space station – Page 14 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

Rotating space station

space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Apr 122013

NASA artwork from 1962 depicting a single-launch space station. Launched by a Saturn V, this space station would be folded up, then would unfold once on orbit to form something of a torus. Rotation would then supply a measure of artificial gravity. With a design like this, much of the inner volume would not be very efficiently used… as the straight cylindrical segments diverge further from a circular centerline for a hypothetical truly circular torus, the more the inner surface of the segment would seem to slope “uphill.” Thus the interior would probably be stepped so that the floor would be “flat” from the acceleration vector point of view, to keep everything from rolling or sliding “downhill.” In this case the central hub appears to be rotationally decoupled.

Image is related to this radial-arm concept, and was scanned at the NASA HQ history archive.

The ISS as it might have been…

space station, spacecraft 2 Responses »

Dec 222012

Before the International Space Station was the International Space Station, it was originally Space Station Freedom. This was in the heady days of Reagan and anti-Soviet technological developments such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, the latter half of the 1980s. The Station as then envisioned would have been an all-American Station (although the Europeans and Japanese could tag along with modules of their own), designed to fulfill NASA and DoD requirements, rather than State Department requirements like the ISS. As with SDI, it was grandiose and of course not to be.

The Station as planned circa 1987 could be grown into a “dual keel” design quite a bit larger than the ISS as actually built. It would feature numerous solar power plants, both photovoltaic and solar dynamic. It was planned that a satellite servicing center would be fitted, allowing, as the name suggests, for the repair and refitting of satellites. In order to permit that, a space tug (OMV – Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle) would also need developing that could retrieve the satellites, then return them to their orbits.

Sadly, the Station was always a political football. The cost was immense, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military applications of the Station (not least of which would have been the propaganda value of a Real American Space Station) ceased to seem relevant. Plans were scaled back, it was transformed into an International effort in order to spread cost and curry political favor, and the ISS end result is but a shadow of what was originally planned.

Space… craft? Station?

research, space station, spacecraft 1 Response »

Nov 172012

A Boeing (or possibly North American Aviation) artists concept of what appears to be a space station, but may be an interplanetary spacecraft. While overall it appears to be a Saturn V derived space station (using, apparently, the S-IVb tanks as a basis), on the right there appears to be a bay holding several Viking-style entry capsules. Numerous interplanetary spacecraft designs of the 1960’s had these. The capsules would hold not people, but unmanned landers and rovers. The relatively small size of the solar panels might indicate that this craft was designed for a mission to Venus; the apparent lack of much of a propulsion system might indicate that this was a flyby mission rather than a capture-and-orbit mission.

Note also the centrifuge that takes up the second deck from the “bottom.”

Boeing Space Station

research, space station, spacecraft 1 Response »

Nov 132012

No further data than the painting. Found some years back in the Boeing archive, so possibly North American Aviation. Appears to depict a dry-lab station built from Saturn V components, in this case apparently a shortened S-II stage.The Apollo capsule docked to the side seems a somewhat dubious proposition; there doesn’t appear to be an airlock there.

The use of such a space station as a mounting point for large astronomical telescopes such as shown here is also dubious. Vibrations, everything from solar panels being turned to air circulation systems to fluids being pumped to crewmen bumping around, would contribute to a pretty noisy image.

Aft Cargo Carrier Space Station: 2

space shuttle, space station No Responses »

Nov 022012

Another brochure illustration showing the ACC in use supporting the development of external tank based space stations. This time, SpaceLab components are shown attached to the outside of ET space stations. This would have meant that the ETs would have had to have had fittings welded onto them, either on the ground before launch or while in orbit, or otherwise holes drilled or punched into them on orbit for bolts or some other mechanical fasteners. Poking holes in the tanks would of course ruin them as pressure vessels; in this case they’d be good only as structural attachments.

Another issue would be the insulating foam. Over time, environmental conditions (extremes of hold and cold over 90-minutes orbits) would cause the foam to degrade and flake off, surrounding the station with a comet-tail of debris.

More on the ACC – the complete 22-page brochure – is available HERE.

Aft Cargo Carrier Space Station: 1

space shuttle, space station No Responses »

Nov 012012

The Martin Marietta Aft Cargo Carrier would have allowed the Space Shuttle to transport payloads of larger diameter by carrying them on the aft end of the External Tank, rather than in the Orbiters cargo bay. This would of course have necessitated that the ET be carried all the way to orbit; consequently, the ET would be on-hand and available for use.The illustration below shows how a fairly small number of Shuttle launches could have resulted in a truly vast space station.

More on the ACC – the complete 22-page brochure – is available HERE.

Norair SLOMAR

Dyna Soar, launch vehicles, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

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.

Gemini + Paraglider

space shuttle, space station, spacecraft 1 Response »

Sep 022012

Another slide from the NASA HQ archive depicts a Gemini capsule landing under a Rogallo wing paraglider. The concept was given considerable study, and there was serious expectation that it would be instituted for “operational” Gemini spacecraft, such as military MOL flights and the like.

Collier’s “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!”

launch vehicles, research, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane 4 Responses »

Sep 022012

OK, here’s one of the projects I’ve been working on of late… scanning and repairing the old “Collier’s space series” articles from the early 1950’s for reprinting in the AIAA-Houston section newsletter. As far as I’m aware, this is the first time these have been republished in clear, high-rez and full color format since the original release.

For those unaware, in the early 1950’s Collier’s magazine (similar to “The Saturday Evening Post”) ran a series of articles written by the likes of Willy Ley and Werner von Braun, illustrated by the likes of Chesley Bonestell and Fred Freeman, describing what the future of manned space exploration may look like. Their vision was, to put it mildly, grandiose, and far exceeded what the actual space program became and did… but the impact on the public of these articles helped lead to the space program becoming popular with the public… and the government. The designs that were produced, such as the Ferry Rocket and “Wheel” space stations, are comfortably described as “iconic.”

The July/August 2012 issue of AIAA-Houston Horizons reprints the complete first Collier’s article from March 22, 1952. The original magazine layout included numerous ads and extraneous bits that were edited out of this reprint, and in several cases replaced with “Mini-APR” articles, several of which tie directly into the Collier’s series. This first article includes about 30 pages of the original Collier’s stuff. Future issues of Horizons will carry the complete set of Collier’s article,s including the Moon exploration and Mars exploration articles.

As always, Horizons is a free-to-download PDF. New for this issue, it is available in both high and low resolution.

Feel free to spread the word about this. The more it is downloaded from the AIAA site, the more interest is shown in it, the more might be done with this in the future.

BALLOS

space shuttle, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Aug 212012

From the NASA HQ historical archive, a 1963 illustration of a large 12-man Ballistic Logistic System capsule. Such capsules were designed by NASA and various contractors to go atop Saturn boosters to provide crew and cargo transport to and from the large space stations that NASA fully expected to have in orbit in the early to mid 1970’s.

Older Entries Newer Entries