Construction is underway of an unmanned rocket-powered aircraft to be carried by the Stratolaunch “Roc” aircraft. The Talon-A is supposed to be something like the proposed X-24C… a lifting body hypersonic platform that can have various experimental units – including scramjets – attached to it. The Roc would be capable of carrying three Talon-A’s at a time, though it seems unlikely that there’s a really good reason to do so.
This art was posted a decade ago. But behold! Now there’s dimensional and weight data. Woo.
An early-1960’s idea for a one-man “space pod.” Similar in concept to von Braun’s “Bottle Suit,” the Remora would allow an astronaut to work in a more comfortable setting than a full pressure suit, while giving the astronaut more tools and greater protection from radiation, meteoroids and other space hazards.
The name “Remora” comes in part from the fact that the “suits” would not, unlike normal EVA suits, have to be put all the way through an air lock. Instead, the “head” of the Remora would enter a small port on the spacecraft, lock in, the pressure would equalize and the transparent dome would open allowing the astronaut to climb right out. The pressure in the spacecraft/space station would be the same as that within the Remora, meaning no prebreathing and no dangerous and time consuming steps up and down in pressure. The art shows the astronaut wearing a pressure suit; this would presumably be a safety measure in case the Remora was breached. So long as the Remora stayed pressurized, the astronauts suit could have had little to no relative pressure, meaning that it would not be stiff and difficult to work in. The Remora was to be equipped with a reaction control system of some kind, but exactly what remains unclear. Options would include:
1: Cold gas, like pressurized nitrogen
2: Monopropellant like hydrogen peroxide or hydrazine
3: Bipropellant, either hypergolic storables or something like hydrogen peroxide/kerosene. Cryogens seem unlikely.
The Remora was clearly meant to remain tethered to its spacecraft/space station. One wonders if the astronaut was supposed to remove his suit gloves before putting his hands into the external gloves of if the one would fit in the other. Additionally, it seems like there should have been little pressure doors on the inside of the glove in case a finger gets punctured.
A vastly higher resolution version of this art is HERE.
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.
A piece of art that was on ebay a while back depicting a C-130 Hercules converted into an AWACS-like aircraft by the inclusion of a radar rotodome to the top of the vertical fin. This may look a little odd, but it was a good position for such a radar system as it puts it above all aircraft components.
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.
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.
Two years ago I released US Transport Projects #8 that had a piece on an SST designed by staff of the NACA for Life magazine. To make the best possible diagram I did the best job I could of scanning and stitching together several pages from a vintage issue of Life. I’ve finally gotten around to uploading 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.
The full-size version is six times wider than this one:
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.
A late-70’s NASA rendering of the solar power satellite. Not exactly shown to scale… the satellite, approximately the size of Manhattan, would actually reside in geosynchronous orbit some 22,000 miles up. But the size of the receiving station, located outside of a probably fictitious city (gotta love the H-shaped skyscraper), seems about right. Such stations, which would approximate fields of chickenwire suspended atop telephone poles, could be located over farms, fields, lakes and ponds. The wire would intercept the incoming microwaves beamed down from the SPS with the same efficiency as the wire mesh in the door of your microwave oven keeps your face from getting fried while you watch your popcorn or soup getting nuked.
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.
