Alan Bond (rocket developer)
Encyclopedia
Alan Bond is Managing Director of Reaction Engines Ltd and associated with Project Daedalus
, Blue Streak missile
, HOTOL
, Reaction Engines Skylon and the Reaction Engines A2
hypersonic passenger aircraft.
.
He then worked for about 20 years at UK Atomic Energy Authority's
Culham Laboratory on nuclear fusion, on the JET
and RFX nuclear research projects. He was engaged in studies for the application of fusion to interplanetary space travel. He is the leading author of the report on the Project Daedalus
interstellar, fusion powered starship, published by the British Interplanetary Society
.
In the 1980s, he was one of the creators of the HOTOL
spaceplane project, along with Dr. Bob Parkinson of British Aerospace. Alan Bond brought a Liquid Air Cooled Engine design he had invented to the HOTOL
project, and this became the Rolls Royce RB545
rocket engine.
In 1989, he formed Reaction Engines Ltd with fellow Rocket Engineers, Richard Varvill and John Scott-Scott. The enterprise is developing project Skylon, and other advanced vehicles including the Reaction Engines A2
hypersonic airliner concept as part of the European LAPCAT programme. The projects have involved the practical development of Hydrogen fuelled, pre-cooled air breathing rocket engines, most notably, an engine called SABRE (Synergic Air Breathing Rocket Engine) as well as the Scimitar
and STERN engines.
in Tyrol
in 3123 BC. They relate this to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
. The landslide is normally dated to about 9800 years ago long before the tablet was recorded and over 4500 years before the Bristol researchers date. Bond and Hempsell have suggested that there was contamination, a claim that has been denied by other research. The impact theory had already been proposed in 1936 by the Austrian scientist Franz Eduard Suess and later on by Alexander Tollmann
, who hypothetized impacts in around 7640 BCE and 3150 BCE, respectively. The issue of whether an impact caused the landslide has been researched and no evidence was found for an asteroid, meteorite or comet, and geologists consider it to have been caused by other factors such as 'deep creep'.
Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible unmanned interstellar spacecraft. Intended mainly as a scientific probe, the design criteria specified that the spacecraft had to use current or near-future technology and had to...
, Blue Streak missile
Blue Streak missile
The Blue Streak missile was a British medium range ballistic missile . The Operational Requirement for the missile was issued in 1955 and the design was complete by 1957...
, HOTOL
HOTOL
HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a British air-breathing space shuttle effort by Rolls Royce and British Aerospace.Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit reusable winged launch vehicle, it was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 called the Swallow, to be...
, Reaction Engines Skylon and the Reaction Engines A2
Reaction Engines A2
|-See also:-External links:* *...
hypersonic passenger aircraft.
Career
Alan Bond is an engineer, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked on liquid rocket engines, principally the RZ2 (liquid oxygen / kerosene) and the RZ20 (liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen) at Rolls Royce under the tutelage of Val Cleaver, and he was also involved with flight trials of the Blue Streak at WoomeraWoomera, South Australia
The town, or village, of Woomera is located in the south east corner of the Woomera Prohibited Area ; colloquially known as the Woomera Rocket Range...
.
He then worked for about 20 years at UK Atomic Energy Authority's
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of nuclear fusion power. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and was formerly chaired by Lady Barbara Judge CBE...
Culham Laboratory on nuclear fusion, on the JET
Joint European Torus
JET, the Joint European Torus, is the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment worldwide currently in operation. Its main purpose is to open the way to future nuclear fusion experimental tokamak reactors such as ITER and :DEMO....
and RFX nuclear research projects. He was engaged in studies for the application of fusion to interplanetary space travel. He is the leading author of the report on the Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus
Project Daedalus was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible unmanned interstellar spacecraft. Intended mainly as a scientific probe, the design criteria specified that the spacecraft had to use current or near-future technology and had to...
interstellar, fusion powered starship, published by the British Interplanetary Society
British Interplanetary Society
The British Interplanetary Society founded in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest space advocacy organisation in the world whose aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration.-Structure:...
.
In the 1980s, he was one of the creators of the HOTOL
HOTOL
HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a British air-breathing space shuttle effort by Rolls Royce and British Aerospace.Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit reusable winged launch vehicle, it was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 called the Swallow, to be...
spaceplane project, along with Dr. Bob Parkinson of British Aerospace. Alan Bond brought a Liquid Air Cooled Engine design he had invented to the HOTOL
HOTOL
HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a British air-breathing space shuttle effort by Rolls Royce and British Aerospace.Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit reusable winged launch vehicle, it was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 called the Swallow, to be...
project, and this became the Rolls Royce RB545
RB545
The RB545 was an air-breathing rocket engine that was proposed to propel a British space shuttle to orbit using a single stage. Rolls-Royce was involved; while British Aerospace worked on the vehicle.-Design:...
rocket engine.
