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Today is Google Meeting day for NewMars.
GW Johnson has been hard at work on several different (but related) studies.
We have a new Daily Recap PHP file available for installation in NewMars forum. I am hoping SpaceNut will be able to join the meeting so we can discuss how to get the feature installed.
Austin Stanley reported finding a series on Mars that he had described previously. The series appears to be available in PDF form if anyone is interested.
Systems check went well at 17:29 New Hampshire time.
We expect to open the Waiting room at or just before midnight UTC, 8 PM New Hampshire, 7 PM Houston, 6 PM Los Angeles and mid-morning Australia.
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The waiting room is open at 23:55:44
GW Johnson joined the meeting and we spent the next hour reviewing his recent work comparing standard capsules for re-entry at Earth with the new inflatable design that flew successfully in a test dive from Low Earth orbit. That design generated lots of data, and NASA reported good results. The design appears to have met all goals and even exceeded expectations in some areas.
GW's analysis included different radii for the two shield types, and a variety of re-entry velocities, based upon LEO, the Moon or Mars.
He produced graphs and documentation, and each graph was backed up by an appendix with the raw data from his entry analysis spreadsheet.
One area where we spent some time was in review of the shape of the tip of the heat shield. A spherical shape with a radius of 1 meter was one example I recall from the many designs we considered. I found a diagram on the Internet that helped me to understand the concepts, and GW indicated he might consider adding that feature to help readers who have not seen the War Head entry studies from the Cold War that GW has in (declassified) hard copy.
Next week GW will be returning to work on the Mars lander. He spent some time attempting to reassure me that a feature I am worried about will not be a problem, so we'll see how that shakes out in coming days.
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