Mobility & Email Blog » Aerospace

Darpa Submersible Aircraft

GadgetManiac — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:02:16 +0000

You’ve got a month and a bit to respond to Darpa RFP BAA09-06 re proposals for a flying submarine, or as they’re calling it, a Submersible Aircraft. Deets & specs are here. We don’t think it’s doable, but what do we know anyway?

Flightglobal’s got a nice conceptual rendering anyway, shown below.

Submersible Aircraft - Darpa Solicitation, October 03 2008

a review of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee

GadgetManiac — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:15:41 +0000

NASA is currently undergoing an existential crisis and struggling to find the way forward. NASA’s in-house event-planning-planning panel, the turgidly-named Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, is to report back to President Obama by the end of August with some ideas.

According to the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle, options being considered include retire/continue with the Space Shuttle, extend fuding for the International Space Station beyond 2016 or de-orbit the thing, establish a permanent base on the moon or skip the moon and go to Mars, use humans for space exploration or robots or both, stick to near-earth or the inner planets or go further afield, proceed with the new Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets or switch to a more evolutionary Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle or revive the Saturn V…the full list contains 3000+ items .

Chairman Norman Augustine and RUSHSFPC, as the committee acronymizes to, have narrowed the options and grouped them into seven main scenarios as per space.com:

NASA Baseline Plan
Space Station Focused
Dash Out of Low Earth Orbit
More Directly-Shuttle Derived System
Deep Space
Lunar Global
Mars Direct

The NASA Baseline Plan approach is the least expensive, keeps to near-earth missions, involves no new initiatives and depends on foreign partners. Mars Direct is the most expensive scenario as it involves a permanent base on Mars.

Complementing the lack of direction and complicating the picture is the lack of funds. The federal deficit will be $1.8 trillion for 2009, and the NASA budget is currently at an all-time low of 0.52% of the federal budget. And, public support for the space program has been only lukewarm over the years, as evidenced by continued calls by some to divert NASA funding to social programs.

Our 2¢ worth of advice continues to be: sell the ISS and go to Mars. However, more fiscally-responsible parties will no doubt prevail, and urge that NASA keep flying the Shuttle, continue the ISS and keep doing flybys with the occasional lander.

Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee – website

SpaceX Make it into Space

GadgetManiac — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 07:30:43 +0000

Spacex successfully launched their privately developed Falcon 1 version 4 rocket into orbit yesterday.

SpaceX video.

SpaceX Successfully Launches Falcon 1 to Orbit – Marketwatch, Sept 29 2008

Yves Rossy – Icarus Redux

GadgetManiac — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 02:59:09 +0000

Yves Rossy aka FusionMan flung himself out of an airplane over France today, ignited his jet pack and flew to England. Flight time – 15 minutes.

Rossy used ACT carbon fiber wings (not too far removed from the wax wings used by Icarus) powered by 4 JetCat P-200 turbine engines.

…nice accomplishment, but a consequence might be to impair the Icarus mythology industry.

Spiegel Online

Moon Landing Hoax Deemed a Hoax

GadgetManiac — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:34:19 +0000

MythBusters debunks all those theories about the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 NASA manned lunar landings being faked. Their Aug 27 2008 show entitled Moon Landing Hoax Hour examined the flapping flag, footprints, shadows, wonky moonwalking in 1/6 gravity and so on. They declare the myth to be Busted, with their strongest evidence being the laser light returned by the retroreflectors left on the moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15.

…whew! that’s a load off our mind…

Non Ad Astra

GadgetManiac — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:32:36 +0000

Wired Magazine throws cold water on the notion that we’ll ever get to the stars. Why? … it’s too expensive & takes too long with conventional propulsion. And with exotic but plausible drives like Daedalus, the engineering isn’t there yet. And then there’s alternative & breakthrough propulsion systems that have the problem of being fictional, er, we mean to say that the physics isn’t there yet.

But for those who enjoy a challenge such as working on hypothetical interstellar space drives (propulsion without propellant), here’s a handy summary of what NASA has considered thus far…the chart is from document NASA/TM—2004-213406 entitled Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project: Project Management Methods:

…and at the moment NASA’s no. 1 candidate for achieving exotic propulsion seems to be the dark matter drive which proposes to use presumably ubiquitous dark matter as a source of reaction mass.

Rocket Scientists Say We’ll Never Reach the Stars – Wired, August 19 2008

Launch of STS-124

GadgetManiac — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:51:25 +0000

The Sky, From Above – Boston Globe, Jume 9 2008

Phoenix has Landed

GadgetManiac — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:32:49 +0000

NASA just confirmed that the Phoenix Mars Lander has landed on Mars today.

…looking for any Martians who might be near the Heimdall impact crater at about 68° north & 234° east.

…hmm…nope, don’t see any.
Phoenix Mars Mission

Gotcha! – MiG-29 Downs Drone

GadgetManiac — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:05:31 +0000

Uncommon video of a MiG-29 firing an outer-pylon R-73 missile at a Hermes 450 UAV belonging to Georgia … doesn’t end well for the drone.

Georgia-Russia Tension Escalates Over Downed Drone – NYT, April 22 2008

Rocket Racing League Blasts Off – Part II

GadgetManiac — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:35:29 +0000

The Rocket Racing League finally seems to be taking off. Originally inspired by the fictional Star Wars pod racers, and after about two-and-a-half years of work, the 1st Exhibition Race of the Rocket Racing League will take place August 1-2 2008 in Oshkosh, Wisconson. The X-Racer, as the plane is called, is a single-pilot craft with 1,500 pound of thrust and a top speed in excess of 280 knots.

The race planes will be powered by 2 engine types. The XCOR engine uses liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants, whereas the Armadillo engine uses alcohol instead of kerosene. These things are not mouth-breathers, carry their own oxidizer and so can only aloft for about 14 minutes: 4 minutes powered + 10 gliding, before landing to refuel.

The RRL sez they expect 700,000 people to be in attendance Aug 1-2 … sounds optimistic.

Rocket Racing League Announces First Exhibition Race – press release, April 14 2008