 |
Burt Rutan's
Spaceship One, nestled between the twin fuselage of the White Knight, is carried aloft on
its record-making flight to outer space.
Photo: VIMS |
THE END OF NASA
(AS WE KNOW IT)
"We did this with 25 employees!"
Burt Rutan, Scaled
Composites |
On the morning of
June 21, 2004, maverick aircraft designer Burt Rutan's White Knight carried Spaceship One to its ignition altitude near 50,000 feet, where the
winged spaceship released and shot to 328,491 feet, just 411 feet above the official
"edge of space."
Although the spacecraft was not powered by
liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the implications to future hydrogen fuel use are
profound. When the aging fleet of enormous NASA space shuttles was operating on
schedule, NASA was the world's leading consumer of hydrogen. The next generation of
cost-effective spacecraft, modeled after the Scaled Composites' formula, will prove to be,
to NASA and conventional spaceflight, what the personal computer was to the giant
mainframes of IBM - a paradigm killer. -- RDM
 White Knight
and SpaceShipOne:
The First Private Manned Space Flight
June 17, 2004 Quicktime by VIMS get Quicktime |
SpaceShipOne
Makes History: 1st Private Manned Space Mission
Scaled Composites June 21, 2004 |
| UNITED STATES PROTON ENERGY NASA Wired |
June 8, 2004 |
The Water Rocket: Water to Boost Satellite Snooping
John Gartner
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working with Proton Energy Systems
on the Water Rocket program, which would develop a satellite that exploits a "closed
loop" regenerative fuel cell: Solar power electrolyzes water into hydrogen, then the
hydrogen is converted into electricity and water. The electricity would be used to power
the thrusters and any other mission-specific operations. |
Russia's Proposed
"Cosmoplane"
New aircraft 'could fly Moscow-New York in under an hour'
Ananova November 4, 2003
Helios
Crashes Into Pacific
Helios, the solar-powered experimental aircraft test
flown by remote control from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, crashed into the Pacific
off the coast of Kauai Thursday morning during a NASA test flight. Helios is a large but
delicate flying wing without any conventional fuselage. It has two sources of power: solar
panels and hydrogen fuel cells.
Pacific Business News
June 26, 2003
Helios Recovery Operations
Conclude: Investigation Under Way
Dryden Flight Research Center July 1, 2003
Among debris recovered with the help of the U.S. Navy's
Pacific Missile Range Facility and the Niihau Ranch were the two hydrogen fuel tanks
carried by Helios in a quest to validate fuel cell electric power technology for airborne
applications. Helios team members say none of the recovered pieces will be reusable
because of damage and salt-water contamination.
"We were flying at
about the 8,000-foot altitude west of Kauai over the ocean and the aircraft simply broke
up."
Alan Brown
NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center
Record-Setting Solar Plane
Breaks Apart AP
Aerovironment's unmanned Pathfinder Plus was powered
by solar cells. The company's
Helios prototype solar/electrolysis aircraft will use hydrogen fuel cell power at
night.
SkyTower
Intelligent
Energy Selected by Boeing
To Develop the World’s First Fuel Cell-powered Airplane for Manned Flight
Intelligent Energy May 12, 2003
The Fuel Cell Airplane Demonstrator Project will
prove that fuel cell technology can provide environmental benefits and optimise fuel usage
for commercial aircraft. Boeing believes that fuel cells have great potential to replace
auxiliary power units for commercial passenger and freight air fleets.
|
Flight Path for Fuel
Cells
E4 Engineering (UK) May 2,
2003
Although question marks remain over the
likelihood of hydrogen-powered cars becoming a reality, fuel cells could be the answer to
reducing pollution from aircraft, said Peter McCallum, deputy head of NASA's propulsion
and power projects. 'We think that fuel cells offer the greater long-term benefit if they
can be made to work because they have a higher inherent thermal efficiency than
conventional aircraft engines,' he said.
 |
Nuclear Fusion Could
Power NASA Spacecraft
New Scientist January 22, 2003
The journey time from
Earth orbit to Mars could be slashed from six months to less than six weeks if NASA's idea
for a nuclear fusion-powered engine takes off. ...The principle is to sustain an on-board
fusion reaction and fire some of the energy created out the back of the spacecraft,
generating thrust. Of course, harnessing fusion is no easy task. Scientists have struggled
to contain the super-hot plasmas of charged ions needed for fusion reactions. To achieve
fusion, scientists heat the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium to at least 100
million kelvin. This strips electrons from the isotopes, creating a plasma of bare nuclei.
