SABRE critique; Reentry vehicle aerodynamics
Valtteri Maja looks at some of the features of the Reaction Engines Skylon/SABRE system from : Why precool but not liquify – Skylon and SABRE – Gravity Loss – Oct.29.10 /– Even more on Skylon – Gravity Loss – Oct.30.10
He refers to this document: A Comparison of Propulsion Concepts for SSTO Reusable Launchers, Richard Varvill, and Alan Bond, JBIS, Vol. 56, pp. 108-117, 2003 (pdf) === Valtteri also points to an interesting video from 1959 of tests in a wind tunnel of different sorts of re-entry vehicle shapes: /– Various re-entry vehicle shapes in a low speed wind tunnel – Gravity Loss /– YouTube – Tests of Reentry Vehicle Models (embedding blocked)