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A recent challenge presented to me by Dgatsoulis involving a dead stick glider landing using a fuel-less deltaglider onto Mars has me again thinking of a niche spaceraft that would be used just for that purpose. A mars only shuttle that lands like a glider.
I know just enough about aerodynamics to get myself into trouble usually but I do think that with only 1% the density (mars surface relative to earth surface) one could fly an airspeed 10 times faster than a hang glider (10 m/s*10= 100 m/s) and get 100 times the lift since lift is the square of the speed, making up for the 1% density one is flying through. And since the surface gravity is less than 40% that of earth, the actual wing loading of such a winged spacecraft could perhaps be 2.5 times that of a typical hang glider here on earth.
I visualize a retracting wing so that it can be at high speed in the upper atmosphere with wings fully retracted and hiding behind a delta shaped heat shield. Upon entry, as the craft descends and slows it does a combination of expanding the wings in a manner somewhat birdlike and in addition some telescoping to create ultimately a very high aspect ratio flying wing similar in shape to a modern hang glider wing.
Landing gear (perhaps tricycle) can drop from the wings. Power from a rocket engine would be available. It would have enough fuel to climb to orbit and then deorbit, plus dock with ships in orbit. It would take off and land on a 3km runway and when in max lift configuration would be able to slow to under 100 m/s or maybe even 60 m/s near the surface?
I am pretty sure that number crunching the L/D of the wing throughout it's configurations altitudes and speeds would have to calculate and use Reynolds number which would mean the density and viscosity of the atmosphere would have to be known as well as the speeds and size of the craft.
do we have any orbinauts that are versed in software development and also know aerodynamics that could assemble a simple version of this type of craft?
anyway; food for thought
flytandem
I know just enough about aerodynamics to get myself into trouble usually but I do think that with only 1% the density (mars surface relative to earth surface) one could fly an airspeed 10 times faster than a hang glider (10 m/s*10= 100 m/s) and get 100 times the lift since lift is the square of the speed, making up for the 1% density one is flying through. And since the surface gravity is less than 40% that of earth, the actual wing loading of such a winged spacecraft could perhaps be 2.5 times that of a typical hang glider here on earth.
I visualize a retracting wing so that it can be at high speed in the upper atmosphere with wings fully retracted and hiding behind a delta shaped heat shield. Upon entry, as the craft descends and slows it does a combination of expanding the wings in a manner somewhat birdlike and in addition some telescoping to create ultimately a very high aspect ratio flying wing similar in shape to a modern hang glider wing.
Landing gear (perhaps tricycle) can drop from the wings. Power from a rocket engine would be available. It would have enough fuel to climb to orbit and then deorbit, plus dock with ships in orbit. It would take off and land on a 3km runway and when in max lift configuration would be able to slow to under 100 m/s or maybe even 60 m/s near the surface?
I am pretty sure that number crunching the L/D of the wing throughout it's configurations altitudes and speeds would have to calculate and use Reynolds number which would mean the density and viscosity of the atmosphere would have to be known as well as the speeds and size of the craft.
do we have any orbinauts that are versed in software development and also know aerodynamics that could assemble a simple version of this type of craft?
anyway; food for thought
flytandem