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HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a 1980s British design for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spaceplane that was to be powered by an airbreathing jet engine. Development was being conducted by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace (BAe).
Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft from one star system, solitary star, or planetary system to another. Interstellar travel is expected to prove much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight due to the vast difference in the scale of the involved distances. Whereas the distance between any two planets in the Solar System is less than 30 astronomical units (AU), stars are typically separated by hundreds of thousands of AU, causing these distances to typically be expressed instead in light-years. Because of the vastness of these distances, non-generational interstellar travel based on known physics would need to occur at a high percentage of the speed of light; even so, travel times would be long, at least decades and perhaps millennia or longer.
A single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle reaches orbit from the surface of a body using only propellants and fluids and without expending tanks, engines, or other major hardware. The term usually, but not exclusively, refers to reusable vehicles. To date, no Earth-launched SSTO launch vehicles have ever been flown; orbital launches from Earth have been performed by either fully or partially expendable multi-stage rockets.
The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero, Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books, Vernor Vinge in his Zones of Thought series, and referred to by Carl Sagan in the television series and book Cosmos.
Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It originated as Project Orion with support from DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw Ulam in 1947. Newer designs using inertial confinement fusion have been the baseline for most later designs, including Project Daedalus and Project Longshot.
An interstellar ark is a conceptual starship designed for interstellar travel. Interstellar arks may be the most economically feasible method of traveling such distances. The ark has also been proposed as a potential habitat to preserve civilization and knowledge in the event of a global catastrophe.
Skylon is a series of concept designs for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane by the British company Reaction Engines Limited (Reaction), using SABRE, a combined-cycle, air-breathing rocket propulsion system. The vehicle design is for a hydrogen-fuelled aircraft that would take off from a specially built reinforced runway, and accelerate to Mach 5.4 at 26 kilometres (85,000 ft) altitude using the atmosphere's oxygen before switching the engines to use the internal liquid oxygen (LOX) supply to take it into orbit. It could carry 17 tonnes (37,000 lb) of cargo to an equatorial low Earth orbit (LEO); up to 11 tonnes (24,000 lb) to the International Space Station, almost 45% more than the capacity of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle; or 7.3 tonnes (16,000 lb) to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO), over 24% more than SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle in reusable mode. The relatively light vehicle would then re-enter the atmosphere and land on a runway, being protected from the conditions of re-entry by a ceramic composite skin. When on the ground, it would undergo inspection and necessary maintenance, with a turnaround time of approximately two days, and be able to complete at least 200 orbital flights per vehicle.
Project Daedalus was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible uncrewed interstellar probe. Intended mainly as a scientific probe, the design criteria specified that the spacecraft had to use existing or near-future technology and had to be able to reach its destination within a human lifetime. Alan Bond led a team of scientists and engineers who proposed using a fusion rocket to reach Barnard's Star 5.9 light years away. The trip was estimated to take 50 years, but the design was required to be flexible enough that it could be sent to any other target star.
SABRE is a concept under development by Reaction Engines Limited for a hypersonic precooled hybrid air-breathing rocket engine. The engine is being designed to achieve single-stage-to-orbit capability, propelling the proposed Skylon spaceplane to low Earth orbit. SABRE is an evolution of Alan Bond's series of LACE-like designs that started in the early/mid-1980s for the HOTOL project.
The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration.
The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS) is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1934. The journal covers research on astronautics and space science and technology, including spacecraft design, nozzle theory, launch vehicle design, mission architecture, space stations, lunar exploration, spacecraft propulsion, robotic and manned exploration of the solar system, interstellar travel, interstellar communications, extraterrestrial intelligence, philosophy, and cosmology. It is published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society.
An interstellar probe is a space probe that has left—or is expected to leave—the Solar System and enter interstellar space, which is typically defined as the region beyond the heliopause. It also refers to probes capable of reaching other star systems.
The precooled jet engine is a concept that enables jet engines with turbomachinery, as opposed to ramjets, to be used at high speeds. Precooling restores some or all of the performance degradation of the engine compressor, as well as that of the complete gas generator, which would otherwise prevent flight with high ram temperatures.
Reaction Engines Limited is a British aerospace manufacturer based in Oxfordshire, England.
The Reaction Engines Limited LAPCAT Configuration A2 is a design study for a hypersonic speed jet airliner intended to provide, long range, high capacity commercial transportation.
Project Icarus is a theoretical engineering design study aimed at designing a credible, mainly nuclear fusion-based, unmanned interstellar space probe. Project Icarus was an initiative of members of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) and the Tau Zero Foundation (TZF) started in 2009. The project was under the stewardship of Icarus Interstellar until 2019. It remains a BIS project.
The Enzmann starship is a concept for a crewed interstellar spacecraft proposed in 1964 by Dr. Robert Enzmann. A three million ton ball of frozen deuterium would fuel nuclear fusion rocket engines contained in a cylindrical section behind that ball with the crew quarters. The craft would be about 2,000 feet (600 m) long overall.
Mark Hempsell is a British aerospace engineer and CEO of Hempsell Astronautics Ltd. which is currently designing the Universal Space Interface Standard (USIS), a system which aims to standardise berthing, docking and attachment of satellites and other spacecraft. Hempsell formerly worked at Reaction Engines Limited, where he was a member of the board of directors as the Future Programmes Director.
Richard Antony Varvill is a British engineer, and the Chief Designer at Reaction Engines Limited.
Project Dragonfly is the first conceptual design study that assesses the feasibility of a laser-propelled interstellar probe, conducted by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. Contrary to past unmanned interstellar mission studies such as Project Daedalus and Project Icarus, the focus is particularly on a small spacecraft. The project was founded in 2013 by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is).
References
- 1 2 Reaction Engines Ltd. 2006
- ↑ "Alan Bond retires from Reaction Engines". Reaction Engines. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
- ↑ Bond, A. and M. Hempsell, 2008, A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels' Impact Event, WritersPrintshop, London, United Kingdom. 128 pp. ISBN 1-904623-64-6
- ↑ Fleming, N., 2008, Clay tablet holds clue to asteroid mystery, Daily Telegraph
- ↑ Prager, Christoph; Zangerl, Christian; Nagler, Thomas. "Geological controls on slope deformations in the Köfels rockslide area (Tyrol, Austria)" (PDF). Austrian Journal of Earth Sciences. Vienna. 102/2.
- ↑ Kubik, P. W., S. Ivy-Ochs, J. Masarik, M. Frank, and C. Schluchter, 1998, 10Be and 26Al production rates deduced from an instantaneous event within the dendro-calibration curve, the landslide of Köfels, Otz Valley, Austria. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. vol. 161, no. 1-4, pp. 231–241
- ↑ Ivy-Ochs, S., H. Heuberger, P. W. Kubik, H. Kerschner, G. Bonani, M. Frank, and C. Schluchter, 1998, The age of the Kofels event. Relative, 14C and cosmogenic isotope dating of an early Holocene landslide in the central Alps (Tyrol, Austria). Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie. vol. 34, pp. 57–70.
- ↑ Deutsch, A., C. Koeberl, J.D. Blum, B.M. French, B.P. Glass, R. Grieve, P. Horn, E.K. Jessberger, G. Kurat, W.U. Reimold, J. Smit, D. stoffler, and S.R. Taylor, 1994, The impact-flood connection: Does it exist? Terra Nova. vol. 6, pp. 644–650.
- ↑ BBC Four: The Three Rocketeers, retrieved 14 September 2012
