An understandable perspective on the types of space propulsion systems necessary to enable low-cost space flights to Earth orbit and to the Moon and the future developments necessary for exploration of the solar system and beyond to the stars.

The series of volumes to which this book belongs honors contributors who have made a major impact in computational fluid dynamics. This fourth volume in the series is dedicated to David Caughey on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The first volume was published in 1994 and was dedicated to Prof Antony Jameson. The second, dedicated to Earl Murman, was published in 1998. The third volume was dedicated to Robert MacCormack in 2002.Written by leading researchers from academia, government laboratories, and industry, the contributions in this volume present descriptions of the latest developments in techniques for numerical analysis of fluid flow problems, as well as applications to important problems in industry.

In recent years of the 21st Century the author of this book and other scientists as well, have instigated and described many new ideas, researches, theories, macro-projects, USA and other countries patented concepts, speculative macro-engineering ideas, projects and other general innovations in technology and environment change. In aerospace these include air catapult transportation, hypersonic ground electric AB engine, protection of the Earth from asteroids and delivery of asteroids to the Earth, re-entry space apparatus to Earth, airborne wind turbines, electronic wind generator and propulsion, long distance shells, new self-propelled penetration bomb, inexpensive mini thermonuclear reactor, etc. In technology these include new ideas and innovation in space sciences and Earth technologies: Underground explosion nuclear energy; Electron hydro electric generator; Electron super speed hydro propulsion; Electric theory of tornado; Protection from tornado; and so on.

"The papers were presented at the eighth International Conference on Advances in Fluid Mechanics held in Portugal in 2010."--Pref.

Computer simulations is a fundamental tool of the design process in many engineering disciplines including aerospace engineering. However, although high-fidelity numerical models are accurate, they can be computationally expensive with evaluation time for a single design as long as hours, days or even weeks. Simulation-driven design using conventional optimization techniques may be therefore prohibitive.This book explores the alternative: performing computationally efficient design using surrogate-based optimization, where the high-fidelity model is replaced by its computationally cheap but still reasonably accurate representation: a surrogate. The emphasis is on physics-based surrogates. Application-wise, the focus is on aerodynamics and the methods and techniques described in the book are demonstrated using aerodynamic shape optimization cases. Applications in other engineering fields are also demonstrated.State-of-the-art techniques and a depth of coverage never published before make this a unique and essential book for all researchers working in aerospace and other engineering areas and dealing with optimization, computationally expensive design problems, and simulation-driven design.