October 2021 APR Rewards

 hi-rez, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, research, rockets, space station, spacecraft, transports  No Responses »
Oct 312021
 

The rewards for October, 2021, have been sent out. Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

Document: “C-131C Tactical Unit Support Airplane,” 1953 Consolidated Vultee briefing on cargo aircraft military capabilities

Document: “Aerodynamic Model test Report Titan IIIM Final Posttest Report 0.0535 scale Force and Pressure Model Phase II,” 1967 Martin Report Of Unusual Size (ROUS, 353 pages) describing with charts, data, model photos and diagrams, of the proposed Titan IIIM topped with a Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

Diagram: General Arrangement of the Douglas D-558 research aircraft (provenance unknown)

CAD Diagram (for $5-level and up): Medusa Spinnaker, second illustration of giant but lightweight nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. *ALL* back issues, one a month since 2014, are available for subscribers at low cost.



 Posted by at 5:44 pm

Flashback: Engage Smug Mode

 American Nuclear Explosive Devices, bomber, nukes  1 Response »
Oct 192021
 

Almost four years ago I posted about a project known as “Flashback,” a vaguely-described mid 1960’s program to carry and drop a giant *something* from a B-52. What it was, exactly, was not described with any clarity, but there were enough clues that I tentatively speculated that it was a design for an American “Tsar Bomb” with a yield of fifty or more megatons. To my knowledge I was the first person to yap about it publicly. I sent what I’d found to a few atomic and aerospace researchers to see if they knew anything. At the time, they were as mystified as I was.

Today there’s less mystery. I was contacted by one of the researchers I had contacted back then, letting me know he’s writing an article to appear in a month or so in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, covering Flashback among other things. He has Found Some Stuff. In short… Flashback was a design for a 50 to 100 megaton hydrogen bomb.

Giggitty.

 

 Posted by at 9:50 pm

PDF review: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous News Conference

 launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, PDF Review, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 192021
 

I recently came across something on ebay that looked interesting; the buy-it-now price is a bit steep, so I googled it. Huzzah! It’s available online as a PDF. D’oh: my antivirus program freaked out that the connection to the university website is insecure. Huzzah! It has been archived on the Wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210627145321/http://users.umiacs.umd.edu/~oard/apollo/LOR_News_Conference.pdf

This is a writeup, with photos and diagrams, of the July 11, 1962 news conference at NASA headquarters where the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique was described. prior to the the understanding was that the Apollo Command and Service Modules would land directly on the lunar surface; this sounds easy, but required a bigger booster than the Saturn V and would have put the astronauts far above the lunar surface (so far as I know, no determination of how exactly the astronauts were going to get some fifty or more feet down, and then fifty or more feet back up). LOR entailed the use of the Lunar Excursion Module,a  small, lightweight spacecraft that could zip on down the the surface from lunar orbit and then hop on back up. Far less mass needed to go to the lunar surface, meaning the planned Saturn C-5 (later Saturn V) could take care of the whole mission in one shot. No need to assemble spacecraft in Earth orbit using multiple launches of hardware and propellant tankers.

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light! Alternatively, you can support through the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 2:36 pm

A preview of “B-47/B-52”

 B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, bomber, Dyna Soar, future projects, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, Recon, research, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, VTOL  3 Responses »
Oct 142021
 

Here are some screenshots snagged from a not-quite-final version of the book, showing the sort of content you can expect from the final product.

As before it is available for pre-order from both the publisher and from Amazon:

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 10:57 pm

RL-10 in action

 launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 102021
 

A photo taken from the first stage of a Saturn I showing the second stage’s six RL-10 rocket engines firings, boosting the S-IV stage towards orbit. Also visible are four orange-yellow exhaust plumes from ullage rockets… solid rockets that provide just enough acceleration to the stage to settle the liquid propellants at the bottoms of the tanks (otherwise the turbines might suck down vapor rather than liquid and that would be a Very Bad Thing).

Photo was from a 1965 magazine advertisement for Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the RL-10 engine. The full rez scan of the ad has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 7:53 pm

September 2021 APR Rewards

 hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, research, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 062021
 

Yeesh. I continue to successfully get rewards out to Patrons and subscribers in a timely fashion… but I also continue to fail to publicize the fact. Last day of September, the rewards for that month were sent out. The September 2021 rewards included:

Diagram: “Early X-3 cutaway:” A large format cutaway illustration of a not-quite-final Douglas X-3 configuration

CAD Diagram: the command module of the Solem “Medusa” nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

Document: a giant 1100+ page “Data Sheets for Ordnance Type Materiel,”1962 US Army “catalog”of pretty much all their stuff. Includes an illustration (often, though not always, including a basic diagram) and data for everything from trucks to tanks to bayonets to pistols to rockets.

Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

 

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 4:07 pm

X-Wing

 transports, VTOL  No Responses »
Oct 042021
 

Early/mid 80’s artwork depicting an X-Wing vehicle (a helicopter with very rigid rotors that could stop in flight to serve as wings). The text attributes this to Boeing-Vertol, but I could swear I’ve seen it attributed to someone else (Lockheed? Grumman?).

The X-Wing concept seemed to have great promise, but testing showed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it had severe problems during transition. Had it worked, though, it would hve provided the high speed and long range of a conventional aircraft with the hovering efficiency of a helicopter.

 Posted by at 8:29 pm

Orbital HL-10

 rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports  No Responses »
Oct 012021
 

A 1964 Boeing design for an orbital HL-10 derivative, to be used for space station logistics. This would be launched atop a Saturn Ib. Cargo would be carried up int he adapter, which would be expended; passengers would go up and down within the body of the spaceplane. A heat shield would cover the canopy until after re-entry.

 Posted by at 4:22 pm