rockets – Page 16 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Advanced SSTO

launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Feb 102020

In 1985, Rockwell International considered the business case of an advanced single stage to orbit vehicle. The design illustrated was a manned, winged horizontal launched, horizontal landing design with, oddly, air inlets on the upper surface. Unlike the “Orient Express” or NASP designs of the time, this design was not meant to lift off and accelerate to Ludicrous Speed using scramjets, but was to lift off and rather sedately rendezvous with a tanker aircraft. This… is a bit familiar.

In the late 1990’s I worked for Pioneer Rocketplane. Our plan was to design and build a spaceplane that would lift off from a runway under turbojet power, with fuel tanks full of RP-1 and oxidizer tanks full of very little. The vehicle would rendezvous with a tanker aircraft which would transfer not jet fuel, but liquid oxygen. This is because for best performance an RP-1/LOX rocket system needs a far greater mass of LOX than RP-1. So leaving the LOX tank basically empty (a small amount was carried to keep the tank pressurized and chilled) would allow the vehicle to lift off at lowest practical mass. This lowered the mass needed for the landing gear, and lowered the surface area needed for the wings, which of course lowered the mass of the wings. The rocketplane would tank up, separate from the tanker and fire its rocket engine. In the case of the Pioneer Rocketplane “Pathfinder,” the spaceplane would reach orbital altitude, but not orbital velocity. An upper stage would boot the payload into orbit; the spaceplane would return home, either gliding or under jet power. The Rockwell design illustrated below *seems* to have been meant to operate in a similar fashion, but with the spaceplane intended to put itself directly into orbit. Most likely it would have been LH2/LOX powered, probably with SSME derivative engines.

The description in the text, though, describes very different vehicles, using propulsion system best described as highly steeped in the hypothetical. Atomic hydrogen and metastable helium are great stuff if you can get them… and, basically, you can’t. Not with 1980’s tech, not with 2020 tech. Someday, maybe.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft No Responses »

Feb 072020

In 1985, Rockwell International contemplated the business case for Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles. The specific design illustrated used the ET and SRB’s more or less stock, but the orbiter was replaced with a recoverable propulsion and avionics module. The payload came in the form of an upper stage with something very like the Apollo Command and Service Modules. This would probably have been for a lunar mission of some kind as a Shuttle-class booster is too big for a simple capsule mission to LEO. The basic design would have roughly performed like the presumably forthcoming SLS.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Military Spaceplanes

hypersonic, Recon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Jan 252020

In 1985 Rockwell thought that there might be a business case for a small unmanned spaceplane for recon purposes. At the time, the answer was apparently no… but within a few years Rockwell developed the “REFLY” spaceplane which, over a span of a couple decades, transmorgified into the X-37B which has flown a handful of top secret long duration missions.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Military Spaceplanes

hypersonic, launch vehicles, Recon, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Jan 182020

In the 1980’s, military spaceplanes were all the rage… at least on paper. In 1985 Rockwell International considered the possibility that there would be a profitable business case for a relatively small manned spaceplane that could serve as a rapid-reaction launch system for missions such as recon. Thirty years later the X-37 finally accomplished something sorta along those lines, though without the crew and rapid reaction.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Ground Based Services

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Jan 082020

Continuing the report into a less interesting section, that of ground based services that in 1985 Rockwell thought might be profitable. these ideas included STS Marketing Services, Consolidated Space Operations Center, DOD “Schedule C,” Payload Certification from NASA, Commercial Payload Software Services, Commercial ASE Services, and Turn Key Launch Services.

Up next: More Interesting Stuff.

More after the break…

Large format scanning in progress

Dyna Soar, hi-rez, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft 1 Response »

Dec 062019

As hinted at here and there, I’ve recently moved from rural Utah to non-rural elsewhere. One of the benefits of the move was that it put me a LOT closer to large format scanning services. Previously getting a large blueprint scanned meant several hours on the road and then a return several days later to pick it up; now the drive is a matter of a few minutes. Consequently, my rather extensive backlog of large format aerospace art and diagrams is finally getting scanned in bulk.

