I received word via the NASA Alumni Association that Dennis Bushnell passed away. Dennis Bushnell was a long-serving Chief Scientist of NASA Langley Research Center. I remember meeting him for the first time when there was internal research funding available at NASA for researchers. I wrote a proposal on fluid thrust factoring of a particular …
Category Archives: Astronautics
The Three Pillars of Rocketry Culminating in Human Spaceflight
Below is an article that is upcoming in the NASA Alumni newsletter without images. “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Modern rocketry began with foundational work by pioneers such as Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, Goddard, and the American Rocket Society. Their theoretical and experimental advances …
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Research Notes on Hermann Oberth
“To boldly go where no man has gone before.” – Hermann Oberth Hermann Oberth’s theoretical breakthroughs transformed rocketry from speculative fiction into science, thus influencing the development of modern space exploration. His mentorship of Wernher von Braun and contributions to the V-2 rocket program set foundational principles that shape the field. Germany’s major figure in …
Research Notes on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky In 1903, Tsiolkovsky wrote an article called, “Exploration of outer space by means of rocket devices,” in The Science Review. Born in September 1857 in the village of Izhevskoye, Russia, Tsiolkovsky was the fifth child in a …
Early Rockets and Review Notes
One of the earliest documented uses of rockets was in China. Father Antoine Gaubil, a French Jesuit missionary and historian, described an event in his 1739 writings, “When it was lit, it made a noise that resembled thunder and extended 24 km. The place where it fell was burned, and the fire extended more than …
Hypersonics History of Reentry
Lately, I have been examining the entire history of hypersonics research and technology, with a particular focus on the re-entry problem and ablation for small vehicles, such as those from ballistic missiles. While reviewing the writings of Wernher von Braun, I was amused to find that he joked about using frozen balsa wood as a …
Earth Density and Cavendish, 1798
Newton knew that the force of gravity causes falling objects near the Earth’s surface (such as the famous apple) to accelerate toward the Earth at a rate of 9.8 m/s2. He also knew that the Moon accelerated toward the Earth at a rate of 0.00272 m/s2. If it was the same force that was acting …
National Air and Space Museum’s Journey Toward 2025
Appearing next month in the NASA Alumni Newsletter. Walking on the Washington, D.C. Mall is an inspiring experience for all citizens. One might be inspired by the many memories and great institutions of our American people. Nestled as one of the most visited museums of the world is the National Air and Space Museum, just …
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Reflection on Twenty Years Since the Loss of Columbia
Graduate Student Garrison S. Osborne and Steven A. E. MillerUniversity of Florida Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Well before the loss of Columbia, the NASA Office of Technology Assessment wrote, “Shuttle reliability is uncertain, but has been estimated to range between 97 and 99 percent. If the Shuttle reliability is 98 percent, there would …
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AIAA SciTech 2023
This year, some of my students and collaborators are going to the AIAA SciTech conference in the DC area in the National Harbor, MD. We are presenting two particular papers. The first involves hypersonic flow-fields and the second involves acoustics and aerodynamic experiments. The citations, papers, and presentations are: