Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!sumax!thebes!polari!crad From: crad@polari.UUCP (Charles Radley) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Solar Impact Mission. Summary: artcl from Duncan Lunan about waverider Message-ID: <3295@polari.UUCP> Date: 6 Feb 91 04:09:12 GMT References: <1991Feb5.154205.29266@engin.umich.edu> Organization: Seattle Online Public Unix (206) 328-4944 Lines: 188 Here is an article from Duncan Lunana. He sent it to several NSS cahpters inlucing us in Ventura. We believ it is public domain and ok to post her and lsewhere:- Waverider by Duncan Lunan From October 17 to 19, The University of Maryland was host to a major event - the First International Hypersonic Waverider Symposium. This represented the rebirth of a concept of major scientific and political importance, long associated with Glasgow University, and something of a triumph for an amateur group which continued to push for the concept's recognition when it had largely been forgotten. The Waverider re-entry vehicle was devised by Prof. Terrence Nonweiler, Professor of Aeronautics and Fluid Mechanics and later Dean of Engineering of Glasgow University. It was intended to be the manned spacecraft in a British space program based on the Blue Streak missile in the 1960's - canceled by the Macmillan government, and largely forgotten thereafter. Its basis is a shape known as the 'caret wing', which generates a plane shock wave, attached to the leading edges, instead of the sonic boom generated by conventional wings at high speeds. The high-pressure area trapped under the Waverider wing generates lift, and the vehicle functions as a very high-performance glider. Waverider was conceived a a space shuttle, and its job is to deliver payloads from space to the surface of a planet with an atmosphere. In the 1970's, discussions at ASTRA (the Association in Scotland to Research into Astronautics) brought out a number of major jobs for the vehicle in the exploration of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the rest of the outer planets. In the longer term, when we come to practical exploitation of the Solar System's resources, it will have to be on an international basis and with safeguards for the rights of developing nations. Waverider has a major role to play because its low wing-loading allows it a landing 'footprint', descending from space, which literally envelops the Earth, and also allows it a touchdown speed of less than 160 kph. A delivery vehicle which can land anywhere on Earth, on ordinary runways, will be of great political importance. Other ideas from the ASTRA discussions suggested that in the late 21st century transport Waveriders could have a role comparable to that of Containers in the late 20th. In 1981 ASTRA's Waverider study took a practical turn, and by late 1984 Gordon Dick of ASTRA had achieved the first free flights of hand-launched Waveriders. (Gordon Dick is a designer of sails an hang-gliders, now working as a technician at the Glasgow School of Art.) The first rocket launch took place in 1985, witnessed by Dr. Jim Randolph of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, which is responsible for the Mariner/Viking/Voyager series of space probes. Dr. Randolph is head of the Starprobe project, which is intended to place an instrumented probe within two million miles of the surface of the Sun - described in some quarters as the most important scientific mission of the century. No rocket in existence can achieve that, so it has to be brought about by planetary slingshot - what's termed an 'aerogravity maneuver', in which the probe would fly through the atmosphere of Venus and Mars to redirect its path towards the Sun. In April of this year Dr. Randolph paid his third visit to ASTRA in Scotland, and confirmed that he regards Waverider as the prime candidate for the Starprobe carrier. The setting up of the Waverider conference in October was due in large part to Dr. Randolph's support of the concept, since he first learned of it from ASTRA in 1984. At his urging the University of Maryland undertook computer studies which resolved the major problem with the Waverider design, eliminating turbulence on the upper surface of the wing, thereby confirming work done in Scotland by Gordon Dick. This result was announced at a small Waverider symposium last year, and the effect was dramatic: the Call for Papers for this year's conference has been answered by no fewer than 78 speakers, and the American space agency NASA is now officially co-sponsoring the event. ASTRA will be represented by Duncan Lunan and Gordon Dick, who will unveil the latest version of his Waverider space shuttle design - including a control system which he hopes will be valid for all Waverider applications. Jim Randolph's Starprobe project will not go before the US Senate and Congress for funding until 1994. Meanwhile work in ASTRA continues, with radio-controlled models and wind-tunnel tests, with the future possibility of rocket flights sponsored by NASA; no amateur society has ever pushed a space project so close to official acceptance before, and the October conference was a very big forward step in that direction. (Ed. - This manuscript, written before the conference, was received after the conference was held. We hope to have further news of the conference and Waverider progress in later issues.)