Behold some recent results, mostly involving early Titan III, Saturn and Dyna Soar studies:

Some of these will end up in the monthly “catalogs” for the APR patrons to vote on… and some will end up as “extras” for patrons, particularly for above $10-level patrons. If these sort of images are of interest, or if you are interested in helping to fund the preservation of this sort of thing, please consider becoming a patron, either through the APR Patreon or the Monthly Historical Document Program.

Additionally: if you have large format diagrams that you feel are of aerospace historical interest, let me know. I’m always in the market to buy, rent, borrow such things.

“Passenger Carrying Space Shuttle”

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, US Launcher Projects No Responses »

Nov 252019

Here’s an article from “Future Life” magazine, May 1979, describing a Rockwell concept for a passenger module for the Shuttle. This could carry 74 passengers, a loadout that seems perhaps excessive until you realize that it was meant to transport the crews who would build the miles-long solar power satellites. If this concept is of interest, be sure to check out US Bomber Projects #06, the Solar Power Satellite Launch Special. There, another concept for a Shuttle “bus” was described and illustrated.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Cargo Return From Orbit

hypersonic, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Nov 242019

In 1985, Rockwell considered the possibility of making a business of returning commercial cargoes from orbit. This is a tricky proposition: almost *nothing* in space is worth more returned back to the ground. Humans, of course, and highly hypothetical products made in zero-g… drugs, crystals, electronics. but none of those actually panned out: zero-g and/or high vacuum might produce some small benefit for various chemical processes, but terrestrial manufacture is so much easier and cheaper that nothing has so far come from on-orbit production

The description mentions a “ballistic cargo carrier,” but the piece is illustrated with a lifting body. This appears to be the same vehicle mentioned previously as a “hypervelocity research vehicle.” I don’t know if this means Rockwell gave thought to using the HRV as a cargo return system (if so, it would be an inefficient way to go) or if the HRV diagram was simply conveniently at hand. A ballistic capsule would probably be by far the best way to go for returning payloads that are relatively insensitive to g-forces. Cheaper, smaller, lighter and, importantly, cheaper than a lifting body.

Next up: Space Station Lifeboats.

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Commercial Labs & Propellant Scavenging

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Nov 022019

Picking up where we left off…

In 1985, Rockwell considered the possibilities of space-based commercial services such as modules added to the Space Station or free-flying on their own and propellant scavenging from the External Tank and OMS pods. in the decades since, neither of these has come to pass. Commercial modules for the ISS have been proposed, but none flown, and certainly no free-flying man-tended commercial space facilities have been launched. Similarly, the idea of scavenging residual propellant is a good one… *IF* you can do it cost effectively. Every drop of rocket fuel returned to Earth is a waste of money and potential, along with being a potential environmental hazard when it’s inevitably just dumped into the atmosphere after re-entry or touchdown.

October 2019 Rewards

bomber, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports No Responses »

Oct 312019

It was in some doubt on my end, but I managed to get the October rewards issued in the nick of time. I have been uprooted and moved well over a thousand miles into smaller digs; much of my stuff was abandoned or outright tossed but my files seem, so far, to have survived the journey intact and hopefully complete. I’m in the process of straightening that all out now, and with luck November will be more orderly.

The October rewards included:

Diagram: A very large format scan of the McDonnell Douglas Model D-3235 Supersonic Transport from 1988

Documents: The Boeing “Airborne Alert Aircraft”

A new scan of the Goodyear “METEOR Junior” report, this time scanned from a pristine original

A scan of a collection of JPL CAD diagrams of a Pluto flyby spacecraft circa 1994… sent to me during my college days with the hopes that I could make a display model of it (beyond my capabilities at the time)

In lieu of the CAD diagram usually created for $5 and up Patrons, which I had nowhere near the time to create, a scan of some North American Rockwell brochures on the HOBOS homing bomb system.

If this sort of thing is of interest – either in receiving these sort of rewards or in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace history – consider signing up for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

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