If this plasma is hot and dense enough, the two types of nuclei fuse, giving off neutrons
and huge amounts of energy. more
|
Researcher Hopes
to Power Shuttles with Refined Landfill Gas
December 10, 2002
COBRA CANCELLED
Lost Pratt Deal
Costs 54 Jobs
by Stephen Pounds Palm Beach Post (FL)
October 5, 2002
CDI Engineering Services is laying off
54 engineers by the end of the year after its major local customer, Pratt & Whitney,
lost a big contract with NASA.
...The project was called COBRA, short for co-optimized booster for
reusable applications, a lengthy name for a future booster rocket that would run on
hydrogen and send the next-generation space shuttle into orbit. NASA has decided to
concentrate its backing on research into a hydrocarbon-fuel engine being designed by rival
Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif.
|
September 2002 |
Hydrogen
Storage for Aircraft Applications Overview
NASA Anthony J. Colozza,
Analex Corporation
Hydrogen is a very high energy density element that holds much
promise as a potential fuel for aircraft. The energy density of hydrogen, which is around
120 MJ/kg, is more than double that of most conventional fuels (for example natural gas:
43 MJ/kg and gasoline 44.4 MJ/kg). The main issue with using hydrogen in aircraft is its
very low density. At ambient conditions 1 liter of hydrogen contains only 10.7 KJ of
energy. Even in its liquid state the volumetric energy density of hydrogen (8.4 MJ/liter )
is less then half that of other fuels (natural gas 17.8 MJ/liter, gasoline 31.1 MJ/liter).
Storing a sufficient amount of it for use in most applications requires a large volume.
Therefore, in order to make it practical for aircraft applications, the storage method
utilized must increase the density of hydrogen. |
.Hydrogen Scramjet
Success
As Engine Hits Mach 7.6
Daily Standard (UK) August 16, 2002
Australian
Scramjet Test Fails November 2, 2001
Australia Hypersonic Engine
Test Set
CNN/Reuters October 20, 2001
"Scramjet" is short for supersonic combustion
ramjet.
University of Queensland
Multi-National HYSHOT Scramjet Project
Researchers from the
University of Queensland said on Friday the prototype engine is to be fired off into the
upper atmosphere on October 25 -- sent to an altitude of 314 km (196 miles) on the back of
a booster rocket and allowed to plunge back to earth.
"HyShot"
project member Susan Anderson said it's hoped the engine will ignite on the way back down
at 37 km (23 miles) above the earth and reach a speed of Mach 7.6 -- or 7.6 times the
speed of sound -- before crashing into the ground.
...The Australian
experiment has been eagerly awaited since the failed test in June of NASA's unmanned X-43A
scramjet prototype, part of the United States space agency's US$185 million project to
build a hypersonic engine. Scramjets in theory use the rush of high speeds to ignite
pollution-free hydrogen and are expected to one day reach speeds of Mach 10. |
Australia
Joins Race to Test Hypersonic Engine
Australian Broadcasting Corp
February 23, 2001
Australians are in a space race to flight-test a
hypersonic engine over the deserts of South Australia in the middle of this year. The
engine, known as a scramjet, uses pollution-free hydrogen as its fuel. Team leader Dr
Allan Paull says they are aiming to ignite the engine and hit a speed of about 8,000
kilometres an hour during the flight.
Liftoff for HYSHOT
Project - University News, University of
Queensland |
HYPER-X
X43A
NASA Blows Up Rocket
Aborts Bid to Launch Fastest Plane
-- San Francisco
Chronicle June 2,
2001
"We're finally getting down to testing the basic science of a new propulsion
system that could ultimately alter commercial aerospace and national security."
