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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and dated 8 March 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It gives a historical and technical review of how to reach space and return. It covers hypersonic gliders, air-breathing and rocket propulsion, thermodynamics and materials, and launch options. It argues that reliable, schedulable access to low Earth orbit is mainly a hardware and propulsion problem rather than a technology one.
“The Advance”12 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/,Sf81il 8ffll!ltllt ~!II!! SHLY McDonnell Aircraft Advanced Design Dept. 1958 to 1967 Mr. H. D.Altis. Director Figure 3. HSVS Hypersonic Cruise Aircraft Showing True Skin Temperature A wide variety of configurations for recoverable spacecraft are possible. But if the requirements for a transportation system capable of traveling to and returning from space are to be met, the configurations spectrum is significantly narrowed. Two basic configuration types emerge. One configuration is for a hypersonic glider powered by either rocket or air-breathing rocket cycle propulsion that can operate as air-breathing propulsion to mach 5.5 or less. A versatile variable-capture, inward-turning inlet4 can be integrated with the vehicle configuration derived from the FDL series of hypersonic gliders developed by the U.S. Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory (AFFDL) 5 and the work of the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company. Because of the mass ratio to orbit, these configurations are vertical takeoff and horizontal landing vehicles, exemplified by the upper-left vehicle in Figure 4. This vehicle is usually an upper stage in a two-stage-to-orbit rather than a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. 3 UNCLASSIFIED/;«ra~ 8FFI&l11J.k W£i Ollk¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 56 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.