A 1961 NASA presentation illustration of a Nova launch vehicle for Apollo using a solid core nuclear engine on the third stage. The much greater performance potential meant that the rest of the vehicles could be substantially smaller.
Nov 052012
Nov 042012
A piece of NASA presentation artwork from 1961 showing a basic design for an all-chemical-rocket design for a Nova launch vehicle. This would have been somewhat more powerful than the as-yet undesigned Saturn V; and it would have needed to be in order to carry of its mission. The Lunar Orbit Rendezvous design had not yet been chosen, and consequently the Apollo capsule and the service module both would have been landed directly on the lunar surface.
Oct 262012
The quality is terrible, but apart from photos of a display model, this is the only illustration have of Northrop’s design for SLOMAR (Space LOgistics Maintenance And Rescue), a USAF program circa 1961 to study the sort of spacecraft that would be needed for crew and cargo transport to the space stations that everyone knew the USAF would have in some abundance by the end of the decade. The Northrop design is virtually identical in configuration to the Boeing Dyna Soar, though apparently a bit bigger.
Oct 112012
A 1959 Boeing concept for an airbreathing HTOL booster for Dyna Soar. Compared to the other pure-rocket VTO boosters, this would have been a monster… far bigger, far heavier, far, far more expensive. Which almost certainly explains why not only did such a booster not get serious study further down the line for Dyna Soar, it didn’t even rate detailed diagrams in the reports.
Staging would have been an interesting show.
NOTE: The isometric artwork for baseline concepts 4-7? Not available, sadly.
Oct 092012
A piece of NASA-Langley artwork describing the future of aeropropulsion… the scramjet engine. The provenance on the art is hazy at best… found in the uncatalogued collection of a former Langley engineer, it probably dates to the mid 1960’s. The aircraft illustrated here has been seen from the early 1960s up into the late 1980s, so that at best brackets the art. The aircraft has been used as a hypersonic transport and as the first stage of a space launch system. As shown here, the model used was *probably* a wind tunnel model repainted and repurposed as a display model… none of the diagrams I’ve seen of it have included the “hump” on the underside of the aft expansion ramp. Most likely that’s the connection point for the support “sting” for tunnel use. Alternatively, it *could* represent a fairing for a rather sizable rocket engine, though that seems unlikely… during scramjet operation the hump would not only mess with exhaust flowfields, it would also be subjected toa whole lot of thermal unpleasantness.
Oct 072012
As of 1964, the GA of the Models 176, a lifting body, stowed-wing spaceplane. See HERE for late 1960’s artwork of a larger version.
Oct 072012
The SRB-X is one of the most derided launch vehicles ever seriously considered. Initiated by NASA in the early 1980’s, the idea was to use Shuttle hardware – specifically Reusable Solid Rocket Motor components – to provide Shuttle-class payload capability. Theoretically the SRB-X, a stack of large solid rocket motors, would provide a low-cost semi-reusable launcher that would be rugged, reliable and could continue to fly if the shuttle itself was laid up for some reason. In reality, it would very likely have been every bit as expensive as we’ve come to expect from the Shuttle program.
In 1983 Boeing analyzed the SRB-X system for NASA, studying detailed designs as well as a range of alternates. The basic SRB-X booster used a core vehicle composed of RSRM segments, using RSRMs as boosters. In order to use stock Shuttle launch facilities, the boosters were mounted well outboard of the core… with the same separation distance as between the RSRMs on a standard Shuttle stack. This added considerably to structural weight. Alternates studied included versions that were just linear stacks of RSRM-derived stages (leading to very long boosters) and versions that used Titan hardware including the UA-1205 boosters and the Titan III first stage as the second stage of the vehicle.
Sep 302012
This 1959 Boeing booster concept not only did away with the cockpit, but also the jet engines and the wings. Instead, this was a simpler design intended for ocean splashdown and recovery. Aerodynamic flaps maintained stability.
Sep 292012
Base Point #2 concept from Boeing/North American in 1959, showing a glide-back booster.
Sep 232012
Same basic concept for the booster, but with a cockpit and canards. A manned booster rather than unmanned.
