Booker and Henry's Atmospheric Flight Project By Booker Drennan and Henry Wyatt
In this project we have designed an aircraft capable of flying in Mars' atmosphere. It will be launched separately and will later meet up with the shuttle and crew. This aircraft or spacecraft will be called the Falcon and be connected to a normal shuttlecraft which is where the crew will eat and sleep. It will be able to survey areas on Mars and test the effects on high speed travel on human beings. The journey will take approximately seven months and the Falcon will orbit Mars for a duration of two weeks in which time they will be testing the flying capabilities and studying Mars. During the course of the flight to and from Mars a member of the crew will enter the Falcon and start up all of the systems for a short amount of time to prevent freezing in the cold environment of space. At the end of the mission the main section of the plane will be placed into the cargo hold for re-entry.
The Falcon will be approximately forty-eight feet long and have a twenty foot wing span. The rear stabilizer will be six feet high. The Falcon will not be equipped with landing gears or flaps. Because of this we are allowed two eight foot cockpits, a four foot area for air tanks, a sixteen foot cargo hold, and a ten foot space for it's two cold fusion engines. Because of the absence of flaps we have moved the wings back and placed the elevators where the flaps usually are on an aircraft. This craft will be manned by two people from the shuttles' crew. There will be a four person support crew also just in case something happens to the two in the spacecraft. The two people in the Falcon will be the navigator (in the front cockpit) and the pilot (in the rear cockpit).
This craft will be powered by two cold fusion engines. Cold fusion is a source of energy that is self sustaining and needs very little fuel which is a type of water. Cold fusion has been around for many years but not until recently did it start to produce massive amounts of energy which is thousand of times more powerful that any chemical reaction. Each engine will be powered by one gallon of heavy water with two reserve gallons each. The use of cold fusion will allow us to eliminate engine intakes that could be damaged by Mars' atmosphere.
This experiment will be very useful to not just the United States but important to the whole world. Our craft will be able to bring rovers from not only the US but other countries as well. It will hold them in its cargo bay until it is close enough to the surface of Mars to release them. This will also be a good test on cold fusion and if it will work. It will open up new opportunities in space travel and if the cold fusion works will radically change our use and understanding of electricity. With cold fusion there is infinite energy. It may be also to show us conclusive evidence on the theory of life on Mars by examining the samples that the rovers collect.
Our spacecraft would definitely be best manned because there is enough room for oxygen that otherwise probably wouldn't be used. Also people can fix things if something happens to the computer. A computer usually can't fix itself especially if something major happened. Also there would be no time delay between the time the command was given and the time the ship responded. These are the reasons why I think our craft would be best manned.
This would be a very good experiment to do. It will help people all over the world. The technological advancements made in these two weeks could be more important than the ones made in last few decades. It would also open the door to the controversial cold fusion and space flight. This could also help to improve later missions going to Mars and perhaps other galaxies that we have never dreamed about going to.