Re: Cargo down mass?


"Derek Lyons" <fairwater@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4a94a393.319647953@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Brian Gaff" <briang1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:vusim.69043$OO7.27410@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For images and more information about the experiment, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/irve.html

This is the sort of cutting edge research NASA should be doing every year.

NASA is doing cutting edge research routinely. It just doesn't show
up here for discussion much because it's not always the big sexy
stuff.

That and they're not doing anything very big anymore. Most of the money
gets eaten up by the manned spaceflight budget. NASA has yet to fly a
liquid fueled axial or linear aerospike engine on a flight profile similar
to a launch vehicle's first stage (which is where you'd use such an engine).
The linear aerospike engines from X-33 were only tested on the ground. The
data which really needs to be gathered would be at altitude (from sea level
to vacuum).

The best I've seen so far is sounding rocket data which used a solid stage
and compared a conventional nozzle to an axial aerospike nozzle.
Unfortunately, the data wasn't very good (likely due to erosion of the
nozzles by the solid exhaust), so no real conclusions could be made.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon


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