AIAA Houston Horizons Online Magazine for Winter 2006/7
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Volume 32, Issue 1 AIAA Houston Section www.aiaa-houston.org Winter 2006/7 Advanced Propulsion Concepts Rendering by Adrian Mann AIAA Houston Horizons Winter 2006/7 Page 1 Winter 2006/7 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S From the Editor 3 HOUSTON Chair’s Corner 4 Horizons is a bi-monthly publication of the Houston section The Future of Space Propulsion: VASIMR 5 of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Rockets, Mach Effects, and Mach Lorentz Thrusters 7 Jon S. Berndt Lunch –n– Learn: Constellation Program Overview and Challenges 10 Editor Lunch –n– Learn: Today’s Unfolding Relationships: Earth,Space,Life 12 AIAA Houston Section Executive Council Staying Informed 13 Dr. Jayant Ramakrishnan Lunch –n– Learn: Earth, Moon, and Spacecraft 14 Chair Membership Page 15 Douglas Yazell Calendar 16 Chair-Elect Cranium Cruncher 15 Steven R. King Past Chair Odds and Ends 18 Tim Propp Conference Presentations/Articles by Houston Section Members 20 Secretary DoD Experiments Launch Aboard Space Shuttle Discovery 21 Dr. Brad Files Treasurer AIAA Local Section News 23 JJ Johnson Ellen Gillespie Vice-Chair, Operations Vice-Chair, Technical Operations Technical Dr. Syri Koelfgen Dr. Al Jackson John McCann Padraig Moloney Dr. Rakesh Bhargava Dr. Zafar Taqvi Nicole Smith Bill Atwell Albert Meza Dr. Ilia Rosenberg Horizons and AIAA Dr. Douglas Schwaab Andy Petro Houston Web Site Svetlana Hanson William West AIAA National Laura Slovey Paul Nielsen Communications Award Michael Begley Prerit Shah Winner Jon Berndt, Editor Dr. Michael Lembeck Steve King Dr. Kamlesh Lulla Gary Cowan Gary Brown Councilors 2005 2006 Mike Oelke JR Reyna Brett Anderson This newsletter is created by members of the Houston section. Opinions expressed herein other than Shirley Brandt by elected Houston section officers belong solely to the authors and do not necessarily represent the Gary Johnson position of AIAA or the Houston section. Unless explicitly stated, in no way are the comments of Bob McCormick individual contributors to Horizons to be construed as necessarily the opinion or position of AIAA, Aaron Morris NASA, its contractors, or any other organization. Please address all newsletter correspondence to Dr. Merri Sanchez the Editor:[email protected] Brenda Weber Cover: Project Daedelus concept art by Adrian Mann. More information at: www.aiaa-houston.org/orgchart AIAA Houston Horizons Winter 2006/7 Page 2 Page 3 From the Editor From the Earth to the Moon JON S. BERNDT "Forty-seven minutes past ten!" nauts in a 9 foot diameter, 20,000 There are some very interesting murmured the captain. pound aluminum capsule skyward places in our solar system that we at 36,000 feet per second, from a have not yet visited, or have only "Twenty seconds more!" Barbi- Florida launch site, at the start of a just begun to explore. Titan, Ve- cane quickly put out the gas and 97 hour traversal to the moon. The nus, Io, Europa, are all places that lay down by his companions, and method of propulsion originally beg for a closer examination. But, the profound silence was only bro- suggested in the story included the as I mentioned in my previous ken by the ticking of the chronome- use of 1.6 million pounds of “solid column, our propulsion technology ter marking the seconds. fuel” (gunpowder), though a differ- is lacking if we want to explore ent charge was eventually used. very distant worlds at a faster pace. Suddenly a dreadful shock was The five segment solid rocket What if we had a way to travel at felt, and the projectile, under the booster selected for launching speeds approaching the speed of force of six billions of litres of gas, Orion contains just under 1.4 mil- light (ignore Einstein for a mo- developed by the combustion of lion pounds of propellant. ment)? What would that do for pyroxyle, mounted into space.” us – what would that bring within reach? One estimate (see http://imagine.gsfc.nasa. gov/docs/ask_astro/ answers/980123d.html) suggests that there are One estimate suggests about 1,000 stars within that there are about 50 light years of the Sun. If each of those has a cou- 1,000 stars within 50 ple of Earth-size terrestrial light years of the Sun. planets and large moons, what are the chances that If each of those has a at least a few have an at- couple of Earth-size mosphere and water? It seems safe to assume that terrestrial planets and there must be - and that large moons, what are right now, as you read this, there is another sun, the chances that at least reflecting over the surface a few have an atmos- of a sea as it sets over