Charles Vick, acting director of space policy for the Federation of American
Scientists
U.S. Hoping May
Flight Will Exceed 5,000 mph
by Peter Pae Los Angeles Times -
Seattle Times (WA) April 13, 2001
The science
behind the scramjet has been one of the more difficult barriers to overcome. The common
turbojet uses turbines inside the engine to compress air, which ignites with kerosene to
create combustion and then thrust. Although the turbojet is efficient at subsonic speeds
of conventional airliners, air flows too slowly and overheats the engine at high speeds.
Ramjets are basically a hollow tube with no moving parts, resolving the temperature
problem. They can propel an aircraft past Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. Airflow
into the front of the ramjet is compressed and mixed with fuel. The resulting combustion
creates thrust. But the ramjet cannot power an aircraft past Mach 5. That requires a
scramjet, in which gases can flow at supersonic speeds.
Although it is mechanically simple, it
is vastly more complex aerodynamically than a jet engine. For instance, the front end of
the X-43A, such as the flat nose, helps compress the oxygen before it enters the copper
alloy chamber, where it mixes with hydrogen and burns, creating pressure from the
expanding gas to propel the plane forward. |
Moscow Tests New Missile
by Bill Gertz Washington Post
July 31, 2001
The flight test of the road-mobile SS-25
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) took place from a launch site in central Russia
two weeks ago. It was tracked to an impact area several thousand miles away on the
Kamchatka Peninsula. U.S. officials said the missile's flight took an unusual path:
Its last stage was a high-speed cruise missile that flew within the Earth's atmosphere at
an altitude of about 100,000 feet.
"It looks like the Russians were testing scramjet
technology," said one intelligence official. more |
| NASA
Unveils Futuristic Aircraft -
Washington Post/AP April 18, 2001 |
SkyTower Successfully Tests World's
First Commercial Telecom Applications from More Than 65,000 Feet in the Stratosphere
July 22, 2002 |
|
The Pathfinder-Plus 121-foot wingspan, solar-powered aircraft, is a smaller version of
AeroVironment's 247-foot wingspan Helios aircraft which, during NASA testing in Hawaii
last summer, shattered the world altitude record for non-rocket powered aircraft by flying
to 96,863 feet -- well above the 60,000 to 70,000 feet targeted for commercial telecom
services. As part of the NASA development program, multi-day flight capability will be
demonstrated next year with the Helios solar/electric airplane using the world's first
fuel cell based aircraft energy system that enables the aircraft to operate through the
night. Production versions of Helios unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) using AeroVironment's
fuel-cell-based energy systems will have flight durations between landings of up to six
months or more. |
"Safety is expected to be at least equal to, and under certain cases
even significantly better than the safety of kerosene fuelled aircraft." - Airbus |
Airbus Project Envisions Hydrogen-Fueled Jet
Seattle Post-Intelligencer May
30, 2002
A project led by Airbus to develop aircraft that run on hydrogen has
gotten off to a flying start, the European Union Commission said yesterday. The
project "shows use of liquid hydrogen is technically feasible, and would greatly
reduce the environmental impact of aviation without affecting safety," the commission
said after the first results of the EU-funded Cryoplane project were unveiled yesterday.
The EU is keen for hydrogen-powered planes to be developed because they would
produce far fewer emissions of greenhouse gases than conventional kerosene-powered
engines. more
|
"Had a liquid-hydrogen-fuelled jumbo hit the
World Trade Center,
enormous damage would
have occurred but the towers would not have
come down. The towers
collapsed because tons of burning jet fuel softened the buildings' steel
backbone,
allowing top floors to sledgehammer
lower floors. Liquid hydrogen can't burn until it
vaporizes and then, being so much lighter than air,
it's up and away. Structural damage,
fire and death would have been confined to the floors the aircraft struck."
David Sanborn Scott
, V.P., IAHE |
 |
 |
MARS RICH IN
HYDROGEN
Potential source of rocket fuel and water
A view of the south pole of Mars in
intermediate-energy, or epithermal, neutrons. A low intensity of epithermal neutrons
(colored deep blue in the map) provides a unique identification of soil enriched in
hydrogen. The view shown here is a Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection of the south
pole of Mars of measurements made during the first week of mapping (February 2002) using
the neutron spectrometer.