In 1989, he formed Reaction Engines Ltd with fellow Rocket Engineers, Richard Varvill and John Scott-Scott. The enterprise is developing project Skylon, and other advanced vehicles including the Reaction Engines A2
Reaction Engines A2
|-See also:-External links:* *...
hypersonic airliner concept as part of the European LAPCAT programme. The projects have involved the practical development of Hydrogen fuelled, pre-cooled air breathing rocket engines, most notably, an engine called SABRE (Synergic Air Breathing Rocket Engine) as well as the Scimitar
Reaction Engines Scimitar
The Reaction Engines Scimitar is a derivative of the SABRE engine technology, but intended for airliners , rather than space launch applications. Consequently, most of the Scimitar engine technology is similar to Sabre but designed for much longer life...
and STERN engines.
Köfels impact event
In a self-published book co-authored with Mark Hempsell, an engineer at the University of Bristol, Bond claimed to have deciphered an Assyrian clay tablet dated to 700 BC that they argued might describe an asteroid strike causing a landslide at KöfelsUmhausen
Umhausen is a municipality in the Imst district and is located 17 km southeast of Imst at the Ötztaler Ache in the Ötztal.The municipality consists of six villages: Umhausen, Tumpen, Köfels, Farst, Niederthai, Östen....
in Tyrol
Tyrol (state)
Tyrol is a state or Bundesland, located in the west of Austria. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical region of Tyrol.The state is split into two parts–called North Tyrol and East Tyrol–by a -wide strip of land where the state of Salzburg borders directly on the Italian province of...
in 3123 BC. They relate this to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
. The landslide is normally dated to about 9800 years ago long before the tablet was recorded and over 4500 years before the Bristol researchers date. Bond and Hempsell have suggested that there was contamination, a claim that has been denied by other research. The impact theory had already been proposed in 1936 by the Austrian scientist Franz Eduard Suess and later on by Alexander Tollmann
Alexander Tollmann
Dr. Alexander Tollmann was an Austrian professor of geology.He was born in Vienna. He has been professor at the Geologischen Institut of the University of Vienna since 1969...
, who hypothetized impacts in around 7640 BCE and 3150 BCE, respectively. The issue of whether an impact caused the landslide has been researched and no evidence was found for an asteroid, meteorite or comet, and geologists consider it to have been caused by other factors such as 'deep creep'.
Publications
- Project Daedalus Study Group: A. Bond et al., Project Daedalus - The Final Report on the BIS Starship Study, Journal of the British Interplanetary SocietyJournal of the British Interplanetary SocietyThe Journal of the British Interplanetary Society is a technical scientific journal, first published in 1934. JBIS is concerned with space science and space technology...
(JBIS) Interstellar Studies, Supplement 1978 - J.R. Last, A. Bond, E. Salpietro: Mechanical tests on insulation systems for the JET poloidal coils in: Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium on Fusion Technology, Padua, Italy, September 4–9, 1978.
- A. Bond, A.R. Martin: A conservative estimate of the number of habitable planets in the Galaxy in: British Interplanetary Society, Conference on Interstellar Travel and Communication, London, England, Apr. 4, 5, 1977. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 31, Nov. 1978.
- A. Bond: On the improbability of intelligent extraterrestrials;Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (Interstellar Studies), vol. 35, May 1982, p. 195-207.
- A.R. Martin, A. Bond: Is mankind unique? in: British Interplanetary Society, Meeting on Space, Brighton, England, Nov. 12-14, 1982; Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (Interstellar Studies) (ISSN 0007-084X), vol. 36, May 1983, p. 223-225.
- A. Bond: A fully reusable launch vehicle for Europe? in: Proceedings of the Conference on Space - Technology and opportunity; Geneva, Switzerland, May 28–30, 1985 (A86-44526 21-12). Pinner, England, Online Publications, 1985, p. 221-229.
- Alan Bond, Anthony R. Martin, Robert A. Bond: Concept studies for a laser powered Orbital Transfer Vehicle, in: 38th IAF, International Astronautical Congress, Brighton, England, Oct. 10-17, 1987.
- A. Bond, R. Varvill, J. Scott-Scott, T. Martin: SKYLON - a realistic single stage spaceplane, paceflight (magazin) vol. 45, 158 (2003)
- R. Varvill, A. Bond: A Comparison of Propulsion Concepts for SSTO Reuseable Launchers, JBIS vol. 56, pp108–117 (2003)
- R. Varvill, A. Bond: The SKYLON Spaceplane, JBIS vol. 57, 22 (2004)
- H. Webber, A. Bond, M. Hempsell: The sensitivity of precooled air-breathing engine performance to heat exchanger design parameters, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 60, 2007, p. 188-196.
- A. Bond, M. Hempsell: A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels' Impact Event, Writersprintshop, 2008, ISBN 1-904623-64-6
- H. Webber, S. Feast, A. Bond: Heat Exchanger Design in Combined Cycle Engines, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 62, No. 4, April 2009, p. 122-130.
External links
- A. Bond
- A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels Impact? Almost Certainly Not…. Discussion of Kofels impact hypothesis posted on April 1, 2008
- A Response to Mark Hempsell Continued discussion of Kofels impact hypothesis posted on April 16, 2008