Engineers at NASA already were thinking seriously about a reusable human spacecraft when Neil Armstrong made his small step for mankind on July 20, 1969. The Cold War race to the Moon had been won even before Armstrong and Aldrin opened Tranquility Base, when the Soviets’ N1 Moon rocket fell victim to mechanical complexity and political squabbling. It was time for the U.S. space agency to look ahead.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
Conceived as a way to reach a U.S. space station that was never built, the space shuttle wound up enabling construction of the International Space Station that is just coming on line as the shuttle era ends. The seeds of the ISS were planted at the very beginning of shuttle development, when NASA gave Europe a role in its new reusable launch system as a way both to defray its cost and to keep European ambitions in the space-launch arena in check.
With enough fresh shots of Orion for a couple of months of processing, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) is proving to be as stable a platform for deep-space imaging in the infrared range as NASA hoped when it converted a Boeing 747SP into a flying telescope.
European space ministers say an improved governance setup will be needed if the European Union is to assume a lead role in space policy-making. At a Nov. 25 meeting of the EU-ESA Space Council, which sets Europe’s space policy, ministers said shortcomings with the two bodies’ Galileo satellite navigation system and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security network—combined with provisions in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty making space a formal EU activity—require the makeup of the council to be reevaluated.
“For the [price of] the alternate engine on the Joint Strike Fighter, I could have 100 more Predators easily,” says Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, alluding to the General Atomics’ UAS in high demand in combat. “Which would you buy?” the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked last week at the Credit Suisse/Aviation Week Aerospace & Defense Finance conference in New York. The No.
USN Capt. (ret). R. L. (Bud) Keeler, Jr. (Eustis, Fla.)
I read with great interest the articles in the “Future Cockpits” feature concerning all the new auto-systems—PBN, EVS, SVS, 4D-TBO—that await us (AW&ST Oct. 25, pp. 44-55). However, I noted a lack of discussion of failure modes of these systems or of crew training requirements to handle these failures. Flying, like every physical activity, requires practice. When the Navy trained me in the early 1950s, we practiced for multiple failures.
After decades of promises, directed-energy weapons appear headed for near-term operational use and may be led there by electronic attack programs under development for the military.
For the past seven years, Aviation Week has gathered senior aerospace and defense executives in early November for roundtable discussions of common issues and problems. It is a good time to reflect on a year about to close and the budget cycle that is just beginning. Those who sit in often bear scar tissue from being program managers and are happy to trade their thoughts in a not-for-attribution exchange.
The cordial nature of Latin American aviation may be sorely tested in the coming months as the effects of consolidation heighten competition and alliances battle for dominance. Executives across the region hold each other in high regard, and this was evident during the recent Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) forum in Panama. Avianca/TACA CEO and ALTA President Roberto Kriete praised his peers at LAN Airlines and TAM Airlines for their merger, which he lauded as a boon for the entire region.
Australian safety regulators say operators of Airbus A380s powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines should conduct a fresh round of powerplant inspections due to the discovery of a potential flaw in an oil feed pipe. The latest recommendation was prompted by new findings during the examination of the Trent 900 that suffered an uncontained failure during a Qantas flight from Singapore on Nov. 4. The discovery of the oil pipe problem “appears to provide a more definitive explanation for the [Nov. 4] engine failure,” Qantas says.
European Union emissions allowance (EUA) prices continued October’s losses during the first few days of November, but regained some ground later in the month as prices climbed in line with higher natural gas and power prices. EUAs for delivery in December 2010 closed at €14.20 ($18.60) per metric ton on Nov. 8, the lowest since July 30. The losses were in line with falling U.K. natural gas and German power prices.
With more than 43,000 delivered since production began in 1955, Cessna’s Model 172 Skyhawk is by far the world’ best-selling civil airplane. And if George Bye has his way, it will become the most ecologically advanced one as well.
