spaceplane – Page 8 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

October 2019 Rewards

bomber, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports No Responses »

Oct 312019

It was in some doubt on my end, but I managed to get the October rewards issued in the nick of time. I have been uprooted and moved well over a thousand miles into smaller digs; much of my stuff was abandoned or outright tossed but my files seem, so far, to have survived the journey intact and hopefully complete. I’m in the process of straightening that all out now, and with luck November will be more orderly.

The October rewards included:

Diagram: A very large format scan of the McDonnell Douglas Model D-3235 Supersonic Transport from 1988

Documents: The Boeing “Airborne Alert Aircraft”

A new scan of the Goodyear “METEOR Junior” report, this time scanned from a pristine original

A scan of a collection of JPL CAD diagrams of a Pluto flyby spacecraft circa 1994… sent to me during my college days with the hopes that I could make a display model of it (beyond my capabilities at the time)

In lieu of the CAD diagram usually created for $5 and up Patrons, which I had nowhere near the time to create, a scan of some North American Rockwell brochures on the HOBOS homing bomb system.

If this sort of thing is of interest – either in receiving these sort of rewards or in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace history – consider signing up for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Next Generation Shuttle

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, US Launcher Projects 1 Response »

Oct 012019

Continuing…

In 1985, the Space Shuttle program was already about a decade and a half old, the shuttles themselves were already starting to show themselves as “old tech.” It was clear that they would need replacing with a next generation of vehicle, and of course Rockwell wanted to build whatever “Shuttle II” came along… if for no other reason, a Shuttle II would make the Shuttle instantly obsolete and wipe out Rockwell’s Shuttle-based income. It was obvious that such a system would enter service sometime after the year 2000. Not, of course, very long after 2000. That would be nuts.

Interestingly, the illustration Rockwell used for the Next Generation Shuttle was not a Rockwell design, but a NASA-Langley concept for a small “Orbit-on-Demand” vehicle. If you’d like more information on this exact design, boy, have I got a deal for you: it was described and illustrated in US Launch Vehicles Projects #03.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Flyback Booster

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Sep 272019

Continuing…

This kinda made sense while the Shuttle was being developed, but by 1985 the idea of a reusable flyback external Tank seemed kinda silly. The only way it could have made financial sense to recover the ET would be if the Shuttle were to fly *far* more often than it actually did.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Small Manned Space Launch Vehicle

launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane 1 Response »

Sep 162019

Continuing…

Moving away from the Space Shuttle, Rockwell looked towards the next generation of manned space vehicle. In this case, a small vehicle with about 10% the payload of the Space Shuttle. The general configuration was used by Rockwell for several small space launch vehicles at about this time, mostly military vehicles. While the payload was nowhere near the STS’s, it would- if it worked as advertised – potentially wreck the business model for the STS program by providing a far cheaper means of getting crew into space.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Hypervelocity Research Vehicle

hypersonic, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Sep 122019

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell considered the business case for a small unmanned research vehicle to be released from the Orbiter payload bay. It would be *something* akin to the X-37, though of an utterly different lifting body configuration.

Also note: this vehicle re-appears later in the report, including a nice three-view of an “operational” version.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Military Orbiter

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Sep 092019

Continuing…

Sadly, probably *not* an orbiter with a Phalanx system in the cargo bay. Exactly what would be changed/added is a little vague.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Block II Orbiter

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Sep 072019

Continuing…

A “Block II” orbiter would not be an entirely new design, but would incorporate a bunch of improvements to the existing design… better systems, newer computers, higher thrust engines, lighter materials, etc. Also would likely use liquid or otherwise improved boosters. Given that Rockwell was the prime contractor for the Orbiter, it’s unsurprising that they would be interested in a new production run of the Orbiter. if the Orbiter was put into another production run, almost certainly Rockwell would get paid to do it. But if the Shuttle was replaced with an all-new “Shuttle II,” then Rockwell could potentially lose to Boeing or Lockheed or McDonnell-Douglas or Grumman or Northrop.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Liquid Rocket Boosters

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane 1 Response »

Sep 022019

Continuing…

As part of Rockwells 1985 ponderings of what they could do to dredge up more business, the notion of liquid propellant rocket boosters (LRBs) were floated. The idea of LRB’s has been a part of the Shuttle program since the beginning, and ran not only until the end of the program but beyond it: the Shuttle derived SLS vehicle uses derivatives of the Shuttle solid rocket boosters, and there are those who would like to see them replaced with LRBs.

LRBs would theoretically provide improved performance due to the higher specific impulse that liquid propellants offer. Their recovery, refurbishment and reuse would also theoretically be improved; as SpaceX has shown, the refurbishment of a recovered liquid rocket booster is a far simpler operation than the refurbishment of a solid rocket booster. From Rockwell’s point of view, the LRB had one great advantage over SRBs: Rockwell was not the prime contractor for the SRB. They could be for the LRB.

Note that the illustration below seems to show existing SRB casings repurposed into LRBs. This would of course not happen. The LRBs would be relatively smooth and featureless, without the raised field joints used to bolt the several segments of the casing together (this is likely an existing pen&ink sketch of the standard STS with some changes to the business ends of the boosters). However, the use of four engines per booster and the addition of clamshell waterproof closures to keep the engines dry after splashdown was a common feature of such designs. The use of a wide range of liquid fuels was studied… hydrogen, propane, methane and kerosene being the most commonly studied. Hydrogen was probably the usual favorite due to the high performance and the fact that the launch facilities were already plumbed for hydrogen. But a hydrogen fueled LRB would be very fat compared to the standard SRB; this would put the outboard engines well outside the exhaust pass-thoughts in the launch platform, meaning substantial launch facility modification would be required.

Next up: hammerhead ETs

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Adding extra boosters

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Sep 012019

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell gave thought to adding relatively small liquid propellant boosters to the undersides of the Orbiters wings. Even though the boosters were relatively small, with only a single RL-10 engine fed from low-density, narrow-diameter liquid hydrogen tanks. Even so, Rockwell projected an additional 15,000 pounds of payload. This would seem to require some interesting modifications to the underside of the wings… not just adding mounting hardpoints, but doors that could close over them after the boosters are jettisoned.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Aft Cargo Carrier

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Aug 292019

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell pondered the business possibility of an “Aft Cargo Carrier” for the Shuttle. This idea, which received a fair amount of study by Martin Marietta, installed a payload shroud to the *rear* of the external tank. Doing this would allow the Shuttle to carry payloads too large in diameter to fit in the Shuttle bay; if the STS system was overall improved, this would allow the vehicle to carry payloads heavier than the Shuttle itself would be allowed to carry (the Orbiter has to *land* with whatever payload might be in the cargo bay; by moving the cargo away from the Orbiter, in an abort situation the orbit can land light and just let the aft payload go into the drink). The cargo carrier has to be insulated from a *lot* of heat, radiant energy coming from the solid and liquid rockets.

A common idea was that the Orbiter would carry some sort of satellite or other payload not capable of much self-propulsion, while an orbital tug would be carried in the ACC. The tug would be fueled with light & fluffy liquid hydrogen, which not only would be challenging to fit into the Orbiter cargo bay, it would also require new fuel line pass-throughs in either the cargo bay doors or the sides of the cargo bay… along with boiloff vents. Much preferable, went the argument, to put the LH2 in an ACC that you could poke whatever holes you want to in.

The configuration of the ACC shown in the sketch is noticeably different from all other ACC designs I’ve seen elsewhere. I don’t know if this is because Rockwell designed a rather ellipsoidal carrier, or the artist just sorta dashed this one out.

Next time: boosting the boosters

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