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The purpose of this paper is to attempt an aerospaceplane design with the objective of Low-Earth-Orbit-and-Return-to-Earth (LEOARTE) under the constraints of safety, low cost, reliability, low maintenance, aircraft-like operation and environmental compatibility. Along the same lines, a “sister” point-to-point flight on Earth Suborbital Aerospaceplane is proposed.

The LEOARTE aerospaceplane is based on a simple design, proven low risk technology, a small payload, an aerodynamic solution to re-entry heating, the high-speed phase of the outgoing flight taking place outside the atmosphere, a propulsion system comprising turbojet and rocket engines, an Air Collection and Enrichment System (ACES) and an appropriate mission profile.

It was found that a LEOARTE aerospaceplane design subject to the specified constraints with a cost as low as 950 United States Dollars (US$) per kilogram into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) might be feasible. As indicated by a case study, a LEOARTE aerospaceplane could lead, among other activities in space, to economically viable Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP). Its “sister” Suborbital aerospaceplane design could provide high-speed, point-to-point flights on the Earth.

The proposed LEOARTE aerospaceplane design renders space exploitation affordable and is much safer than ever before.

This paper provides an alternative approach to aerospaceplane design as a result of a new aerodynamically oriented Thermal Protection System (TPS) and a, perhaps, improved ACES. This approach might initiate widespread exploitation of space and offer a solution to the high-speed “air” transportation issue.

The point has been made that space exploration would probably not have been possible had it not been for surface coatings in one form or another. The most important of these coatings are the so‐called ablative thermal barriers and the thermal‐control surface coatings. The former are necessary to aid in the re‐entry of the vehicle, for at this point tremendous heat is generated by friction. The coating sacrifices itself and, in so doing, utilizes the heat and prevents it from gaining access to the interior of the vehicle. The thermal‐control coatings serve to maintain a constant temperature within the vehicle.

LONG before man learnt to make fire by the friction of wood, he experienced the burden of friction in dragging home his kill. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suppose that the torn sides of his beast gave the first solid lubricant. Blood and mutton fat were seriously recommended as lubricants for church bell trunnions as recently as the 17th century. Indoed we still reckon fatty acids the best of all boundary lubricants. The range of man's activities has increased enormously in the present century, and particularly in the last few decades. Men have circled the earth in space; a space ship is on its way to examine another planet; terrestrial man is boring to the bottom of the earth's crust; others have descended to the depths of the ocean, and oven established a home on the floor of the Mediterranean, Speeds have increased by factors of thousands, temperatures range from near absolute zero to thousands of degrees; and a new environment of high‐intensity nuclear radiation has been created. Still, objects must move over and along each other in these exotic conditions; and to a large extent solid lubricants can provide the answer to the frictional problems.

TO say that the Twenty‐fourth S.B.A.C. Show was an unqualified success is perhaps to gild the lily. True there were disappointments— the delay which kept the TSR‐2 on the ground until well after the Show being one—but on the whole the British industry was well pleased with Farnborough week and if future sales could be related to the number of visitors then the order books would be full for many years to come. The total attendance at the Show was well over 400,000—this figure including just under 300,000 members of the public who paid to enter on the last three days of the Show. Those who argued in favour of allowing a two‐year interval between the 1962 Show and this one seem to be fully vindicated, for these attendance figures are an all‐time record. This augurs well for the future for it would appear that potential customers from overseas are still anxious to attend the Farnborough Show, while the public attendance figures indicate that Britain is still air‐minded to a very healthy degree. It is difficult to pick out any one feature or even one aircraft as being really outstanding at Farnborough, but certainly the range of rear‐engined civil jets (HS. 125, BAC One‐Eleven, Trident and VCIQ) served as a re‐minder that British aeronautical engineering prowess is without parallel, while the number of rotorcraft to be seen in the flying display empha‐sized the growing importance of the helicopter in both civil and military operations. As far as the value of Farnborough is concerned, it is certainly a most useful shop window for British aerospace products, and if few new orders are actually received at Farnborough, a very large number are announced— as our ’Orders and Contracts' column on page 332 bears witness. It is not possible to cover every exhibit displayed at the Farnborough Show but the following report describes a wide cross‐section beginning with the exhibits of the major airframe and engine companies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for understanding the relationship between rapid manufacturing process for rhenium components in jet nozzle fabrication using electron beam‐physical vapor deposition (EB‐PVD). Specifically, to develop a methodology to characterize and improve this new process through motion planning for maintaining uniformity in the deposition thickness.

This research first identifies several important objectives for the process, and then develops an optimized heuristic method based on a look‐ahead approach to generate motion plans for uniform thickness objective. In this heuristic, the surface of the workpiece is modeled using finite element method and the accumulated thickness of each layer on each element is computed based on its location in the vapor plume using a ray casting algorithm.

Computational experiments show that the proposed algorithm can potentially provide significant improvements in the uniformity of the layers and cost savings in manufacturing compared to prevailing practice, especially for low‐volume production such as aerospace applications.

In this research, net‐shaped jet nozzle has been fabricated using a graphite mandrel. Therefore, the mandrel‐based approach can be limited to producing hollow components.

The proposed method is very generic and thus can be applied for multi‐material manufacturing process identifying the sweet spot of the intersecting vapor plumes.

This research can help the EB‐PVD process for rapid manufacturing which has been considered as financially expensive to be accepted in real practice by providing a relationship of the process‐to‐product transformation through the developed motion planning methods.

Aeronautical & General Instruments Ltd, will exhibit their R 128 recording cameras, designed to photograph the information displayed on the cathode ray tube of an aircraft's reconnaissance radar.