Combustion Experiments in a Zero-Gravity Laboratory

The United States civilian space program has evolved through several stages since its inception in the late 1950s. At first, the program was preoccupied with near-Earth space as an ability was established to enter, survive in, and return from space routinely, as well as with exploring its numerous mysteries with instrumented packages. A national commitment to land a man on the moon in the 1960s demonstrated this country's vast technological resourcefulness when challenged. A steadily advancing planetary exploration program was highlighted in the late1970s and early 1980s with instrument landings on Mars and spectacular flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. In the mid 1980s, with the development of the Space Shuttle transportation system, a new era will start that will emphasize the exploitation of space for the benefit of man on Earth.

NASA, working in close collaboration with the nation's outstanding scientists, has been involved in defining a broad class of fundamental combustion experiments. This volume contains the results of that effort.

Just as important, the book presents a philosophy for defining areas of research, in that it emphasizes the need for thorough ground-based work to justify and assess the feasibility of specific experiments. The work is presented in historical perspective so that early chapters outline the results of efforts that were conducted in the early 1970s