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my new address is:
http://www.althespook.com/ravings/
please drop by! And did I mention you can finally comment? Really!

The Grandson Of Concorde Is Heading For LEO!

Space enthusiasts will remember with sadness the removal of the Concorde supersonic transport from service after a disastrous crash in Paris. Now comes word that a new consortium of European Union aerospace companies is working to create a new SST, one which can travel at 4 times the speed of Concorde, or Mach 8 (8 times the speed of sound, or over 4,000 miles per hour!) The new proposed vehicle is called the A2 at present, and we get more details from The Register in the UK:

The company describes this technology as "essentially a... rocket engine with an additional precooled turbo-compressor". Reaction Engines reckon the use of almost-liquefied air from the turbo will allow Scimitar/Sabre propulsion to operate without onboard liquid oxygen up to Mach 5.5. Unlike a ramjet or scramjet, this kind of engine can fire up happily while stationary on the runway, too, removing the need for a separate booster to get up to ignition speed.

The airliner-optimised Scimitar job would also feature a special high-bypass mode, allowing it to operate fuel-efficiently at subsonic speeds. This would permit the economic use of longer overland routes, something which Concorde couldn't really do.

"Unlike Concorde," quoth Reaction Engines, "the A2 vehicle has exceptional range (approx 20,000 km both subsonic and supersonic) and is therefore able to service a large number of routes whilst simultaneously avoiding supersonic overflight of populated areas. Its good subsonic performance enables it to service conventional subsonic overland routes..."

The firm's engineers calculate that an A2 hyperairliner would be able to haul 300 passengers to Sydney in 4.6 hours, going subsonic where it passed over land but cruising at better than Mach 5 most of the way. The price would be about that of a normal business class ticket, they say, assuming that the hydrogen fuel was produced using electrolysis.

"In principle the A2 vehicle could capture all of the current business and first class traffic due to the greatly reduced journey time," says the firm.

Wow! But this is only the tip of the iceberg! A2 is actually a reduced-functionality version of the Skylon unmanned space cargo and passenger plane being developed by Reaction Engines, a UK company focussed on breakthrough aerospace research and design. From the RE web site on Skylon we learn that:

We expect mission costs to fall to about $10 million per launch for high product value cargo (e.g. commmunications satellites) $2-5 million for low product value cargo (e.g. science satellites) and for costs per passenger to fall below $100k, for tourists when orbital facilities exist to accommodate them.

This is the sort of technology that real space travel needs! And it is now being funded by the EU! Time to brush up on our French! (Hat tip to Gizmodo for the initial link.)(Images courtesy of Reaction Engines Ltd.)

A Real Martian Spacesuit At Last!

Anyone who has the space bug knows that the current space suits used by NASA for ISS and Shuttle missions are clumsy, awkward things barely usable for the minimal tasks available on orbit at the moment. The idea of using them in an environment like Mars is ludicrous and everyone at NASA knows it. (The moon might be able to have them be useful since it is a de facto vacuum just like LEO.) And now a designer at MIT has come up with a workable replacement that may enable real work by astronauts and even colonists on the Red Planet.

Professor Dava Newman has developed the BioSuit on a NASA Advanced Concepts grant, and it is a clear winner. From the MIT web site on the project we learn:

Newman's prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the astronaut's body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.

Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier, and they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk -- much of which is due to multiple layers and the life support system coupled with the gas-pressurization -- severely constrains astronauts' movements. About 70 to 80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the suit goes towards simply working against the suit to bend it.

"You can't do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit," Newman says.

When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example, doing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working in such a massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, "It's a whole different ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking and running, or loping."

Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional spacesuit is punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the astronaut must return to the space station or home base immediately, before life-threatening decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest of the suit will be unaffected.

Newman says the finished BioSuit may be a hybrid that incorporates some elements of the traditional suits, including a gas-pressured torso section and helmet. An oxygen tank can be attached to the back.

The MIT researchers are focusing on the legs and arms, which are challenging parts to design. In the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT, students test various wrapping techniques, based on 3D models they've created of the human in motion and how the skin stretches during locomotion, bending, climbing or driving a rover.

Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which correspond to lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don't extend when you move your leg). Those lines provide a stiff "skeleton" of structural support, while providing maximal mobility.

To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the pressure exerted by Earth's atmosphere, or about 30 kPa (kilopascals). The current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa consistently, and the researchers have gotten new models up to 25 to 30 KPa.

I suspect this will become the basis of the EVA suits used in the eventual Mars Mission, whatever shape it takes. It may also prove useful for low-pressure environments in stratospheric aeronautical work on the manned blimps being designed at this very moment. (Images courtesy of MIT. Hat tip to Defense Tech for the original posting.)

UPDATE: At today's X-Prize Cup, a commercial spacesuit was unveiled. Seems to be a modified version of a high altitude suit used by aviators.

A Brief Note About Comments

After some discussion it appears that the Kelgarries Blogswarm won't be able to support comments at this time due to sheer volume of material we need to work with to achieve our goals. Once we migrate to our own servers (scheduled for early 2009) we'll be able to support a full comments implementation.

Thanks for your interest, and enjoy the blog!

How To Subscribe To Apogees As An RSS Feed In Internet Explorer 7

It has come to our attention that many readers of Apogees would like to have the ability to know when new posts are available automatically. Fortunately, the internet and IE7 provide this feature very nicely.

Rather than duplicate postings and eat up space here at Blogspot, we have posted a very simple but quite effective Tutorial on the matter at our sister blog, Tutorials On Using Voltaic Difference Engines. Enjoy!

A Palliative For The Aching Need No Words Can Express

High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace — where never lark nor even eagle flew — and, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

You have either been bitten by the Space Bug or you haven't. If the above poem fills your heart with a poignant, aching need that no words quite express, you may have possibly been infected. To be sure, please read these lyrics from The Green Hills Of Earth, by Robert A Heinlein:

Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me as they rove around the girth of our lovely mother planet, of the cool, green hills of Earth.

We rot in the moulds of Venus, we retch at her tainted breath. Foul are her flooded jungles, crawling with unclean death.

[ --- the harsh bright soil of Luna --- Saturn's rainbow rings --- the frozen night of Titan --- ]

We've tried each spinning space mote and reckoned its true worth. Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling Spacemen back to their trade. ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING! And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra, far drives the thundering jet, up leaps a race of Earthmen, out, far, and onward yet ---

We pray for one last landing on the globe that gave us birth. Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies and the cool, green hills of Earth.

If you now feel that inexpressible need to soar into the skies with the roaring rockets of mankind, you've been bitten, and this is the blog for you. If not, keep reading! We'll do our best to find a stray Space Bug to bite you too! (Images courtesy of NASA, Plan 59, and Paleo-Future.)