APR: October 2020 Rewards

 Dyna Soar, hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane  No Responses »
Oct 312020
 

Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers.  Included:

1: “Manned Aerodynamic Reusable Spaceship (MARS) Vehicle Design” a 1962 Douglas report covering a single stage “orbital airplane” of impressive size and design.

2: “Pretest Information 3.3 Percent 624A Aerodynamic Heating Investigation, NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel.” A 1963 Martin report describing a test of the Titan IIIC/Dyna Soar configuration.

3: Official XB-70 General Arrangement Diagram

4: CAD diagram: a 1974 Lockheed concept for a subscale Space Shuttle Orbiter Mach 9 flight test model, to be dragged behind a YF-12C and booster by an “Avanti” rocket (modification of the D-21B’s booster) with an internal SRAM motor in the orbiter.

If this sort of thing is of interest to you, either because you’d like to obtain these documents or you’d like to help preserve aerospace history (or both) please consider signing on to either the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 2:02 pm

DC-3 Artwork

 hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane  No Responses »
Oct 252020
 

An artists impression of the “DC-3” Space Shuttle concept. This was a two-stage system using two manned flyback vehicles with straight wings and turbofan engines. It was intended to be a low-cost approach, disdaining high performance for simple design and – theoretically – easy maintenance. The orbiter here had two jet engines in the nose for landing and flyback range extension; aerodynamic fairing would cover the inlets until after re-entry, jettisoned once the vehicles had decelerated to below Mach 1. The straight wings would be easy to build and low in weight compared to large delta wings, but of course they wouldn’t provide the same amount of lift. Consequently, the orbiter would less “glide” during the initial re-entry than “belly flop.”

I’ve  uploaded the full-rez version of that to the APR Dropbox, into the 2020-10 APR Extras folder. This is available to any APR Patron or Subscriber at the $4 level and above.

 Posted by at 8:53 pm

Life/NACA SST

 hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports, US Transport Projects  No Responses »
Oct 202020
 

Two years ago I released US Transport Projects #8 that had a piece on an SST designed by staff of the NACA for Life magazine. To make the best possible diagram I did the best job I could of scanning and stitching together several pages from a vintage issue of Life. I’ve finally gotten around to uploading the full-rez version of that to the APR Dropbox, into the 2020-10 APR Extras folder. This is available to any APR Patron or Subscriber at the $4 level and above.

The full-size version is six times wider than this one:

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. If you know of someone who might be interested, be sure to nudge them this way… I could do with an infusion of new patrons/subscribers and as is blisteringly obvious I stink at marketing.



 Posted by at 10:02 pm

SPS Art

 spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

A late-70’s NASA rendering of the solar power satellite. Not exactly shown to scale… the satellite, approximately the size of Manhattan, would actually reside in geosynchronous orbit some 22,000  miles up. But the size of the receiving station, located outside of a probably fictitious city (gotta love the H-shaped skyscraper), seems about right. Such stations, which would approximate fields of chickenwire suspended atop telephone poles, could be located over farms, fields, lakes and ponds. The wire would intercept the incoming microwaves beamed down from the SPS with the same efficiency as the wire mesh in the door of your microwave oven keeps your face from getting fried while you watch your popcorn or soup getting nuked.

 Posted by at 4:35 pm

Apollo Command & Service Module cutaway artwork (Update)

 hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 122020
 

As an update to THIS POST, I have added a 200 dpi scan of the Apollo CSM cutaway artwork I scored off eBay to the 2020-10 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers.

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. If you know of someone who might be interested, be sure to nudge them this way… I could do with an infusion of new patrons/subscribers and as is blisteringly obvious I stink at marketing.



 Posted by at 2:36 pm

Turbo Three Colossus

 hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports  No Responses »
Oct 032020
 

The “Colossus” was a proposed cargo aircraft from the early 1970’s by the “Turbo Three” corporation. It was to be made from a mix of new parts and old… the nose of a C-97, the wings of the Turbo Three “Virtus,” an even bigger plane designed to carry the Space Shuttle. I have made the full-rez of the art below, along with a 600-dpi scan of the three-view that went with it, available to above-$10 Patron/subscribers.

 

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 7:09 pm