Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!caen!engin.umich.edu!theslim From: theslim@engin.umich.edu (Eric Michael Slimko) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Solar Impact Mission. Message-ID: <1991Feb5.154205.29266@engin.umich.edu> Date: 5 Feb 91 15:42:05 GMT References: <1991Feb4.111437.9283@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> <1991Feb4.172846.3706@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: news@engin.umich.edu (CAEN Netnews) Reply-To: theslim@caen.engin.umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan Lines: 28 In article <1991Feb4.172846.3706@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > .... > > For really tight turns, what you want is a waverider design that can fly > at high hypersonic speeds in an atmosphere. Then you can do a right-angle > turn or even a 180 around any planet with a substantial atmosphere, e.g. > Venus. Aerodynamic forces do a much better job of holding you down during > the turn than gravity. This also lets you use Mars rather than Jupiter > for outer-planets missions, which is nice because Jupiter's Van Allen belts > are a major hassle for Jupiter gravity assists. > -- I've heard about this kind of thing-- it sounds like a neat ideaalthough the aerodynamics of going that fast through an atmosphere would be rough, not to mention the materials the waverider would have to be made out of. Also, you'd better carry along big thrusters for correcting any errors made in the manuever. Anyone in netland doing any research with high velocity waveriders? One of the more interesting waverider missions I've heard of was using Mars for a gravity assist to get out to Pluto. I don't have the velocities handy, but I remember the time figure as being about 4 years to go from Earth to Pluto using that kind of trajectory. --- Eric Slimko theslim@caen.engin.umich.edu