WAVERIDER and ASTRA, A History

  by

Duncan Lunan

ASTRA Program ASTRA Home page ASTRA History Airdrie Activities Airdrie Public Observatory Contact Info Members Info Astronomy Rocketry Waverider X-Craft SETI Links Publications Society News Travel Directions               If you haven't already done so Please Sign ASTRA's Guestbook                                    Should you wish to contact the society or require general information please contact ASTRA using the following Email address: info@astra.org.uk                 Should you encounter any problems with this Web Page please email: portwin@easynet.co.uk

Page Two In 1970 ASTRA acquired meeting rooms in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, and Professor Nonweiler was invited to open them on April 29th. For obvious topical reasons his subject was 'The Apollo 13 Disaster', and he addressed the point in terms of a detailed criticism of the design philosophy of the US and Soviet manned space programmes, for which his kindest word was 'pragmatic'. In his view all decisions had been taken in relation to the Space Race, forcing adoption of the aluminium-and-ceramic materials technology and the aerodynamic shapes already devised in the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Programmes (on which he HAD spoken on that night in 1962). The development of sophisticated aerodynamic shapes and the advanced materials technology to go with them, already well advance in the X-15 and its unmanned counterparts, had been brushed aside; the X-20 Dyna-Soar had simply been cancelled before glide tests of the prototype. Serious design errors like putting all the oxygen tanks in the same bay of the Apollo Service Module were only to be expected in the circumstances. Although much slower, a development programme of winged vehicles would have been far preferable. "Man and the Stars" went to press in the autumn of 1973 and the publishers and ASTRA were agreed that we should go straight on to a second project on the exploration and development of the Solar System. The first contributor's lecture was Professor Nonweiler's, on 'The Role and Future of the Space Shuttle', on 14th November, in Glasgow University Union. By this time the Space Shuttle design had been finalised and in his critique of it Professor Nonweiler made it clear that the march was continuing down an extremely chancy road - the major constraint now being cost, not time. He went on to predict in detail the factors which would delay the entry of the Space Shuttle into service at the point in 1979 when supposedly it would be ready, and sad to say, he was right on all points But Terence wasn't speaking from the position of having no alternative to suggest. He went on to outline the Waverider principle to the meeting, in more detail than we'd ever heard it before, and it captured the imaginations of all present. Even on the night, novel ideas for Waverider applications flew around; by the one-day seminar at the midpoint of our "Man and the Planets" project, hosted at Glasgow University on June 22nd 1974, a good deal of headway had already been made and preliminary artwork by Ed Buckley and Gavin Roberts was on display. Robert Shaw, one of ASTRA's junior members at that time, was probably the first to suggest that the society should undertake practical work on Waverider, at lower speed ranges, as Nonweiler himself had said for years that some British group should do. Shaw's ideas included solid-fuel boost of a Waverider model which would be lifted to test altitude by balloon. Unfortunately he fell out with the society in other areas and ceased to be a member in 1976. Continuing discussions had meanwhile evolved a suggestion for an interplanetary Waverider programme, with electromagnetic launch from Low Earth Orbit. In the end this separated into two proposals, one for a rotary electromagnetic launcher (included in "Man and the Planets") and the other the paper which I gave at the L5 Society conference in 1977. In the same year, at the suggestion of the artist Gavin Roberts, Waverider replaced the conventional spaceship which previously had been ASTRA's logo. As a result of the JBIS version of that L5 paper in 1982, we learned later, ESA and CNES gave serious thought to Waverider as a possible configuration for the Hermes shuttle or for post-Hermes vehicles. Travelling at several times the speed of sound, a waverider wing would generate a plane shockwave below it, attached to the leading edges; consequently the shape of the cavity and the platform of the vehicle are directly related. A delta platform gives the shape which is known as the 'caret wing', because from the rear it looks like an inverted 'V' or a printer's caret. A Concorde-type platform gives a cavity shaped like a Gothic arch; this was the one which the Royal Aircraft Establishment evolved as best for their Mach 6 airliner design. In the original theory, at hypersonic speeds the upper surface would play no part in generating lift because the shockwaves would not be in contact with it; and for best performance the wing-loading should be low, making the Waverider a very efficient glider. These were the main considerations generating our ideas on Waverider applications. As a Waverider development programme we proposed a series of planetary missions which we dubbed 'gliding entry', to distinguish them as a class from the direct entry missions conducted or considered at that time. For example a Waverider could be used to map the ionosphere of Jupiter, which is multi-layered and deep, but was passed through by the Galileo entry probe in just a few seconds. It similarly can be used for prolonged exploration of the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere, so far sampled only by vertical sounding rockets. Because the most intense plasma would be concentrated below the Waverider during atmospheric entry, it should be possible to remain in contact with it from overhead, or from Earth in the case of a planetary mission, through the entry phase. At ASTRA's Waverider conference in 1988, we earned from Dr. James Randolph of JPL that the TDRS satellite had been able to retain contact with the Space Shuttle from above during reentry, for telemetry though not for speech. The Shuttle is immersed in plasma during entry to a much greater extent than the Waverider would be. Page One Page Three

WAVERIDER and ASTRA, A History

Website Author: Nick Portwin (portwin@easynet.co.uk)

© 1998 - The material contained within this Web page is copyrighted by ASTRA on behalf of a number of individuals who have contributed to this website.

The material within this website may be reproduced for educational none-profit making purposes. The only condition imposed for reproducing this material is that you acknowledge the source of the material. This acknowledgement should include ASTRA's website address (www.astra.org.uk) as well as ASTRA's email address (info@astra.org.uk).

Date Last Modified: 31 07 1999