portwin@easynet.co.uk

For extended missions in the atmosphere of Venus, Jupiter, and Titan, the current emphasis is on balloons. These are however at the mercy of the winds, limiting the study to one airstream unless another can be entered by rising or falling; the same factor limits their usefulness for surface studies. Moreover in the atmosphere of Venus, the only planet where balloon probes have so far been deployed, their lifetime was short. Waveriders would initially be able to cut across air streams for more comprehensive sampling, and once they slowed down, would remain aloft almost indefinitely in the denser atmospheric layers. (Nonweiler remarked that at 2-3 atmospheres' pressure a Waverider's stalling speed would be so low that "you could get out and walk beside it.")

On Mars, Venus and probably Titan, Waveriders can be used to deliver payloads accurately to preselected surface sites. Since the Waverider travels at a high angle of attack during the fiery phase of entry, the worst of the heat does not impinge on the top surface and landers can be carried as deck cargo, without having to be fitted into thermally protective aeroshells - although Gordon Ross of ASTRA and the University of Maryland independently discovered that even at high Mach numbers there has to be a smooth flow over the upper surface to realise Waveriders high theoretical performance. As Nonweiler said, one would stop short of having an open cockpit.

Stalling speed in the Martian atmosphere would be about 400kph, comparable to the touchdown speed of the Space Shuttle on Earth. This does not lend itself to soft landings of conventional payloads, but in a test at Largs we learned (involuntarily) that a caret Waverider functions very effectively as a penetrator. In flight, however, Waveriders could perform extended gliding missions over Mars, flying down the Great Rift, for example, or spiralling down Olympus Mons for close-ups of the mysterious cliffs at its base.

In the practical exploitation of the Solar Systems resources, there is major concern in the developing world that the poorer countries will not benefit from these resources and that the gap between rich and poor nations will be widened. The United Nations Moon treaty has not been signed by Britain or the USA; but the 1967 Treaty on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space includes the principle that extraterrestrial resources are the common heritage of mankind. Under whatever auspices the resources of the Moon and the planets come to be exploited, its clear that it will have to be on an international basis and with safeguards for the rights of the developing nations. Waverider has a major role to play because its low wing-loading allows it a landing footprint, descending from space, which literally envelops the Earth; and also allows it a touchdown speed of less than 160kph. A delivery vehicle which can land anywhere on Earth, on ordinary runways, will be of great political importance. Other ideas from the Man and the Planets discussions suggested that in the late 21st century Waveriders could have a role comparable to that of Containers in the late 20th.

In 1979 ASTRA organised, jointly with the Third Eye Centre and the Glasgow Parks Department Astronomy Project, an exhibition entitled The High Frontier: a decade of space research. Two caret Waverider models were built by Bill Braithwaite, weren't ready for the exhibition; while it was on tour, however, one of them was completed by John Bonsor, now no longer a member of ASTRA. Its display led to a meeting between John Bonsor and Gordon Dick (as Gordon Ross then was) in 1981, and to their setting up ASTRAs Waverider Aerodynamic Study Programme in January 1982. The first stages of the project recapitulated the Royal Aircraft Establishment research, moving towards an M-wing configuration. This proved highly unstable in pitch, on its one test flight, and ended its days as a rocket-powered boat. Counting the 1979 models as Mark I, the Mark V version was a reentry vehicle design - a caret wing with a vertical stabiliser, with a family resemblance to the RAE airliner design.

In 1983, John Pitfield of Rocket Propulsion Systems (now Rocket Services) offered the group the opportunity to fly a model at over Mach 4, at 30km altitude, released on the second development flight of his company's Tiger rocket. John conducted a number of test launches with attached Waveriders on the noses of smaller rockets, recapitulating the RAE test of 1962. Gordon presented a report on the Tiger plan at the European Youth & Space conference in 1983, and although in the end this offer came to nothing, ASTRA conducted its own tests on a smaller scale in 1985 and 1988. The first of these, witnessed by Dr. James Randolph of JPL, involved the successful release of a small Waverider into spiral flight at approximately 1000 feet, and although the glider was not recovered, we believe we can claim the first rocket launch of a Waverider into stable free flight. We also claim the first free flight, hand-launched earlier that year, but the USAF disputes this: they claim to have achieved an attached shockwave with one of the prototypes of the XB-70 hypersonic bomber, but even if they did, we would argue that it wasn't a true Waverider because it had a conventional aerofoil wing.