Our neighboring planets may someday be explored by aircraft with no motors or jets or props, but with solar-powered wings that flap and soar like an eagle.
April 16th, 2004
Martian Jet Engine Burns Carbon Dioxide WSPC
Wickman Spacecraft & Propulsion Company has successfully tested a jet engine that burns carbon dioxide. The jet engine would “breathe” and burn the Martian atmosphere as it flies along, just like airplane jet engines breathe the air on earth. What makes this Martian jet engine unique is that the Mars atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is commonly used in fire extinguishers to put out fires on earth. Wickman engineers have developed a system where magnesium powder can be burned directly with carbon dioxide. Magnesium is believed to exist in the soil of Mars and is abundant on earth. This new jet engine would be ideally suited for the Mars Airplane.
April 5th, 2004
Nuclear-powered drone aircraft on drawing board New Scientist
The US Air Force is examining the feasibility of a nuclear-powered version of an unmanned aircraft. The USAF hopes that such a vehicle will be able to “loiter” in the air for months without refuelling, striking at will when a target comes into its sights. Instead of a conventional fission reactor, the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is focusing on a type of power generator called a quantum nucleonic reactor. This obtains energy by using X-rays to encourage particles in the nuclei of radioactive hafnium-178 to jump down several energy levels, liberating energy in the form of gamma rays. A nuclear UAV would generate thrust by using the energy of these gamma rays to produce a jet of heated air.
March 31st, 2004
Space technologies aid solar-powered global flight bid
ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme is to supply state-of-the-art technologies to assist adventurer Bertrand Piccard’s flight around the world in a single-pilot solar-powered aircraft, as the ultimate demonstration of the potential for pollution-free flight.
February 28th, 2004
Using gravity to get off the ground Machine Design
Here’s a good trick: The gravityplane, brainchild of inventor Robert Hunter, will be able to change its density from lighter-than-air to heavier-than-air. The aircraft, still in development, will be similar to a submarine that changes its buoyancy, a form of gravity, to float on the surface of the sea or cruise 300 ft below it. If the design pans out, the plane won’t need any fossil fuel and will have a virtually unlimited range.
February 17th, 2004
NASA Eyes Plane for Mars Survey Discovery News
While Spirit and Opportunity inch along the surface of Mars, engineers are working on a future robotic scout that trades in wheels for wings. Project ARES, which is both the Greek name for Mars as well as NASA’s acronym for the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey, was a candidate for the agency’s first Mars Scout mission
February 11th, 2004
Robot balloons could explore Mars
Remote-controlled balloons carrying armies of mini-robots could be filling Mars’ skies if a project by Californian scientists takes off. Nasa-funded researchers are developing the StratoSail, a balloon with a wing, that can be accurately steered through Mars’ winds for months.
January 28th, 2004
Swiss scientists bid to fly plane on Mars
Scientists in Switzerland are developing an ultra-lightweight plane which could soar through the skies of Mars in about a decade’s time, with the help of balsa wood and model aircraft knowhow. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) chose the small solar-powered, “intelligent”, glider as a low-cost but high technology project for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) “Startiger III” technology programme, scientist Samir Bouabdallah said Wednesday.
January 28th, 2004
Swiss plan new mission to Mars swissinfo
While a United States spacecraft roams the surface of Mars, Swiss experts are involved in a new Mars mission being considered by the European Space Agency (ESA). Dubbed Sky-Sailor, the project involves designing a solar-powered plane that would fly around the red planet.
December 14th, 2003
What’s next? Futurists think big — or small The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Morphing planes that change shape as they fly. Solar-powered aircraft that stay aloft for months. Insect-like robots flapping gossamer wings in the cold thin air of Mars. Elevators to Earth orbit. Affordable family weekends in space hotels. Aerial warfare among squadrons of pilotless drones. Flying spycams no bigger than mosquitoes. Jumbo jets with a thousand passengers. Hypersonic flights from New York to London in under an hour. The future of flight or merely flights of fancy?