A glimpse at the first draft of the diagrams for US Transport Projects #8. The careful observer will note that there have been a number of “Forthcoming” posts over the last several months with no followup of a final product. There will be, at some point, a mass release of a larger than usual number of USxP issues.
An advertisement from 1963 illustrating a quite-possibly artistic license nuclear powered space probe heading towards Jupiter. The probe was to use the SNAP-50/SPUR powerplant (300 to 1200 kilowatts of electricity) to power a circular bank of ion engines. The realistic nature of the design should be questioned due to the lack of any apparent communication system… no great big radio dish, in other words.
Patrons of the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon received last month:
Diagram: A foldout diagram of an Apollo-derived logistics spacecraft
Document: “The Piasecki Story,” an illustrated history of the company and its products
Document: “The N.S. Savannah,” a brochure about the sole nuclear powered merchant vessel
Document: “Lunar Spacecraft Design” A paper describing the evolution of the General Electric Apollo design, quite similar to the later Soyuz spacecraft
CAD diagram: 1985 design of the British HOTOL spaceplane
If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
The video quality is poor, but the content is interesting. A mid-1960’s promotional film for the US SST program (Boeing 2707), focusing on the economic benefits. A lot more reference to *gold* than you would see these days, and a lot more worry about the economic dominance of Concorde than reality would end up providing.
That first generation of SST’s almost certainly never stood a chance of being economically successful. The Boeing 2707 would very probably not have been the economic disaster that the Concorde was, but the oil crisis of the 1970’s and inability to fly overland routes almost certainly would have wrecked its ability to be profitable. However… a *next* generation of SST built on the lessons of the 2707? *Possibly* quite successful.
An advertisement from 1960, illustrating Marquardts work on the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet:
If you want more on Project Pluto – and who wouldn’t, as the idea of a locomotive-sized cruise missile flying at virtually unlimited range at tree to level and at a blistering Mach 3+ is fascinating – check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1.
An ad for Thompson Products from 1958. The cargo rocket shown here is pure artistic license, with almost certainly no actual engineering behind it. It’s pure science fiction for the purpose of advertising razzmatazz. And yet… the similarity to the latest design of the SpaceX BFS is pretty remarkable.
“Thompson Products” may not be immediately familiar. But in October 1958 (about two months before this ad was published in Av Week, so… shrug) Thompson Products merged with the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, forming Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc. … TRW. So… huh, how about that.
The Lockheed L-2000 was a Mach 3 SST designed to compete against the Boeing 2707 in the mid 1960’s. It was an elegant and classy looking design, but was passed over by the US Government in favor of the Boeing design. Lockheed built a full scale and reasonably convincing mockup of the craft, using it for both study and PR purposes.
The L-2000 looked like nothing quite so much as a cross between the Concorde and the SR-71.
A full rez scan of the 8X10 glossy has been uploaded to the 2018-09 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above. If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
Huh. I’m not sure which is more unusual-seeming: that the second-in-command at SpaceX said that they would indeed launch American space weapons… or that it seems odd that an American aerospace firm would even be questioned about such a thing.
During an appearance on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: “Would SpaceX launch military weapons?”
“I’ve never been asked that question,” Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: “If it’s for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would.”
This should be such an uncontroversial point of view that you wouldn’t even expect it to be raised. But we do indeed live in a time different from when Republic advertised their fighters, Boeing advertised their bombers and Martin advertised their nuclear weapons-delivering rockets.
Reminds me of one of the more disturbing moments from my university education. I was in a class on orbital dynamics (of of my favorite subjects back in the day) when we got to ballistic suborbital trajectories: ICBMs, in other words. Who wouldn’t want to study that? Well… turned out half a dozen or so of my classmates decided that they didn’t, and refused to study that section. This baffled both the teacher and myself; but where I saw their position as foolishness worthy of nothing but mockery, the teacher buckled and allowed them to do something else (details escape me). Even if the idea of lobbing nukes to the far side of the world fills you with existential dread, studying the subject is just math. And getting better at the math of lobbing nukes makes you better at… oh, I dunno, getting better at the math of lobbing reusable first stages to land them on floating landing pads.
Vaguely related: promo art from 1961, published in Aviation Week, with a number of corporations proudly proclaiming their involvement in aerospace weaponry.
Just slightly out of my means just at the moment, but it does appear to be a remarkable piece of work. The condition is a bit regrettable, but I bet in earlier days it was probably pretty close to indistinguishable from the real thing. If you have an interest in the NF-104 aerospace trainer, I guess you aught to have one of these.
It has been *years* since I have released any “Air & Space Drawings & Documents,” high rez scans of vintage aerospace items. At last, I’m adding new items. The complete catalog can be seen HERE.
New items. Each are available for $4.
Air Document 27: “Design Study for an Air Force Model F-82E Airplane Modified to a Ground Attack Airplane” A 24-page study from 1949 for a twin-bodied F-82 modified with Allison turboprop engines. The engines would be mounted in the mid-fuselage, about where the cockpits originally were; the cockpits would be moved forward to compensate. The document, taken from a vintage copy printed from microfilm, includes numerous diagrams and B&W art.
Air Document 28: “This Is The Life With Lockheed” A 36-page booklet produced by Lockheed, Georgia Division, showing the wonders of working there in 1959. Includes not only descriptions and photos of the local environment and amenities but also photos of Lockheed facilities, products and projects. An interesting view of a very different era.
Air Document 29: “SAM-D Air Defense Weapon System” A 1973 Redstone Arsenal information booklet on the Surface-to-Air Missile, Development, which became the “Patriot” anti-aircraft/ anti-missile missile. The booklet describes the various elements of a SAM-D deployment.
Air Document 30: “V-397 (Regulus II) Summary Report” A 42-page 1955 Chance-Vought report on the Regulus II supersonic cruise missile. Includes data and glorious diagrams on the tactical missile as well as the flight test vehicle with landing gear. Scanned from a vintage printout from microfilm.
Air Document 31: “Republic XF-103 data” Dating from the mid-50’s, this collection of data and diagrams of the Mach 3+ XF-103 interceptor comes not from Republic, but from Lockheed. A rare look into corporate “competition data gathering,” this 21-page data file shows the sort of information that Lockheed put together on the designs put forward by their competitors.
Several of these were released *four* *years* ago to patrons of the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon. Patrons receive items such as these at a low cost and years earlier than waiting for them to appear on the Drawing & documents catalog… and most of the Patreon items *won’t* appear here.
If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
