From: Paul Hughes (planetp@aci.net)
Date: Sun Nov 08 1998 - 16:59:23 MST
I came across this article today:
Huntsville - November 7, 1998 - Marshall Space Flight Center has
successfully completed two years of testing radical, new rocket engines
that could change the future of space travel with the development rocket
engines that "breathe" oxygen from the air.
"Air-breathing rocket engine technologies have the potential of opening
the space frontier to ordinary folks," said Uwe Hueter of NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "We've proven the
technologies on the ground with extensive testing of complex and
technically challenging system components. Now, I believe we're ready to
demonstrate the technologies in flight."
Air-breathing rocket engines could make future space travel like today's
air travel, said Hueter, manager of NASA's Advanced Reusable
Technologies project. The spacecraft would be completely reusable, take
off and land at airport runways, and be ready to fly again within days.
An air-breathing rocket engine inhales oxygen from the air for about
half the flight, so it doesn't have to store the gas onboard. So at
take-off, an air-breathing rocket weighs much less than a conventional
rocket, which carries all of its fuel and oxygen onboard. Getting off
the ground is the most expensive part of any mission to low-Earth orbit,
and reducing a vehicle's weight decreases cost significantly.
An air-breathing engine (called a rocket-based, combined cycle engine)
gets its initial take-off power from specially designed rockets, called
air-augmented rockets, that boost performance about 15 percent over
conventional rockets. When the vehicle's velocity reaches twice the
speed of sound, the rockets are turned off and the engine relies totally
on oxygen in the atmosphere to burn the hydrogen fuel. Once the
vehicle's speed increases to about 10 times the speed of sound, the
engine converts to a conventional rocket-powered system to propel the
vehicle into orbit.
This unconventional approach to getting to space is one of the
technologies NASA's Advanced Space Transportation Program at the
Marshall Center is developing to make space transportation affordable
for everyone from business travelers to tourists. NASA's goal is to
reduce launch costs from today's price tag of $10,000 per pound to only
hundreds of dollars per pound.
GASL, a small aerospace company in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., has conducted most
of the air-breathing rocket engine testing at its facilities on Long
Island. GASL's unique facility is capable of testing across a wide range
of speeds and modes the rocket engine must achieve in flight.
NASA's industry partners in developing air-breathing rocket technologies
are: Aerojet Corp. of Sacramento, Calif.; Rocketdyne of Canoga Park,
Calif.; Astrox Corp. of Rockville, Md.; Pennsylvania State University of
University Park; and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The original article's URL:
http://www.spacer.com/spacecast/news/future-98q.html
Paul Hughes
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