Show Notes

This week, we recap, review, and analyze Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (機動戦士Ζガンダム) episode 11 - "Entering the Atmosphere" (大気圏突入), discuss our first impressions, and provide commentary and research on the Karman Line, a brief history of paradrop operations, and real-world ballutes and atmospherpic re-entry devices.

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- Wikipedia pages on Theodore (Todor) von Karman and the Karman Line.

- And Wikipedia pages on paratroopers (and a second one), airborne forces, and high-altitude military parachuting (HALO and HAHO).

- "Yes, Mass Airborne Operations are a thing of the Past," an opinion article by James King for the Modern War Institute at West Point.

- Wiki article for ballutes.

- More info about how ballutes and burble fences work.

- Wiki entry for experimental inflatable atmospheric re-entry devices.

- Wiki page about 2010: The Year We Made Contact.

- More info about 2010: The Year We Made Contact, including some quotes from Syd Mead - a legendary Hollywood mechanical designer who worked on this movie right after the aborted 1983 Hollywood Gundam movie, and many years later worked on an actual Gundam series.

- Explanations of aerobraking and aerocapture, with information on how ballutes could be used in the process.

- A REVIEW OF BALLUTE TECHNOLOGY FOR PLANETARY AEROCAPTURE, by Jeffery L. Hall of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Presented at the 4th IAA Conference on Low Cost Planetary Missions, Laurel, MD, May 2-5, 2000.

- And another paper:

Akiba, R., Hinada, M. and Matsuo, H., “Feasibility Study of Buoyant Venus Station Placed by Inflated Balloon Entry”, IAF-76-154, XXVII Congress of the Inter. Astronautical Federation, Anaheim, CA, Oct. 10-16, 1976.

- Profile on Dr. Akiba.

- Post-Columbia articles about cocoon ballute lifeboats.

- Papers discussing ballute-like reentry devices:

Nanosat Deorbit and Recovery System to Enable New Missions

Clark, Ian G. and Robert D. Braun.

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