spacecraft – Page 36 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

US Bomber Projects #15, Transports #04, Launchers #02 Now Available

bomber, Dyna Soar, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, stealth, transports, US Bomber Projects, US Launcher Projects, US Transport Projects, VTOL No Responses »

Jul 082015

Now available… three new additions to the US Aerospace Projects series.

US Bomber Projects #15

USBP#15 includes:

Bell D2001: A 1957 eight-engined Bell VTOL strike plane for the Navy
Lockheed “Harvey”: AKA the Hopeless Diamond, Lockheeds first design for what became the F-117
Convair Model 35: An early push-pull concept for the B-36
Rockwell D661-27: A nuclear powered strategic bomber
Boeing Model 464-49: The penultimate major design in the development of the B-52
Boeing Model 988-123: A highly agile stealthy strike fighter
Boeing Orbital Bomber: An early concept for a Dyna Soar derivative with eight nukes
Boeing Model 701-251: A twin engined concept on the road to the XB-59

USBP#15 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

—

——————————————-

US Transport Projects #4

USTP#4 includes:

Boeing Model 473-13: An early twin-engine jetliner
ICARUS Troop Transport: 1,200 marines, anywhere, anytime
Republic Model 10 SST: A little known SST competitor
Lockheed CL-593: A giant, if slow, logistics transporter
Boeing 763-059 NLA: A whole lotta passengers in one place
Fairchild M-534: A B-36 converted into a vast cargo carrier
Lockheed CL-1201: Probably the largest aircraft ever designed
Oblique All-Wing Supersonic Airplane: A supersonic variable-orientation flying wing

USTP#4 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

—

——————————

US Launch Vehicle Projects #2

USLP#2 includes:

Juno V, 4 stage: An early design that became the Saturn rocket
Boeing “Space Freighter”: a giant two-stage spaceplane for launching solar power satellites
Boeing NASP-D: A rare look at an operational National Aerospace Plane derivative
LLNL Mockingbird: The smallest SSTO ever designed
Boeing Model 922-101: A fully reusable Saturn V
NAR Phase B Space Shuttle: a fully reusable two-stage concept
Martin Marietta Inline SDV: A Shuttle-derived heavy lifter
Scaled Composites Model 351: The Stratolaunch carrier aircraft

USLP#2 can be purchased for downloading for the low, low price of $4.25.

—

Looking for: SLS CAD diagram

future projects, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, US Launcher Projects No Responses »

Jun 302015

Anybody know where I could get a copy of the CAD diagram (or similar) of the Space Launch System shown in the background of this image?

Jun 272015

(Post in progress…)

Click on the images to bring up a larger version…

2015-06 APR Patreon Rewards are out

bomber, hi-rez, launch vehicles, nukes, Patreon, Recon, rockets, spacecraft, stealth No Responses »

Jun 272015

For APR Patrons, here’s what you now have available:

Documents: 2 General Electric reports on nuclear turbojets, *packed* with diagrams

Document: Mercury/Redstone booster recovery

Large diagram: 2 this time… “Long Tank Delta” space launch rocket and “Honest John” battlefield nuclear missile

CAD diagram: Convair “FISH,” 1958 configuration

If you’d like to access these and many others, or if you’d simply like to help the cause of recovering and making available forgotten aerospace ephemera such as this, please check out the APR Patreon page.

“City in Space” and TAV art

bomber, hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Patreon, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane 3 Responses »

Jun 172015

I have just uploaded 300 dpi-high-rez scans of two things to the APR Patreon “Extras” folder (2015-06 sub-folder):

1) An article from the May, 1956, issue of Popular Science, “Now They’re Planning A City In Space.” This article, illustrated with full-color paintings, describes the gigantic artificial gravity space station proposed by Darrell Romick of Goodyear Aircraft Company as part of the METEOR project. This space station is forward-thinking by today’s standards, and is challenged in scale only by the likes of the O’Neill space colonies.

2) A McDonnell-Douglas painting depicting a Trans Atmospheric Vehicle in orbit.

These items are available to all $4+ APR Patreon patrons, and were made possible by the support of APR patrons and customers. If you’d like to access these and many other extras, please check out the APR Patreon page.

Lunetta

spacecraft 3 Responses »

May 232015

The idea of orbital mirrors to shine sunlight down onto the night side of Earth precede WWII; Hermann Oberth proposed such at thing in 1923. Today if someone were to seriously propose an orbiting space mirror the probably use would be to *shade* the Earth from sunlight in order to reduce insolation and very, very slightly cool the planet. Still, it might prove an interesting mathematical study… if an orbiting mirror is used to alternately shade the Earth and then light up the Earth, is it a net positive? When you factor in that the night-time sunlight beamed down would presumably offset artificially generated lighting – say, by lighting up a city, replacing streetlights – it may be that the result would be to reduce planetary temperature.

