Posted 7 April 2010
Future Generation Jet Propulsion with Gimbal COntrol and Engine Emergency System
Vincent S. Ryan
+91-9600049849

At present, the next generation jet propulsion concept is to reduce the weight by using the composite material and increasing specific fuel consumption, reducing noise, designing efficient engine component (fan blade, compressor, combustor, turbine and nozzle). This will increase the engine efficiency and performance. What if the future engine would have the above mentioned features and additionally multistage combustion chamber, gimbal control thrust and engine emergency system features. The multistage combustion chamber will provide high exhaust velocity, the engine emergency system will provides a compressed air. Generally engine failure leads to an air disaster, like the Hudson River Miracle. So we need a better, efficient and safe engine for the future, which ensures passenger safety when it fails and other systems in the aircraft fail.

Posted 29 March 2010
Aerospace Engineers Make Good Systems Engineers
George Lesieutre
State College, PA

g-lesieutre@psu.edu

Much has been made at recent AIAA meetings about aerospace and defense workforce issues, as well as the particular need for systems and project engineering skills. It surprises some of my colleagues to learn that, of all the engineers who work in the aerospace industry, only perhaps 10-15% of them have degrees in aerospace engineering, as such. The rest have all manner of backgrounds, including mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, as well as computer science and physics. In my experience, this means that many of the people responsible for hiring do not understand what distinguishes aerospace engineering from other related fields. To support a recent review of U.S. doctoral degree programs, the National Research Council used a taxonomy of the field that included the following: aeronautical and space vehicles; systems engineering and multidisciplinary design optimization; aerodynamics; astrodynamics; structures and materials; propulsion and power; navigation, guidance, control and dynamics; and multi-vehicle systems (including ATC). One of the things that distinguishes the undergraduate curriculum in aerospace engineering is a multi-semester capstone design sequence focused on flight vehicles: students learn how the core disciplines interact in the design of feasible, even optimal, vehicle systems. Many companies have a practice of identifying and growing talent internally in the areas of systems and project engineering. Who better to get on this track early than aerospace engineers? They've already learned to to think about systems and have been introduced to some of the design tools -- and many of them have experience with hardware and software systems right out of school, including entries in national competitions like the AIAA Student Design-Build-Fly Competition or the USAF AFRL University Nanosat Program.

Posted 18 March 2010
America’s Lead in Aerospace
Thomas S. Momiyama
U.S. Senior Executive Service (Retired)
Associate Fellow AIAA

What would it take for America to remain the Number 1 aerospace nation? The United States must ultimately survive the 21st century’s precarious world beset with dire economic straits of major nations, consuming “wars” on terrorism, destabilizing nuclear-possession threats of third world countries and widespread destructive regional internecine clashes. This global scene calls for a viable and legitimate military power oversight by responsible nations, especially the de facto lone superpower United States, to hold the fragile peace of the world in balance. And aviation is the central ingredient of that modern military capability, aka “kinetic” power—in the context of “smart” foreign policy.

In the economy-centric “globalization,” nations are setting out each on its own to carve out the most advantageous role possible in this unscripted drama. Foreign sales competitions of proliferating new fighters, as well as airliners, have replaced the classic arms race. The “Made in USA” label is respected but no longer warrants the “monopoly” of American aircraft sales. Not, at the prices of Pentagon’s maligned acquisition process, e.g., of the F-22 and F-35 JSF.

under the surface of this sales competition is a heightened race to excel in the aerospace technology, that is, to spearhead in innovations to make “my” aircraft ever better and, above all, different (a vital term, given that warfare and its needs are continuously and endlessly changing and expanding). Contrary to the prevailing acquisition management mandate, technology innovations precede and anticipate rather than respond to real time operational requirements. Catching up on undeveloped technology during aircraft acquisition is a major cause of cost increase and program delays. In fact, only the new technologies can provide new options for superlative warfare capabilities—UAV/UCAS, for recent example.

Those technology innovations are intrinsic “brain child” of the select scientists and engineers honed in their oft long career of research, concept formulation, design, development and testing of the superlative systems now serving the nation’s frontline warfare and air-transport needs. The (aerospace) industry, with its commercial “mission” to maximize profit, typically shies away from the “high risk, high payoff” investment, the synonym for technology innovation. The nation must thus look to its outright own cadre of innovators in NASA’s and Air Force, Army and Naval Systems Commands’ laboratories, wind tunnels, test facilities and engineering centers.

The funding resources required for technology innovation are surprisingly minimal. They are the S&T (science and technology) front tip of the Defense RDT&E funding, which precedes and technically justifies the usually enormous bulk of the procurement and O&M (operations and maintenance) funding of the defense budget. The military services’ respective S&T specialists partner in programs under NASA’s research funding and Department of Defense’s own DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Program Agency) to make the U.S. technology development a national thrust. The career civil service and military engineers and test pilots are what it takes to keep America in lead in aerospace. The nation would do well to continue reaffirming this special asset.

Posted 8 March 2010
Dale Lawrence Jensen, P.E.
The United States space policy is in disarray because of the President’s decision to cancel the Constellation ( Ares I & IV vehicles) program. The Congress may overrule the President because of the loss of jobs this may cause some of their constituents. However, this decision, to cancel the Constellation program, is the correct one. The purpose of the U.S. space policy should not be to provide jobs, but to pursue a reasonable, rational, and logical course of action which will be a wise and valid expenditure of public funds. I applaud the administration’s decision to cancel the Constellation program. The Constellation program was political patronage to provide jobs for the NASA Johnson Manned Space Flight Center in Houston, Texas. As such, it was a waste of public money. It was a waste of public money, not because of the jobs it created but because it was planned to use a, greatly, inefficient rocket engine, the RS-68. This engine operates at a specific impulse of 410 seconds, compared with the space shuttle rocket engines, which operate at a specific impulse of 454 seconds. The result would be a system similar to the space shuttle, but greatly, more expensive to operate. The U.S. space policy should be to develop advanced-performance rocket engines operating at a much more efficient specific impulse of 470 seconds. These engines would put a greater payload in orbit at lesser cost. That is a valid reason to spend public money, and it will maintain U.S. leadership in space.

Posted 2 March 2010
Identity Withheld
According to Space News, Senator Mikulski recently said that “Chief among the principles I will rely on [in drafting the 2011 funding bill for NASA] is astronaut safety... Safety must be assured by the system NASA chooses.” No one would suggest that anyone, government astronaut of private citizen, should fly on an unsafe vehicle. But what have we come to when assuring astronaut safety is the #1 priority? Would we have broken the sound barrier? Flown the X-15? Put Alan Shepherd in space, John Glenn in orbit or Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon? John Young and Bob Crippen flew the first Shuttle mission in 1981 without a single test flight to orbit. Perhaps the American public is so convinced that space operations must be “safe” that a politician must take that position, but if NASA believes it we should stop pretending we want a human exploration program. No launch vehicle that has ever carried a human to orbit would be qualified as “safe” under NASA’s draft standards. Does that make sense? A human space program is a careful balance of safety and reward. If assuring safety is the overriding criteria, we’ll never get off the pad.