launch vehicles – Page 8 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

STAR Clipper art

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Nov 112020

A black and white bit of concept art that was sold on ebay a while back showing the Lockheed STAR (Space Transport And Recovery) Clipper space shuttle concept from the late 1960’s. This was a promising concept that used a lifting body orbiter with a wide, flattened rear fuselage that was liberally covered with rocket engines (a large range of engines and layouts were considered, including liner aerospikes). The shuttle was filled with liquid oxygen tanks and some hydrogen tanks; the bulk of the hydrogen was stored in a large V-shaped drop tank. This component would have been larger but reasonably inexpensive, jettisoned after deletion to be destroyed during re-entry or splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The vehicle would have continued on to orbit using the propellant remaining in the internal tanks.

A vast amount of information on the STAR Clipper is available HERE.

The STAR Clipper lasted a lot longer than many contemporary designs and went through a multitude of design revisions. it always seemed like it should have worked reasonably well… and it had the benefit of being aesthetically beautiful.

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Dyna Soar, hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »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Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers.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to help preserve aerospace history (or both) please consider signing on to either the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

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.

Colossal Guppy art

launch vehicles, spacecraft, transports No Responses »

Sep 232020

Recently sold on eBay (but not to me, I got beat out) was a piece of concept art of the “Colossal Guppy,” a proposal by Aero Spacelines to convert a B-52 into a Saturn S-II carrier. All of the artwork I’ve seen before has shown a 12-engine design; this eBay art shows only the original 8 engines that were fitted to the B-52. I would assume that this is an earlier iteration of the concept, but can’t say for certain.

Titan II-Scramjet

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Aug 242020

Now here’s an odd thing…

Part of the collection of images from the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, NY, this depicts a Republic Aviation concept circa early 1960’s for putting a scramjet vehicle atop a Titan II first stage. Presumably this is meant to be… I dunno, a space launcher? No wings are in evidence, so cruise flight and a landing seem unlikely. But it would seem a hell of a thing to throw away, so *presumably* it was meant to be recovered somehow. Perhaps it shed the entire payload-containing nosecone and came back using the blunt forward dome of the propellant tank as a heat shield, followed by a splashdown. Dunno.

Also in the collection is the “AX-92 detailed drawing.” Clearly this is an entirely serious proposal, and not at all an example of an artist screwing around for giggles.

Aug 212020

Recent eBay procurements

bomber, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft, transports No Responses »

Aug 132020

One of the main purposes of the Monthly Historical Documents Program/APR Patreon is to get rare aerospace items from eBay. These items are then made available to subscribers/patrons via monthly votes and catalogs.

Below are some of the items I’ve recently paid for (though not as yet received). If you are interested in getting high-rez scans and/or helping me save these sort of things for future generations (as well as keeping my cats in food and litter), please consider signing up for the Monthly Historical Documents Program or the APR Patreon.

July 2020 Rewards now available

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

Jul 312020

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

1) An early (1969) NASA study of possible Space Shuttle configurations

2) A 1991 Strategic Defense Initiative Office presentation/transcript on the SDI program

3) A good, clear general arrangement diagram of the North American F-107

4) A CAD diagram of the late 1950’s Convair “Landing boat” that often appeared in presentations (art and models) from Krafft Ehricke

If you are a paid-up Patron/Subscriber, you should by now have received a message with a link to your rewards. If you haven’t, let me know.

Starliner with a spaceship

launch vehicles, transports No Responses »

Jul 272020

In 1964 Fairchild Stratos pitched a number of concepts for converting aircraft into carriers for Saturn rocket stages. One idea was a highly modified Convair B-36; this concept was illustrated in US Transport Projects #4, available HERE. Another was to convert a Lockheed Starliner, the final form of the venerable Constellation line of passenger airliner. This was not as massively modified as the B-36. Here, the Fairchild M-536 had a large aerodynamic “pod” was added to the top that would fit a S-IV stage. The fuselage was lengthened by 15 feet and the central vertical stabilizer was extended.

How to recover your Saturn

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Jul 222020

An illustration from a 1964 Boeing report on Saturn V first stage recovery and re-use. A number of concepts were studied, from balloons to parachutes. This particular one used parachutes to slow the stage and solid propellant retro-rockets in the nose for terminal braking, doing something akin to Falcon’s “hoverslam” just before splashdown. The forward LOX dome in the concept would be structurally strengthened to survive the impact. After the initial splash, rockets would be used to tip the stage over in a particular direction… and then more, bigger rockets would be used just before the stage fell over to keep it from hitting too hard.

Another concept was to use a design that would blow off the LOX tank forward dome before impact. The stage would thus hit the water like an inverted cup. As the water compressed the air within the LOX tank, blowout doors at the “bottom” of the tank would, well, blow out, giving the compressed air somewhere to go. This would serve as a pneumatic shock absorber for the stage, but it would pretty much trash the LOX tank.

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