Mars Odyssey's Neutron
Spectrometer Maps of Hydrogen-Rich Soil
Los Alamos National Laboratory
A World Of Ice Beneath
The Rust Space Daily March 1, 2002 |
The Frozen Oceans
of Mars
by Michelle Thaller Christain Science Monitor June 3, 2002
Mars Needs
Women -- and Men Too
by Jonah Goldberg Washington Times June 7, 2002
Last month, scientists
announced that Mars has huge subsurface deposits of ice. If you don't care about going to
Mars, you might say, "Ice. Huh. OK," and move on. But if you are a member of the
semi-secret army of Mars enthusiasts who dream of the day when mankind colonizes the Red
Planet, this was monumentally good news.
Water is the key ingredient for colonization. Plentiful
drinkable water is the least of it. H20, as the name suggests, can be broken down into
hydrogen and oxygen, which can be used for breathable air and rocket fuel. Being able to
exploit this fact means spaceships can be lighter, cheaper, more efficient and refuelable.
NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, tightening
its orbit around Mars for a mapping mission, has sniffed out big hydrogen deposits,
possibly indicating extensive water ice, according to project scientists.
New Mars Orbiter
Gets Whiff of Possible Water
CNN/Reuters December 13, 2001
Mars
Water
Could Sustain Human Colonies
June 22, 2000
by Paul Hoversten Space.com |
Because of its chemical components hydrogen and oxygen, water is "a significant
resource for exploration at the planet," said John Niehoff, a planetary-program
planner at SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.) in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Mars already has plenty of oxygen in its carbon-dioxide-rich
atmosphere. But hydrogen is exceedingly rare.
"Hydrogen is a key resource in the development of fuels for
all kinds of purposes. You could run surface [power] systems or fuel launch vehicles or
create fuel-cell storage devices to manage your electricity," Niehoff said.
"We've always been assuming we'd have to bring the hydrogen
with us. But with it there, in the form of water, we can go with the equipment and have a
power supply. That is a tremendous leverage." |
Scientists Report Water In Gullies On Mars
Space.com
June 22, 2000
Researchers using NASA's Mars
Global Surveyor spacecraft announced Thursday that they found puzzling signs of water
seeping into what appear to be young, freshly-cut gullies and gaps in the Martian surface.
The startling discovery of recently-formed, weeping layers of rock and sediment has
planetary experts scratching their heads. |
Powerful
Possibilities for Boeing Fuel Cells
by Kyung M. Song - Seattle Times November 28, 2001
X-43A Failure
Investigation Still Looking for Cause
QUANTUM Achieves
World Record for Lightweight Hydrogen Storage Tanks QUANTUM Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide/PRNewswire
July 12, 2002
QUANTUM Fuel
Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc., a wholly owned
subsidiary of  IMPCO Technologies, Inc.
(Nasdaq: IMCO, QTWW), announced today that it demonstrated a hydrogen storage tank with a
world record 13% hydrogen weight efficiency. This breakthrough offers a dramatic weight
reduction in hydrogen storage technology and will significantly improve on-board energy
storage in aircraft and spacecraft applications where weight is critical. The technology
will also be used in the development of lighter, less costly hydrogen storage tanks for
fuel cell vehicle applications. The QUANTUM team successfully fatigue-cycled and
hydroburst-tested high performance prototype hydrogen storage cylinders and achieved the
new performance record of 13% hydrogen storage by weight at 5,000 psig (350 bar). This
tank will be optimized for an aerospace application currently under development by NASA
and AeroVironment, with the final product targeted to achieve even higher storage
efficiency and high cycle life.
|
|
Helios Sets
Unofficial New World Altitude Record!
AeroVironment |
QUANTUM
Awarded
Contract By AeroVironment
for NASA-Sponsored Program
IMPCO/PRNewswire |
On August 13, 2001, Helios Prototype took off
from Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii, and flew to a
peak altitude of greater than 96,500 feet.
...After holding on the ground for 36 minutes to wait for
low-altitude clouds to clear the path between the aircraft and sun, Greg Kendall, the
"Mobile Pilot", advanced the throttle and the giant aircraft took-off at 8:48
AM. Helios rolled about 600 feet before lift-off. After reaching the end of
"solar" runway 16, Greg turned the aircraft to the west and climbed toward the
island of Niihau.
