Due to the contributions of APR Patreon patrons, over the past little while I have been able to acquire some useful aerospace history publications:
If you would like to help the cause, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
Aug 112015
Aug 112015
Here’s a presentation describing a number of European space transport concepts, including the HOTOL, Sanger II and Hermes spaceplanes, Automatic Transfer System and a few others. As a presentation, it is loaded with illustration. I have clipped out some of the better Hermes illustrations and included them below.
European Space Transportation System Projects since 1998
Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon.
Aug 072015
It’s not much, but here’s a color schematic of a nuclear light bulb, taken from a NASA report.
Aug 052015
The Shuttle C program was fairly well advanced when it was cancelled; a full-scale mockup was built, indicating that detailed large format diagrams should have been created. Sadly… this is the best three-view I’ve seen of this concept.
Aug 042015
In the 1990’s, into the early 2000’s, NASA gave a few brief looks at Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion. A few papers on the concept were published, but it does not appear that a great deal of real engineering effort was expended. Given the political impossibility of an Orion in the Clinton years and the diplomatic nightmare than an Orion would have been post 9/11, it’s hardly surprising that the NASA efforts were low level and apparently led to little.
Some artwork was produced. Generally computer generated, and generally reproduced at relatively low resolution, only a little can be gleaned from these pieces. The design shown below uses Transhab technology for the crew compartment and, unlike every known vintage Orion design, it has substantial radiator area. This presumably was for an internal nuclear reactor. If the Transhab used here is the same 8.2 meter diameter as the standard Transhab design, this indicates that the pusher plate is probably smaller than the 10 meter design.
Aug 012015
I have added the full-rez version of this to the 2015-07 sub-folder of the APR Patreon “Extras” folder on Dropbox. What is depicted is a 1985 Martin Marietta design for an Unmanned Launch Vehicle, a Shuttle derived vehicle that replaced the Orbiter hanging off the side with an inline payload shroud up top and a small propulsion/avionics module that would have three SSME and two OMS engines, in much the same positions as the Orbiter engines. This would allow the booster to lift off from existing Shuttle facilities with minimal modifications. The P/A module would be a biconic lifting body allowing recovery and re-use. Not only would the P/A module go into orbit, but so would the external tank. Each flight of this vehicle would have the potential to orbit the shell of a fantastic space station.
This vehicle was described in greater detail in US Launch Vehicle Projects #2.
If you are interested in the high-rez version of this, it and many more are available to all $4 and up patrons at the APR Patreon.