As recently as 1977, Rockwell International (after Krafft Ehricke) examined the use of orbiting mirrors called “Lunetta” to provide illumination.

Recent Acquisitions

fighter, hi-rez, launch vehicles, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, VTOL 2 Responses »

May 192015

Photos of some of the aerospace history I’ve been able to purchase lately thanks to the APR Patreon. If you’d like to help out and get in on this action, please check out the APR Patreon page.

And then there’s this. While I haven’t managed to get hold of the actual item, I have gotten full-color scans of this, in chunks. I am now piecing it together into one gigantic whole.

Hotels in space: 1967

Patreon, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

May 182015

In May of 1967, Barron Hilton – of Hilton Hotels – gave a presentation at the 13th Annual Meeting of the American Astronautical Society where he discusses the possibilities of orbiting and lunar hotels. Even as far back as ’67, Hilton considered such concepts to be perfectly feasible, and essentially inevitable. A shout-out is given to the Hilton depicted on Space Station V in “2001: A Space Odyssey” which would come out about a year later.

This being the 1960’s, of course there would be a “Galaxy Lounge” where guest could enjoy a martini.

Following Hilton was a presentation by Krafft Ehrike (then of North American Aviation) on the subject of “space tourism.” Once again, the concept was treated as wholly valid. He presented a design for a large orbiting tourist destination. While it featured zero-gravity facilities, it wisely was a rotating artificial gravity station, providing for the comfort and convenience of the guests. There would be several “world rooms” with different environments… artificial gravity levels matching the moon and Mars, say.

One assumption was that space launch costs would drop to $10/pound ($71/pound in 2015 dollars). At the time, with the rapid advances in space launch – remember, the first satellite had, at that time, only been launched less than a decade earlier, and now giant Saturn V rockets were preparing to send men to the moon – a price drop to those levels seemed a reasonable assumption. This would be done by having many, many launches of fully reusable vehicles, capable of reliably transporting the guests. The hotel would hold 1100 guests at a time, for 400,000 guest-days per year, and would have an in-orbit weight of 1,000,000 pounds. Profit would be a glittering $5 per guest per day… a total of about $39K/day in 2015 dollars.

I have scanned the Hilton and Ehricke papers and made them available for $4 and up APR Patreon patrons. If interested, please check out the APR Patreon.

A piece of artwork depicting Ehrickes space hotel. At some point Ehricke took to calling this “Astropolis.”

Sci-Fi Cyanotypes: Limited Editions

spacecraft, Uncategorized 1 Response »

May 152015

I’ve made a number of science fictional CAD models for Fantastic Plastic. Wonderfest, an annual hobby convention in Louisville, Kentucky, is coming up at the end of the month, and Fantastic Plastic is going to set up there. A while back I thought it might be interesting to take some of the CAD models I’ve created for current and forthcoming Fantastic Plastic model kits, specifically the Helicarrier, the Prometheus and the Messiah, and create 2D layout drawings… and then make cyanotype blueprints. Further, the blueprints would be at the same scale as the kits.

The end results? A moderately sized Helicarrier blueprint, two big Prometheus sheets (one showing the craft in flight, the other showing it in landed configuration), and one enormous Messiah blueprint, a full six feet long.

I don’t know if there is a market for such things. The Prometheus and the Messiah in particular are just gigantic. Were I to really try to commercialize them, I’d probably scale them down to at least 2/3 and more likely 1/2 the current size. Still, creating them was not a minor effort… so what the heck. I’m going to make them available for a limited time. Yes, they’re pricey. But they’re also *huge.* And a pain to make. And there won’t be very many of them on the entire planet (right now, two copies each of the Helicarrier and the Messiah; a grand total of one of the Prometheus prints).

These will be available for a two-week period, starting now. If some dark miracle occurs and I sell a hundred of them within that span, then, great! But however many, at the end of the two weeks, that’s it. All done, no more. I will total them up, and hand notate each one as numbered limited edition (“1 of 5,” or whatever, based on the order that orders come in) plus I’ll initial each one. Because why not.

~~Feel free to order as many of each as you want. Don’t forget postage… and don’t forget that with this one-time postage you can order as many *other* cyanotype prints as you like.~~

UPDATE: No longer available.

——

Prometheus prints:

Helicarrier:

Japanese Mini-Shuttle

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

May 142015

A brief article on a Japanese mini-shuttle, photographed from an issue of “Space World” magazine a few months back (sadly, I didn’t catch the date of the article, but it would have been sometime in the early/mid 1980’s). This is, I believe, an early design of the “HOPE” spaceplane which was more or less Japans answer to the French Hermes spaceplane. This mini-shuttle would have been a little bigger than the Dyna Soar from twenty years earlier, but equipped not only with its own onboard rocket propulsion system but also a pair of turbojets of atmospheric propulsion.

Older Entries Newer Entries