Wyatt Sadler, the "Stationary Pilot", took
control of the aircraft when Helios reached an altitude of about 2000 feet. The crew got
help from the Niihau Ranch helicopter and an up-looking fish-eye camera mounted on Helios
to avoid flying under clouds. Once Helios was above the clouds, the climb to the altitude
achieved on the previous flight (76,271) was rather uneventful.
Rik Meininger, the second "Stationary Pilot",
flew Helios to 77,000 feet and then handed control to Wyatt. Wyatt was at the controls as
Helios shattered the 80,201 foot altitude record set by AeroVironment's Pathfinder Plus in
1998. Then Greg took the controls as Helios broke the altitude record of just over 85,000
feet set by the Lockheed SR-71 in 1976. The final ascent to peak altitude was completed by
Wyatt. A peak altitude over 96,500 feet was reached at about 4:10 PM and we stayed above
96,000 feet for over 40 minutes. The record flight was witnessed by Stanley Nelson,
chairman of the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Peak altitude
was where the power available from the sun matched the power required for level-flight. At
peak altitude, while we were still getting about 24 KW from the sun, several stars were
visible in the up-looking, fish-eye camera. Also, it's interesting to note that the
aircraft climbed above 99% of the earth's atmosphere. |
QUANTUM Technologies WorldWide,
Inc. (Nasdaq: IMCO) announced today that it has been awarded a
major contract by AeroVironment and NASA to design, fabricate, test and supply large
advanced hydrogen and oxygen tanks for the next generation Helios fuel cell prototype
aircraft. The Helios fuel cell aircraft is a remotely piloted flying wing prototype for
NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft
and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project -- demonstrating the capability to carry a
payload of scientific instruments and telecommunications relay equipment for the next
generation of broadband communications.
The unique system to be developed by QUANTUM is a key enabling technology that will allow
Helios to fly continuously for up to 6 months at altitudes up to 60,000 feet.
Ultra-light-weight, low permeability, hydrogen and oxygen tanks are critical for achieving
the high specific energy and for minimizing reactant gas loss required for the energy
storage system.
...The Helios prototype is the fourth
generation of all-wing aircraft designed and built by AeroVironment at its Design
Development Center in Simi Valley, CA, as technology demonstrators for future
solar-powered high-altitude aircraft platforms for science and commercial missions. The
Helios prototype has a wingspan of 247 feet-longer than the wingspans of the Air Force C-5
military transport (222 feet) or the Boeing 747 commercial jetliner (195 feet) -- the two
largest operational aircraft in the United States. The lightweight, electrically powered
Helios is constructed mostly of composite materials such as carbon fiber, graphite epoxy,
Kevlar, Styrofoam, and a thin, transparent plastic skin.
The Helios fuel cell aircraft uses an
electrolyzer to disassociate water molecules using excess electrical energy generated by
the solar cells. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are accumulated in separate tanks. At night,
when the solar cells stop producing electricity, the process is reversed. The oxygen and
hydrogen gases are fed into a fuel cell that produces water and electricity. The
electricity is used to power the Helios prototype until the next morning, when the cycle
starts all over again. more |
Harvesting
for Fuel - The Engineer
February 15, 2001
The proposed new fuelling system, called Alchemist, would allow a plane
the size of a Boeing 777 to take off from a runway with an orbiter on its back. It would
fly around in the atmosphere for a few hours, storing oxygen in liquid form, which would
then be combined with liquid hydrogen and used to blast the space-shuttle-sized orbiter
into space. 'Normally, you carry six pounds of liquid oxygen for every pound of hydrogen.
When you take off with only hydrogen, you carry only one seventh of the propellant
weight,' said Dana Andrews, chief technology officer at US aerospace company Andrews Space
& Technology. Since 90 per cent of a conventional rocket's take-off weight is fuel
cutting that figure leads to a huge saving, said Andrews. The company has proposed its
oxygen-harvesting scheme as part of NASA's Space Launch Initiative, a program that's
studying emerging technologies for a reusable launch vehicle that is safer and cheaper
than the space shuttle. By doing without liquid oxygen at take-off, the plane's total
weight would be cut almost in half. Because there would be no chance of liquid oxygen
coming into contact with liquid hydrogen, the likelihood of an explosion during launch
would be considerably reduced, theoretically making it possible for a carrier plane and
orbiter to take off from a commercial airport.
