DARE FOR PLANETARY EXPLORATION
From Andrew Yee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Global Aerospace Corporation
Contact: Dr. Alexey Pankine
(626) 345-1200, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 5, 2002
DARE for Planetary Exploration
ALTADENA, CA -- Balloons outfitted with innovative steering devices and
robot probes could be the future of planetary exploration. Dr. Alexey
Pankine, a fellow at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC),
presented an analysis of balloon applications for planetary science at the
World Space Congress in Houston, Texas last month. His study, entitled
Directed Aerial Robot Explorers or DARE, is funded by NIAC.
At the center of the DARE concept are balloons that can float in planetary
atmospheres for many days. Balloons have long been recognized as low-cost
observational platforms and are routinely used in observations of the
Earth's atmosphere. In 1984, two balloons were successfully deployed in the
atmosphere of Venus for a short mission. However, what has restrained the
wider use of balloons in planetary exploration was the inability to control
their paths in strong atmospheric winds. Attaching an engine to a balloon
would convert it into an airship and make it too heavy, too power dependent
and too expensive to send to another planet or high into the atmosphere.
Faced with this problem, Global Aerospace Corporation has proposed to use an
innovative device called the StratoSail� that allows the user to control the
path of a planetary balloon. The device is essentially a wing that hangs on
a long tether (several kilometers) below the balloon. Strong winds and
denser atmosphere at the wing altitude create a sideways lifting force that
pulls the entire system across the winds.
The DARE concept analyzes the use of the StratoSail� device on several
planets in our Solar System that have atmosphere -- Venus, Mars, Jupiter and
Titan (a satellite of Saturn). Dr. Pankine reports that a small, light wing
will pull the balloon with a velocity of about 1 m/s across the winds on
those planets. This may not seem much, but applied constantly (without
consuming any power!) for the duration of a long mission (100 days) it would
allow for pole-to-pole exploration of the atmospheres of Venus and Titan,
and targeted observations of Mars and the vast Great Red Spot of Jupiter.
DARE platforms would carry high-resolution cameras and other instruments to
study surfaces and atmospheres of the planets. Dr. Pankine envisions small
probes being deployed from DARE platforms over a site of interest. These
robot-probes would, for example, analyze atmosphere during their descent on
Venus and Jupiter or crawl around after soft landing on the surfaces of Mars
and Titan.
"The ability to alter the flight path in the atmosphere and to deploy the
probes would vastly expand the capabilities of planetary balloons and make
possible breakthrough observations that are not feasible with any other
platform," says Dr. Pankine. The figure illustrates a DARE platform
operating at Venus.
IMAGE CAPTION:
From Andrew Yee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Global Aerospace Corporation
Contact: Dr. Alexey Pankine
(626) 345-1200, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 5, 2002
DARE for Planetary Exploration
ALTADENA, CA -- Balloons outfitted with innovative steering devices and
robot probes could be the future of planetary exploration. Dr. Alexey
Pankine, a fellow at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC),
presented an analysis of balloon applications for planetary science at the
World Space Congress in Houston, Texas last month. His study, entitled
Directed Aerial Robot Explorers or DARE, is funded by NIAC.
At the center of the DARE concept are balloons that can float in planetary
atmospheres for many days. Balloons have long been recognized as low-cost
observational platforms and are routinely used in observations of the
Earth's atmosphere. In 1984, two balloons were successfully deployed in the
atmosphere of Venus for a short mission. However, what has restrained the
wider use of balloons in planetary exploration was the inability to control
their paths in strong atmospheric winds. Attaching an engine to a balloon
would convert it into an airship and make it too heavy, too power dependent
and too expensive to send to another planet or high into the atmosphere.
Faced with this problem, Global Aerospace Corporation has proposed to use an
innovative device called the StratoSail� that allows the user to control the
path of a planetary balloon. The device is essentially a wing that hangs on
a long tether (several kilometers) below the balloon. Strong winds and
denser atmosphere at the wing altitude create a sideways lifting force that
pulls the entire system across the winds.
The DARE concept analyzes the use of the StratoSail� device on several
planets in our Solar System that have atmosphere -- Venus, Mars, Jupiter and
Titan (a satellite of Saturn). Dr. Pankine reports that a small, light wing
will pull the balloon with a velocity of about 1 m/s across the winds on
those planets. This may not seem much, but applied constantly (without
consuming any power!) for the duration of a long mission (100 days) it would
allow for pole-to-pole exploration of the atmospheres of Venus and Titan,
and targeted observations of Mars and the vast Great Red Spot of Jupiter.
DARE platforms would carry high-resolution cameras and other instruments to
study surfaces and atmospheres of the planets. Dr. Pankine envisions small
probes being deployed from DARE platforms over a site of interest. These
robot-probes would, for example, analyze atmosphere during their descent on
Venus and Jupiter or crawl around after soft landing on the surfaces of Mars
and Titan.
"The ability to alter the flight path in the atmosphere and to deploy the
probes would vastly expand the capabilities of planetary balloons and make
possible breakthrough observations that are not feasible with any other
platform," says Dr. Pankine. The figure illustrates a DARE platform
operating at Venus.
IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://www.gaerospace.com/imagesA/photos/dare.jpg (24KB)]
Simulated image of DARE platform at Venus (background image D. P. Anderson,
Southern Methodist University)
=========
(7) COMPOSITION OF THE SOLAR INTERIOR
From Oliver K. Manuel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear Benny,
In a paper presented at the SOHO 12/GONG+ meeting in Big Bear Lake, CA last
week evidence was presented that the seven most abundance elements in the
interior of the Sun are the same ones Professor William Harkins reported in
1917 to comprise 99% of the material in ordinary meteorites: iron, oxygen,
nickel, silicon, magnesium, sulfur, and calcium.
The abstract is below. The paper is available on request <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or
online as a pdf document at
<http://web.umr.edu/~om/abstracts2002/soho-gong2002.pdf>. Readers are
invited and encouraged to offer other explanations for the measurements.
With kind regards,
Oliver
=====================
Composition of the Solar Interior: Information from Isotope Ratios
Oliver Manuel(1) and Stig Friberg(2)
(1) University of Missouri-Rolla, Department of Chemistry, 142 Schrenk Hall,
Rolla, MO 65401 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(2) Clarkson University, Department of Chemistry, 641 Spring Hill Estates,
Eminence, KY 13699-5814
Over 99.5% of the surface of the Sun is hydrogen (H) and helium (He) - - the
two lightest elements. By itself, the lightest one, H comprises > 90%.
Systematic alterations seen in isotope ratios of elements coming from the
Sun suggest that its interior may be mostly the same seven, even-numbered
elements Harkins [1] found to comprise 99% of ordinary meteorites - iron
(Fe), oxygen (O), nickel (Ni), silicon (Si), magnesium (Mg), sulfur (S) and
calcium (Ca).
[1] Harkins, W. D., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 39, 856-879 (1917)
