JBIS papers (Feb 2006)

[CuddlyRocket]

The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society for February 2006 (vol 59/2) dropped through my letterbox this morning. Below are summaries of the abstracts for the papers it included. If anyone who doesn’t get JBIS is interested in a particular article, I’ll try and do a short summary (though perhaps not for the fifth one – I might not understand it!). This post is by way of an experiment, to see if anyone else is interested in these kinds of advanced concepts. (And helps me get round to actually reading the thing .)

The Challenge of Very Deep Space Exploration: How Far Will the Frontier Be?

How much exploration work will robots be able to perform and what are the limitations of artificial intelligence? Given that limitations to long-range exploration will come from the lack of suitable robots, it attempts to identify enabling technologies that will extend the range of human exploration.

The Sailcraft Splitting Concept

A concept for two solar sailing missions towards interstellar space with one launch. The initial spacecraft comprises two smaller ones with the same sail technology, but with different masses and sail area. This gives optimum cruise speeds for the two craft of 21.0 and 30.6 AU/year, as opposed to a single craft’s 24.2 AU/year.

Solar System Frontier: Exploring the Heliospheric Interface from 1 AU

Describes two experimental approaches – imaging in fluxes of energetic neutral atoms and in extreme ultraviolet. The former is a NASA selected mission (Interstellar Boundary Explorer).

Near-Term Interstellar Sailing

Investigates techniques that allow the possibility of near-ecliptic exploration beyond the heliopause using contemporary solar-sail spacecraft.

Nonobiomimetic Active Shape Control: Fluidic and Swam-Intelligence Embodiments for Planetary Exploration

Investigates the application of Active Shape Control and Generalised Quantum Holography to bioinspired flying or swimming robots for planetary exploration. Apparently allows the problems of 'semantic dyscrasias in highly complex hierarchical dynamical chains to be overcome'.

Max-Microwave Acceleration Experiment with COSMOS-1.

Discussing issues affecting a planned experiment on this Planetary Society craft, which related to direct microwave beam acceleration of a solar sail by photon pressure.

Innovative Explorer Mission to Interstellar Space

Describes the science, payload, mission and spacecraft design, the latter involving Radioisotpe Electric Propulsion – kW-class ion thrusters powered by Pu-238 Stirling radioisotope generators. Also discusses the role of such a mission in assessing heliospheric ‘space climate’, knowledge of which is “vital” for human exploration to Mars and beyond.

Elastic, Electrostatic and Spin Deployment of Ultralight Sails.

Discusses and contrasts the deployment of ultralightweight structures using elastic, charge and spin forces that do not rely on mechanical contact.

These were all papers presented at the Fourth IAA Symposium on Realistic Near-Term Advanced Scientific Space Missions held at Aosta, Italy, on 4-6 July 2005.

[Justin Space]

Interesting. What do the BIS do? Are they looking at British space flight and exploration, or just giving their opinion?

I'm not sure what they serve and their relevance.

[darkenfast]

It's been years since I've seen one of their magazines, but the B.I.S. is one of the landmark organizations in the history of space travel.  An awful lot of the ideas that have made space travel happen have started out as papers published by them.  Isn't this where Arthur C. Clarke's proposal to use satellites for communications started out?

[CuddlyRocket]

darkenfast - 21/1/2006  6:57 PM

Isn't this where Arthur C. Clarke's proposal to use satellites for communications started out?

Yes, he first suggested the concept of communications satellites in a private memorandum to Fellows of the Society prior to first publication in Wireless World. He was one of the founding members in 1933. (The BIS is the world’s longest established organization devoted solely to supporting and promoting the exploration of space and astronautics.)

You can find more of the history and purposes of the BIS here.

Lots of new proposals for space technologies etc. first appear in JBIS. People might recognise this reference: D. Baker and R. Zubrin, "Mars Direct: Combining Near-Term Technologies to Achieve a Two-Launch Manned Mars Mission," JBIS, Vol. 43 No. 11, Nov. 1990 pp. 519-526! There was also the Project Daedalus interstellar probe design.

The authors of the papers in the current issue come from:

Politecnico di Torino.
International Academy of Astronautics
University of Southern California (x2)
NYC College of Technology
BAe Systems
SAIC
Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc
International Nanobiological Testbed Ltd
Microwave Sciences Inc
University of California (x2)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
John Hopkins University
University of Michigan
University of Iowa
NASA Glenn Research Centre (x2)
Microwave Sciences Inc