipline. Still, the Jupiter experience shows that work with its applications continues to reach for new achievements. Studies of scramjets, by contrast, still seek full success, in which such engines can accelerate a vehicle without the use of rockets. Hence, there is much to do in this area as well. For instance, work with computers may soon show just how good scramjets can become.
Hypersonics is the study of flight at speeds where aerodynamic heating dominates the physics of the problem. Typically this is Mach 5 and higher. Hypersonics is an engineering science with close links to supersonics and engine design. Within this field, many of the most important results have been experimental. The principal facilities have been wind tunnels and related devices, which have produced flows with speeds up to orbital velocity. Why is it important? Hypersonics has had two major applications. The first has been to provide thermal protection during atmospheric entry. Success in this enterprise has supported ballistic-missile nose cones, has returned strategic reconnaissance photos from orbit and astronauts from the Moon, and has even dropped an instrument package into the atmosphere of Jupiter. The last of these approached Jupiter at four times the speed of a lunar mission returning to Earth. Work with re-entry has advanced rapidly because of its obvious importance. The second application has involved high-speed propulsion and has sought to develop the scramjet as an advanced airbreathing ramjet. Scramjets are built to run cool and thereby to achieve near-orbital speeds. They were important during the Strategic Defense Initiative, when a set of these engines was to power the experimental X-30 as a major new launch vehicle. This effort fell short, but the X-43A, carrying a scramjet, has recently flown at Mach 9.65 by using a rocket. Atmospheric entry today is fully mature as an engineering discipline. Still, the Jupiter experience shows that work with its applications continues to reach for new achievements. Studies of scramjets, by contrast, still seek full success, in which such engines can accelerate a vehicle without the use of rockets. Hence, there is much to do in this area as well. For instance, work with computers may soon show just how good scramjets can become. NASA SP-2007-4232
Hypersonics is the study of flight at speeds where aerodynamic heating dominates the physics of the problem. Typically this is Mach 5 and higher. Hypersonics is an engineering science with close links to supersonics and engine design. Within this field, many of the most important results have been experimental. The principal facilities have been wind tunnels and related devices, which have produced flows with speeds up to orbital velocity.
A captivating history of NASA’s Space Transportation System—the space shuttle—chronicling the inevitable failures of a doomed design. In Dark Star, Matthew Hersch challenges the existing narrative of the most significant human space program of the last 50 years, NASA’s space shuttle. He begins with the origins of the space shuttle: a century-long effort to develop a low-cost, reusable, rocket-powered airplane to militarize and commercialize space travel, which Hersch explains was built the wrong way, at the wrong time, and for all the wrong reasons. Describing the unique circumstances that led to the space shuttle’s creation by President Richard Nixon’s administration in 1972 and its subsequent flights from 1981 through 2011, Hersch illustrates how the space shuttle was doomed from the start. While most historians have accepted the view that the space shuttle’s fatal accidents—including the 1986 Challenger explosion—resulted from deficiencies in NASA’s management culture that lulled engineers into a false confidence in the craft, Dark Star reveals the widespread understanding that the shuttle was predestined for failure as a technology demonstrator. The vehicle was intended only to give the United States the appearance of a viable human spaceflight program until funds became available to eliminate its obvious flaws. Hersch’s work seeks to answer the perilous questions of technological choice that confront every generation, and it is a critical read for anyone interested in how we can create a better world through the things we build.
There are many myths and legends surrounding the advanced German aeronautical technology of the Second World War. There are also facts and proven events. Yet within these stories and behind these facts lie conspiracy theories, mistaken assumptions and denials that seem to contradict the evidence. So what really happened? How far ahead were the German scientists? And, of even greater interest, why and how?There have been other books about advanced German wartime aeronautics, yet few authors have fully examined the detail of the designs and their relevance to the fighter and bomber legends of the 1950s and '60s, let alone the current crop of military and civil all-wing or blended-wing aircraft. This book charts the story from it origins, through current-day innovations and beyond, into the all-wing future of tomorrow.
This book debates and discusses the present and future of Disruptive Technologies in general and military Disruptive Technologies in particular. Its primary goal is to discuss various critical and advanced elucidations on strategic technologies. The focus is less on extrapolating the future of technology in a strict sense, and more on understanding the Disruptive Technology paradigm. It is widely accepted that technology alone cannot win any military campaign or war. However, technological superiority always offers militaries an advantage. More importantly, technology also has a great deterrent value. Hence, on occasion, technology can help to avoid wars. Accordingly, it is important to effectively manage new technologies by identifying their strategic utility and role in existing military architectures and the possible contributions they could make towards improving overall military capabilities. This can also entail doctrinal changes, so as to translate these new technologies into concrete advantages.
This book provides a comprehensive basics-to-advanced course in an aero-thermal science vital to the design of engines for either type of craft. The text classifies engines powering aircraft and single/multi-stage rockets, and derives performance parameters for both from basic aerodynamics and thermodynamics laws. Each type of engine is analyzed for optimum performance goals, and mission-appropriate engines selection is explained. Fundamentals of Aircraft and Rocket Propulsion provides information about and analyses of: thermodynamic cycles of shaft engines (piston, turboprop, turboshaft and propfan); jet engines (pulsejet, pulse detonation engine, ramjet, scramjet, turbojet and turbofan); chemical and non-chemical rocket engines; conceptual design of modular rocket engines (combustor, nozzle and turbopumps); and conceptual design of different modules of aero-engines in their design and off-design state. Aimed at graduate and final-year undergraduate students, this textbook provides a thorough grounding in the history and classification of both aircraft and rocket engines, important design features of all the engines detailed, and particular consideration of special aircraft such as unmanned aerial and short/vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. End-of-chapter exercises make this a valuable student resource, and the provision of a downloadable solutions manual will be of further benefit for course instructors.
On 29 July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which became operational on 1 October of that year. Over the next 50 years, NASA achieved a set of spectacular feats, ranging from advancing the well-established field of aeronautics to pioneering the new fields of Earth and space science and human spaceflight. In the midst of the geopolitical context of the Cold War, 12 Americans walked on the Moon, arriving in peace “for all mankind.” Humans saw their home planet from a new perspective, with unforgettable Apollo images of Earthrise and the “Blue Marble,” as well as the “pale blue dot” from the edge of the solar system. A flotilla of spacecraft has studied Earth, while other spacecraft have probed the depths of the solar system and the universe beyond. In the 1980s, the evolution of aeronautics gave us the first winged human spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station stands as a symbol of human cooperation in space as well as a possible way station to the stars. With the Apollo fire and two Space Shuttle accidents, NASA has also seen the depths of tragedy. In this volume, a wide array of scholars turn a critical eye toward NASA’s first 50 years, probing an institution widely seen as the premier agency for exploration in the world, carrying on a long tradition of exploration by the United States and the human species in general. Fifty years after its founding, NASA finds itself at a crossroads that historical perspectives can only help to illuminate.
"As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008, historians as well as scientists and engineers could look back on a record of accomplishment. Much has been written about the evolution of NASA's multifaceted programs and the people who carried them out. Yet much remains to be done, and we hope this publication will facilitate research in this important field."--Page 1