Futurists See
Living 'Off the Land' of the Moon
June 8, 2000 by James McWilliams Huntsville Times
(Alabama) |
Robots
could lay the groundwork for lunar-mining colonies and orbiting solar-power stations could
turn space trips into profitable commercial ventures, said Gregg Maryniak, executive
director of the X Prize Foundation, a St. Louis-based group promoting space-based
commerce.
''You could get 99 percent of the materials for a solar-power station
from the moon,'' Maryniak said at the conference, hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center at the Von Braun Center.
... Building colonies in space from materials in space could allow
people to live ''off the land,'' like the first explorers visiting the Americas did, said
Maryniak and other speakers.
The rocks and soil on the moon have aluminum, iron, silicon, calcium,
glass and other materials that could be useful in building a power station, and have
oxygen and hydrogen that could be used in rocket fuel for propelling lunar materials into
orbit or toward Earth, Maryniak said.
''The moon is 40 percent oxygen, by weight,'' said Maryniak. Hydrogen
is at the lunar poles. |
 Will
We
Live on Mars?
by Jeffery Kluger
April 10, 2000 Time
Magazine |
| For the past decade--ever
since NASA's 1989 proposal laid its half- trillion-dollar egg--the space community has
been intrigued by a mission scenario known as the Mars Direct plan. Developed by engineers
at Martin Marietta Astronautics, a NASA contractor, Mars Direct calls not merely for
visiting the Red Planet but also for living off the alien land. As early as 2005, when Earth and Mars are in
their once
every-26-months alignment, the plan envisions launching a four-person spacecraft to
Mars--but launching it with its tanks empty of fuel and its cabin empty of crew. Landing
on the surface, the craft would begin pumping Martian atmosphere--which is 95% carbon
dioxide--into a reaction chamber, where it would be exposed to hydrogen and broken down
into methane, water and oxygen. Methane and oxygen make a first- rate rocket fuel; water
and oxygen are necessary human fuels. All these consumables could be pumped into tanks
inside the ship and stored there.
Two years later, when Mars and Earth
are again in conjunction, another spacecraft--this one carrying a crew--would be sent to
join the robot ship on the surface. The astronauts could work on Mars for 18 months,
living principally in their arrival craft, and then, at the end of their stay, abandon
that ship, climb into the robot craft and blast off for home. |
High-Altitude Airship Concept Design
Nears Completion at Lockheed Martin
February 16, 2000 Defence Systems Daily, UK |
Lighter-than-air
vehicles operating at altitudes of 21 kilometres (70,000 feet) are nearing a reality
thanks in large measure to the technical savvy of Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics &
Surveillance Systems-Akron and the convictions of Stratcom President Lt. Gen. James A.
Abrahamson, USAF (retired), and other members of its stratospheric airship industrial
team.
All vital technologies were evaluated individually during the recently
concluded concept feasibility phase, which began in October 1998, and are ready for
integration into a demonstration vehicle.
...Since it is not practical to carry fuel aloft in a long-endurance
buoyant vehicle, all power must be generated on station. This includes payload and
propulsive power. A combination of photovoltaic (PV) and fuel cell systems likely will be
used to provide the multiple kilowatts of power necessary for these functions. The PV and
regenerative fuel cell technologies required by the vehicle are being developed based on
work at NASA-Glenn in Cleveland and NASA-Dryden at Edwards AFB. |
Hubble
Finds Much of the Universe's Missing Hydrogen
"Atomic fuels will make
possible rockets with liftoff weights one-fifth that of today’s or with payloads
three to four times more massive."
-- Bryan Palaszewski, Glenn principal investigator
|
Rocket
fuels researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center have made for the first time tiny
particles of frozen hydrogen suspended in liquid helium. This is the first step toward new
rocket fuels that can revolutionize rocket propulsion technology needed for getting off
the Earth.
