Air-breathing hypersonic engines

On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, at 10:31 AM, rmenich@... wrote:

> Al Globus wrote,
>
> "
> The point is that using a scramjet to eliminating the enormous amount
> of oxydizer required for a rocket eliminates all kinds of complexity
> and problems, some of which are not at all obvious.
> "
>
> I'll grant you that. But we have 50+ years of experience with those
> complexities, and we understand them quite well. Hypersonic
> propulsion
> introduces a whole new set of complexities --- for example, management
> of
> atmospheric heating of the airframe during extended high velocity
> flight
> within the atmosphere --- with which we have very little experience.
> Do
> you prefer the devil whom you don't know to the devil whom you do know?

The devil we know costs too much and is too unreliable -- in dozens of
implementations. We needs something different and better. Scramjets
have a fundamental advantage -- they don't carry the oxydizer -- along
with disadvantages. Presently, research dollars for scramjets are
miniscule. Perhaps there are ways around the disadantages and, if so,
we need to find them.

>
> Ron
> ******
>
> Questions.
>
The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.