Todd Ernst has been tapped by Raytheon Co. as vice president-investor relations. He was a senior research analyst at Neuberger Berman, a division of Lehman Brothers Co. He succeeds Marc Kaplan, who has moved to Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems as head of strategic planning and assessment.
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-19 capsule touches down Nov. 26 near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, with International Space Station Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineer Shannon Walker, both of NASA, aboard, along with ISS Flight Engineer and Soyuz pilot Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos. All were in good shape after 163 days on the ISS.
In reference to several letters from readers over the last two months regarding global warning, an engineering background does help cut through the nonsense about the topic. Any thermal engineer knows that if you slow down heat transfer out of a system, it gets hotter. That’s what carbon dioxide does. Turning that into numbers has occupied many bright people for decades, and they publish their error bars, but the basics are accessible to anyone who knows calculus.
The FAA has returned Mexico to a Category-1 safety rating, which will remove restrictions placed on its carriers since the country’s rating was downgraded in July. The Category-1 rating was based on the results of an FAA review of Mexico’s civil aviation authorities last month. While Category-2 restrictions were in place, Mexican carriers could not add new service to the U.S. There were also restrictions placed on code-sharing between U.S. and Mexican carriers.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Amy Butler (New York)
The Pentagon is demanding lower prices for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, pressuring Lockheed Martin and engine supplier Pratt & Whitney to go below their most aggressive cost targets.
Air China plans to set up a subsidiary airline at Dalian with the aim of exploiting the economic development in northeastern China. Dalian Airlines would fly local, provincial and national routes, and also to major cities in Japan and South Korea, says an industry official familiar with a framework agreement that Air China and the city have signed.
Airbus may be pitching its strategy to reengine the A320 family as the “minimum change approach,” but the potential consequences for it and its supply chain and rivals could be anything but that. But for those on the sidelines of the A320NEO (New Engine Option), like Bombardier and Rolls-Royce, the competitive landscape looks far worse. Rolls faces big questions about its product strategy (see p. 29) and Bombardier’s CSeries, already hurting for orders, faces a new rival with far greater market pull.
Germany should strengthen its competitiveness in economically useful applications, ensure that European assets on the International Space Station are put to maximum use and protect Europe’s technological independence, particularly in launchers, according to a new strategic space road map. But the plan, unveiled last week, makes scant mention of lunar exploration or space transportation technologies—two elements that had been high on the German agenda—reflecting changing European budget realities.
Australia has placed the acquisition of Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles for its Boeing F/A-18A/Bs on its “Projects of Concern” watch list because of delays. Project AIR 5418 Phase 1, planned for an initial operational capability against land targets this year, is “running late and risks to capability remain,” says the defense ministry. A live-fire test from an Australian F/A-18 in the U.S., planned for June, is now expected late this year or early next year.
With Congress at an impasse over seemingly everything and only one or two bills expected to pass out of the chambers before the 111th session adjourns, advocates are pressing to add their favorite provisions to must-pass legislation. That means getting language added to bills that otherwise would seem unrelated, even inappropriate, in normal times. But these are strange days, and advocates are thinking positively despite the odds.
Opposition party members in the French Senate say rapidly deteriorating economic conditions require a sweeping review of France’s defense spending plan, along the lines of one undertaken by the U.K. a month ago.
It is the most useful spacecraft ever built for humans to fly, and the most dangerous. The product of a crisis in space exploration very much like the one unfolding today, the U.S. space shuttle has defined the state of the art in human spaceflight for 40 years. Now, as it flies its last missions to the International Space Station, mankind’s next step off the home planet, the space shuttle fleet offers at least two generations’ worth of lessons for future space explorers.
David Leblanc has been named chief operating officer and Cameron Burr executive vice president-corporate development and marketing at Avioserv San Diego . Leblanc and Burr were partners at JetCapital, whose projects included the founding of Pogo Jet with Robert Crandall and Don Burr. They also served as managing directors at Aerothrust Leasing.