the horizon, on a planet very phere and water? far away from here. Per- Image by Adrian Mann haps there is even intelli- gent life there – someone And so began the journey toward The 900 foot long cannon (named looking out over a sea at sunset the moon for three astronauts in “Columbiad”) used to hurl the cap- and wondering about … us? French writer Jules Verne’s, sule to the moon in Verne’s story “From the Earth to the Moon”. helped to propel a colorful fictional In this issue are two articles de- Written in 1865 - almost a hundred account, but of course it’s a com- scribing advanced propulsion con- years before the start of the Apollo pletely unworkable form of propul- cepts (neither of which involves a program and four decades before sion for crewed space travel cannon!). Perhaps one of these the Wright brothers flew their air- (20,000 g’s!). concepts will lead to greater acces- craft - this early instance of a sci- sibility to the outer solar system ence fiction story covers the crea- Move forward 140 years, and hu- and beyond. tion of a lunar program and how it mans have traveled to the moon, progresses. Verne takes a some- and are exploring our solar system Incidentally, one hundred forty times humorous tone when telling with robotic spacecraft – several of years after Verne wrote his classic the story, but what amused me the which are now in or nearing inter- story, the European Space Agency most were the passages that stellar space. One of those - Voy- is preparing to launch an auto- seemed to reach forward a century ager 1 - is now about 100 AU from mated transfer vehicle (ATV) on and across an ocean, from when the Sun. The distance to Proxima its maiden flight to the Interna- and where he penned them. The Centauri (the closest star to us apart tional Space Station (ISS). The approach that was eventually from the Sun) is about 268,000 AU first ATV flight vehicle is named adopted by the characters in the from us. appropriately, Jules Verne. story involved lofting three astro- -JSB AIAA Houston Horizons Winter 2006/7 Page 3 Page 4 Chair’s Corner JAYANT RAMAKRISHNAN, AIAA HOUSTON CHAIR EXECUTION – The Art of • Today’s Unfolding Getting things Done – has • Public Policy – Lynn Relationships – Earth been the name of the game Nicole Smith, Public Space and Life for the AIAA-Houston Sec- Policy Officer tion. As I look back on the Videos – We had a showing last five months, we have THIRD PLACE: of the building and testing of excelled as an organization the Boeing 737 and other in coming together and lay- • Harry Staubs Precol- Discovery Channel videos. ing out the 2006-2007 chap- lege Outreach ter year. Award – Joy Conrad As I write this article, the 2nd King, Precollege Out- Space Exploration Confer- Beginning with the “State of reach Officer ence at George R. Brown the Johnson Space Center” • Young Professional Convention Center in Hous- in September 2006 where Activity Award – ton is round the corner. The Col. Robert Cabana pre- Laura Slovey, Young Space Exploration Confer- sented the vision as we move Professional Officer ence promises to be very ex- forward to the recently com- citing with the roadmap for pleted all day workshop on Additionally the Houston the new space exploration. Matlab and Satellite Tool Section also got a third place AIAA-Houston volunteers Kit, we have had an exciting award for our submission to will be at the conference. year. Along the way we had the AIAA Good Practices Also ahead are the Work- our bumps when our distin- Database. Congratulations to shop on Robotics and Auto- guished speaker Dr. Mark our team! mation and a visit to the Adler from JPL made it as Aerospace Museum at far as Pasadena before his Some of the highlights of the Hobby Airport. We will start car stalled in high water in last few months have been: the New Year with more ex- what was the “wettest” Mon- citing programs for our day in October and we had MATLAB/STK Workshop – members. to forgo the presentation on This day long workshop at Mars Rovers. Dr. Adler has NASA Gilruth Center had a EXECUTION - This year is agreed to give his talk on his great turnout and several a great year to get involved next visit to Houston. The demos showing the capabili- with the local section with AIAA awards were an- ties of both these scientific all the local and national nounced last month and I am computing packages. events that are planned proud to inform you that the around the strides in space Houston Section was recog- Lunch & Learns – The topics exploration. We are looking nized in the following cate- have been diverse and ex- for volunteers who want to gories for 2005-2006 (Very tremely interesting: be a part of the excitement.