rockets – Page 13 – 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Dyna Soar, hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »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Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers.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to help preserve aerospace history (or both) please consider signing on to either the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.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

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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.

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.

“Future Starships”

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Aug 312020

Late 1970’s depictions of “realistic” starships as understood at the time. These include an Orion vehicle (which, despite claims to the contrary, would make a terrible starship, since the specific impulse of a reasonably conceivable Orion is an order of magnitude or two too low for practical interstellar craft), two Bussard ramjets, and a “golden globe” minimum weight starship proposed by Robert L. Forward, whose operating principles I am currently a bit fuzzy on.

Bussard ramjets would use magnetic fields to collect interstellar hydrogen. The hydrogen would be compressed in a fusion reactor, preferably a steady-state one, and used to provide thrust to the starship. For a number of years this concept promised great things, but in recent decades it has been pretty much discounted. On one hand, the magnetic fields are not very likely going to work well at a reasonable mass, and they tend to not form open-mouthed funnels, but rather closed-mouthed “cups,” thus preventing the hydrogen from getting into the engine. Whoops. Second, thrust is unlikely to exceed drag much above maybe a percent or two of lightspeed, meaning a Bussard ramjet might serve as a decent “anchor” or drag brake, but not as an accelerator to relativistic velocities.

Apollo Extension System models

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Aug 262020

This set of models was recently sold on eBay. It depicts a proposed concept for extending the utility of Apollo hardware… in this case, the Command Module and the Ascent Stage of the Lunar Module, by using them in Earth or Lunar orbit in conjunction with a small space laboratory. The Lunar Module would be used as a little space lab of it’s own, with a bolted-on telescope… this idea transformed into the Apollo Telescope Mount on Skylab, which began life as a modified LM. This probably dates from 1965-66. The purpose of the lab was to provide living space for the crew of three, because missions were contemplated lasting several months, providing detailed examination of the Earth or moon. Scientifically useful to be sure, but were the crew packed solely into the CM and LM for that period they’d likely kick the walls out.

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.

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