Centre for Hypersonics - HyShot Scramjet Test Programme

[Steve Schear]

At 09:45 AM 2/23/01 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote:
>I'll speculate that Jim posted this as a demo that 'amateur' rocketry
>can reach orbit. If you read the article, you'll find it does nothing of
>the kind. This is suborbital - in fact, the rocket goes almost 350km
>straight up and down (they're testing scramjet configurations during
>re-entry).

A significant portion of a solid rocket motor's weight is the casing and 
nozzle.  The casing allows the gases from the burning propellent to 
generate enough pressure that when they exit the nozzle their moving a very 
high velocity.  One of the brightest recent ideas in rocketry comes from 
Technanogy (http://www.technanogy.net): if you reduce the size of the 
propellent grains the velocity of the gasses at the burning surface can go 
from sub-sonic to supersonic without the need for a nozzle (perhaps even a 
casing).  Goodbye nozzle and casing, hello single-stage to orbit.  Thrust 
vectoring, if desired, would be accomplished by other well-known means.

Technanogy has built a pilot plant to manufacture 40 nm aluminum 
powder.  The technology's efficacy was verified by a series of test at 
Aerospace Corp. and they have secured a grant to retrofit a large number 
Sidewinders.  They claim that the change should dramatically increase range 
with minimal weapon system changes.  If successful they hope to apply their 
approach to orbital vehicles.

steve