Alan Bond (engineer): Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=MarchAugust 20152020}}

| caption =Alan Bond is notable for being one of the key people behind the [[Skylon (spacecraft)|Skylon]] spaceplane.

| birth_namebirth_date = June 1944

| residence nationality =British

'''Alan Bond''' (born 1944) is ana EnglishBritish [[Mechanical engineering|mechanical]] and [[Aerospace engineering|aerospace engineer]], aswho wellserved as Managing Director of Reaction Engines Ltd<ref name="ReactionEngines1">[http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/ Reaction Engines Ltd. 2006]</ref> and associated with [[Project Daedalus]], [[Blue Streak missile]], [[HOTOL]], [[Reaction Engines Skylon]] and the [[Reaction Engines A2]] hypersonic passenger aircraft.

Alan Bond is an engineer, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked on liquid rocket engines, principally the [[Rolls-Royce RZ.2|RZ.2]] (liquid oxygen / kerosene) and the RZ.20 (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 [[Woomera, South Australia|Woomera]].

In the 1980s, he was one of the creators of the [[HOTOL]] spaceplanespace plane project, along with [[Bob Parkinson (aerospace engineer)|Dr. Bob Parkinson]] of British Aerospace. Alan Bond brought a [[precooled jet engine]] design he had invented to the [[HOTOL]] project, and this became the Rolls -Royce [[RB545]] rocket engine.

In 1989, he formed [[Reaction Engines|Reaction Engines Limited]]<ref name="ReactionEngines1"/> (REL) with fellow rocket engineers, Richard Varvill and [[John Scott-Scott]]. REL is developing a single-stage orbital spaceplanespace plane [[Reaction Engines Skylon|Skylon]], and other advanced vehicles including the [[Reaction Engines LAPCAT 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 (rocket engine)|SABRE]] (SynergicSynergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine) as well as the [[Reaction Engines Scimitar|Scimitar]] and STERN engines.

In a self-published book<ref name="BondOther2008">Bond, A. and M. Hempsell, 2008, ''A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels' Impact Event'', WritersPrintshop, London, United Kingdom. 128 pp. {{ISBN|1-904623-64-6}}</ref> 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 [[Umhausen|Köfels]] in [[Tyrol (state)|Tyrol]] in 3123 BC. They relate this to the destruction of [[Sodom and Gomorrah]].<ref name="Fleming2008a">Fleming, N., 2008, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080403043352/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/03/31/scitablet131%2Fearth%2F2008%2F03%2F31%2Fscitablet131.xml ''Clay tablet holds clue to asteroid mystery''], Daily Telegraph</ref> The landslide is normally dated to about 9800 years ago,<ref>{{Cite journal | last = Prager | first = Christoph |author2= Zangerl, Christian|author3= Nagler, Thomas | title = Geological controls on slope deformations in the Köfels rockslide area (Tyrol, Austria) | journal = Austrian Journal of Earth Sciences | volume = 102/2 | location = Vienna | url = http://www.univie.ac.at/ajes/archive/volume_102_2/prager_et_al_ajes_v102_2.pdf }}</ref> long before the tablet was recorded and over 4500 years before the Bristol researchers' date.<ref name="PeterOther1998">Kubik, P. W., S. Ivy-Ochs, J. Masarik, M. Frank, and C. Schluchter, 1998, ''10Be and 26Al production rates deduced from an instantaneous event within the dendro-calibration curve, the landslide of Köfels, Otz Valley, Austria''. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. vol. 161, no. 1-4, pp. 231-241231–241</ref> Bond and Hempsell have suggested that there was contamination, a claim that has been denied by other research.<ref name="Ivy-OchsOthers1998">Ivy-Ochs, S., H. Heuberger, P. W. Kubik, H. Kerschner, G. Bonani, M. Frank, and C. Schluchter, 1998, ''The age of the Kofels event. Relative, 14C and cosmogenic isotope dating of an early Holocene landslide in the central Alps (Tyrol, Austria)''. Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie. vol. 34, pp. 57-7057–70.</ref> The impact theory had already been proposed in 1936 by the Austrian scientist [[Franz Eduard Suess]] and later on by [[Alexander Tollmann]], who hypothetizedhypothesized impacts in around 7640 BC and 3150 BC, respectively. The question of whether an impact caused the landslide has been researched by others 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'.<ref name=" Deutsch Others1994">Deutsch, A., C. Koeberl, J.D. Blum, B.M. French, B.P. Glass, R. Grieve, P. Horn, E.K. Jessberger, G. Kurat, W.U. Reimold, J. Smit, D. stoffler, and S.R. Taylor, 1994, ''The impact-flood connection: Does it exist?'' Terra Nova. vol. 6, pp. 644-650644–650.</ref>

The work of Bond and his colleagues Richard Varvill and John Scott-Scott on the development of the [[HOTOL]] and [[Skylon (spacecraft)|SKYLON]] spaceplanesspace planes was chronicled in a 50-minute TV documentary, ''"The Three Rocketeers"'', first broadcast on [[BBC Four]] on 12 Sept 2012.<ref name="3rocket">[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqv45 BBC Four: The Three Rocketeers], retrieved 14 SeptSeptember 2012</ref>

* Project Daedalus Study Group: A. Bond et al., ''Project Daedalus -– The Final Report on the BIS Starship Study'', [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]] (JBIS) Interstellar Studies, Supplement 1978

* A. Bond: ''On the improbability of intelligent extraterrestrials''; [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]] (Interstellar Studies), vol. 35, May 1982, ppp.&nbsp;195-207195–207.

* A.R. Martin, A. Bond: ''Is mankind unique?'' in: [[British Interplanetary Society]], Meeting on Space, Brighton, England, 12–14 November 1982; [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]] (Interstellar Studies) (ISSN 0007-084X), vol. 36, May 1983, ppp.&nbsp;223-225223–225.

* A. Bond: ''A fully reusable launch vehicle for Europe?'' in: Proceedings of the Conference on Space -– Technology and opportunity; Geneva, Switzerland, 28–30 May 1985 (A86-44526 21-1221–12). Pinner, England, Online Publications, 1985, ppp.&nbsp;221-229221–229.

* A. Bond, R. Varvill, J. Scott-Scott, T. Martin: ''SKYLON -– a realistic single stage spaceplane'', [[Spaceflight (magazine)|Spaceflight]] vol. 45, 158 (2003)

* H. Webber, A. Bond, M. Hempsell: [http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2007.60.188 ''The sensitivity of precooled air-breathing engine performance to heat exchanger design parameters''], [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]], vol. 60, 2007, ppp.&nbsp;188-196188–196.

* H. Webber, S. Feast, A. Bond: [http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2009.62.122 ''Heat Exchanger Design in Combined Cycle Engines''], [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]], vol. 62, No. 4, April 2009, ppp.&nbsp;122-130122–130.

* M. Hempsell, A. Bond [http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2010.63.136 ''"Technical and Operations Design of the SKYLON Upper Stage"''], [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]], vol. 63, 136-144136–144 (2010)

* S. Feast, A. Bond [http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2010.63.151 ''"A Design for an Orbital Assembly Facility for Complex Missions"''], [[Journal of the British Interplanetary Society]], vol. 63, 151-156151–156 (2010)