APL flying high after successful hypersonic missile engine test

APL recently led a team that successfully conducted the first-ever ground test of a full-scale, fully integrated hypersonic cruise missile engine using pure liquid hydrocarbon fuel. During the test, conducted at NASA's Langley Research Center, Va., the engine operated at conditions simulating Mach 6.5 cruise at 90,000 feet.

The APL-invented Dual Combustion Ramjet engine concept being tested forms the basis for a hypersonic strike missile concept being developed under the newly initiated Hypersonic Flight (HyFly) Demonstration Program, co-sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research. HyFly is aimed at flying a high-speed, long-range hypersonic air-breathing test vehicle. Such technology could be used to develop a future high-speed strike weapon to engage and defeat time-critical, heavily defended, hardened or buried targets while keeping forces farther from harm.

SAIS professor pens book on civilian leadership in wartime

Eliot A. Cohen, professor and director of the Strategic Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies, recently published Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime. The Free Press released the book June 11.

Supreme Command examines the tension between two types of leadership in wartime: civil and military. Cohen humanizes the highest levels of strategy making by focusing on four great democratic statesmen during times of war--Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill and Ben Gurion--and how they dealt with the military leaders who served them. His surprising conclusion is that the conventional wisdom is wrong: The job of politicians is not to set objectives, provide resources and get out of the way. Instead, he describes the "unequal dialogue" between statesman and general--an uneasy relationship based on questioning, probing and testing--as the key to victory.

A member of the Defense Policy Board, Cohen previously served on the Policy Planning Staff of the secretary of defense and directed the Air Force's Gulf War Air Power Survey. He also has written numerous books and articles on strategy, public policy and military history.

APL-managed Pluto mission aces first major review

In the first major review for the APL-managed New Horizons space project, technical experts from several institutions found that the plans for the first mission to Pluto and the distant Kuiper Belt are well on track. The Systems Requirements Review, a standard procedure for all NASA planetary missions, included a comprehensive assessment of New Horizons' mission plans and spacecraft designs.

Should Congress fund the mission beyond fiscal 2002, the New Horizons team anticipates a January 2006 launch and arrival at Pluto and its moon, Charon, as early as 2015.

PTE adds programs in info security, water resources management

A new information security concentration has been launched by the Whiting School's Part-Time Programs in Engineering and Applied Science for the 2002-2003 academic year. The first students enrolled in courses in this specialty this summer.

In addition, PTE and the school's Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering have established a partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers to offer a part-time program in water resources management. Students will complete the first half of the degree on the Homewood campus and the remaining courses via online instruction.

Nursing fellows focus on underserved populations

The School of Nursing has begun a fellows program for pre- and postdoctoral students interested in learning about health disparities in underserved populations.

The fellowships are part of a five-year grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the grant is to prepare creative and independent nurse scientists to identify, prevent and reduce health disparities in underserved populations.

The fellows will be educated in understanding structural, financial and personal barriers to health care experienced by underserved populations; designing and testing culturally appropriate interventions to break down the barriers to health care; and translating research findings into practice and policy by working with clinicians, educators, communities and policy makers.

Led by Martha N. Hill and Jerilyn Allen, the program collaborates with the School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.