In the experiments, small amounts of liquid hydrogen were poured onto
the surface of liquid helium. The liquid hydrogen was at a temperature of 14 kelvins
(minus 435 degrees F), just above freezing point; and the liquid helium was held at 4
kelvins (minus 452 degrees F), or just above absolute zero. As the liquid hydrogen fell
toward the surface of the helium, small, solid hydrogen particles formed and then floated
on the surface of the helium.
The suspension will be used to make futuristic atomic fuels that take
advantage of the chemical recombination of atoms into molecules.
...Using atomic fuels could reduce or eliminate on-orbit assembly of
large space vehicles, thereby eliminating multiple launches and years of assembly time and
making flights to all parts of the solar system less expensive and more practicable.
NASA Glenn Research Center/Science Daily |
Boeing Rocketdyne and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries
Partner to Develop New Upper-Stage Rocket Engine
NASA TERMINATES X-33
Next
Generation Spaceplane Project Killed
X-33 Fuel Tank Cracks
November 5, 1999 |
A joint NASA-Lockheed Martin team
is meeting at Marshall to analyze the nature and extent of the damage, and to determine
the probable cause, Marshall spokesman Dave Drachlis said this morning.
At 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, engineers observing the tank through video
monitors discovered damage near one of its seams, said Drachlis. The damage went through
the tank's outer skin and exposed honeycomb material underneath. Engineers need to
investigate to find out what other damage might exist, he said.
Two hours earlier, the tank had been through a test cycle that appeared
to have normal results, Drachlis said. The tank had passed a pressure test with a full
load of liquid hydrogen, and had passed a structural-loads test to simulate the force of
the X-33's fully loaded, liquid oxygen tank sitting atop the liquid hydrogen tank.
The X-33 is a more than $1.2 billion project. NASA is investing just
under $1 billion in the vehicle, while Lockheed Martin and its business partners are
investing $287 million, said Drachlis.
by James McWilliams
The Huntsville Times (Alabama) |
|
|
The 29-foot, 4,600-pound
graphite epoxy tank is called a "protoflight" article because it is being used
for testing but was also intended to be installed on the X-33 for test flights.
On Wednesday, the hydrogen tank had successfully completed a
cryogenic pressure test while it was fully fueled with the super-cold rocket propellant.
Test engineers filled the tank with 29,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen. They then brought
the tank's internal pressure to 42 psi, or 105 percent of its design. The pressure was
maintained for seven minutes before being reduced.
by Justin Ray
Flordia Today |
X-33 Liquid Hydrogen Fuel Tank Ready
For Tests
September 7, 1999 |
Tests are to begin this week on the first of two 4,600-pound graphite
epoxy tanks, each designed to carry approximately 29,000 gallons of rocket fuel -- liquid
hydrogen -- at -423 degrees Fahrenheit. The twin hydrogen tanks form the flanks of the
X-33 vehicle and comprise roughly half its airframe.
The X-33 is being developed in a partnership between NASA and the
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif. The vehicle is a half-scale,
sub-orbital technology demonstrator of a proposed future reusable launch vehicle Lockheed
Martin calls "VentureStar™."
...Before testing the tank with liquid hydrogen, it will be partially filled
with liquid nitrogen and then pressurized to test its structural integrity. Once nitrogen
testing is complete, Marshall engineers will fill the tank with liquid hydrogen to
simulate internal pressure loads.
...The vehicle is scheduled to conduct flight tests beginning in summer
2000. It will fly faster than 13 times the speed of sound and at an altitude of 60 miles
to prove its technologies and systems.
NASA/Marshall Space
Flight Center |
|
In the early 1970s Gerald
Rosen, a professor of physics at Philadelphia's Drexel University
and one of the highest paid theoretical physicists in the United
States, was contracted by NASA to determine whether it would be
possible to store hydrogen as individual atoms rather than as
molecules. His calculations predicted it was not only possible, but
that so much fuel could be stored in a small space that the Apollo
astronauts could have traveled to the moon in a rocket the size of a
pickup truck.
Skunk Works Magic
Jim Wilson
Popular Mechanics
September 1999 |
|
Manufacture and Deflagration of an Atomic
Hydrogen Propellant Gerald Rosen AIAA
Journal, vol. 12, issue 10
pp. 1325-1330 October 1974 |
|
|
