The Unwanted Blog

In 1966, Krafft Ehricke wrote and had illustrated a paper describing the next 35 years in space travel. In his view, the future would hold Orion nuclear pulse vehicles, fusion powered spacecraft, mining operations on Mercury and manned missions as far out as Titan.

Here’s a chart illustrating the increasing number of deep-space manned spacecraft processed in Earth orbit or on the moon. Note that things really kick off in 1988, when nuclear pulse vehicles get going:

Also included were a number of poorly-reproduced paintings (is there any other kind) illustrating some of the missions, such as the establishment of a research station on a remarkably haze-free Titan in 1995:

And the landing of an expedition on “Jupiter VII” in 1997:

Ehricke got the environments wrong (he included things like manned landings on Venus), and he *really* got the timing wrong. In fact, on his chart showing missiosn over the next 35 years… not a single one of them, not even the smallest, has come about. But what’s interesting is not that he was wrong. What’s interesting is that a respected rocket engineer could make these predictions witha  straight face and fully expect to be taken seriously. Quite possibly he did not expect that his schedule would be adhered to. But certainly he thought that some fffort would be made to fullfill missions at least somewhat like these, at least somewhat on the schedule he foresaw. But within two years, the Saturn V production line would be ordered closed, and a few years after that NASA would be pulled back from the exploration mission entirely, restricted to low Earth orbit Shuttles and the odd minimal space robot.

But as seen from 1966… hell, we should be on our way to Alpha Centauri now.

Damn.

I just gave myself a sad.

I’ve been putting together some possible drawings for release on D-size sheets. These are as yet still far from finished, but they show what might be made available if there is interest.

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“A-4 Rockets.” Includes winged variants and A-10 variants.

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“A-11/A-12 Conceptual Reconstructions”

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“A-12 Avenger II Configuration” these 1/48 scale drawings - somethign I started a few years back but sorta wandered off from - will includeexternal configuration, wing sections, “fuselage sections,” weapons loads, etc.

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ICARUS/ROMBUS drawings: Upper right will be an inboard profile.

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Project Pluto: includes different design studies, booster options, the baseline (or at least, best-defined) design, and related/competing designs.

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Sea Mistress

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Space Sortie designs from Boeing, GD, Rockwell, with to-scale comparisons and carrier aircraft.

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Super Hustler & Related: with detailed drawings of Fish and Super Hustler

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These are the big D-sized sheets, as shown HERE. These will be substantially less expensive than the full-color blueprints. Some of them may be issued in two ways: as a single sheet (such as the to-scale comparisons of the Space Sortie vehicles), or as a “pack” (with all the other drawings). Packs will be less expensive on a per-page basis, but will be the only way to get the other pages.

Other possible drawings include:

1)the BWB collection

2) Orion “Battleship” 

3)  SERJ-X-15

4)  delta winged X-15A-3 (yes, I do have really good drawings of that)

5)  Lockheed L-2000 SST

6) Boeing 2707 SST (-100, -200, -300)

7) Space Shuttle (I never have seen a really good set of clear diagrams of that along these lines)

8 ) X-20/Titan III

9) Convair NX-2 nuclear powered bomber

10) B-70 (including XB-70, B-70/X-15A-3, B-70/X-20, B-70 SST prototype, NAC-60 SST)

11) F-23 (including YF-23, F-23A, NATF-23, FB-23)

If you have an interest or a preference… let it be known.

US Army Ballistic Missile Agency artwork from 1959 depicting the then-current configuration of the Saturn first stage. While generally much like the Saturn I that actually flew, note differences such as the large parachute pack in the nose for booster recovery.

Oh, wait! I do!

I stopped at a print shop today and had several 2D CAD drawings printed off on C- and D-size sheets. This was a test to see how they’d look… printed on 8.5X11 sheets, the best my home printer can do, they look “meh.” But “poster sized,” they look not too shabby in the slightest. And they are also inexpensive compared to the color prints… so before too long you may see my desperately hawking finalized versions of these and other drawings for maybe $4-$7 each. If any of these are of interest - or any CAD drawings of mine you’ve seen in past issues of APR - just let me know. A-12 Avenger II, F-23 derivatives, USS Discovery, Space Station V, Dyna Soar/Titan III are all planned.

First up: the collection of Blended Wing bodies from an old issue of APR, printed on a D-size sheet (34 inches long), at 1/1000 scale.

Next: Convair Super Hustler and derivative designs 91/144 scale), including two versions of “Fish,” one of “Kingfish” (drawing incomplete) and the Dyna Soar I submission.

And three C-sized sheets with the Enzmann starship (diagram incomplete, 1/2400 scale) and two of the Orion Battleship (in need of some revisions, 1/250 scale).

I remember this painting from before the Shuttle first flew. Specifically, I remember it being printed across a full newspaper spread on the day the Columbia was to first launch. Yes, I kept that “poster,” and yes, I studied it intently, and yes, I believed that someday soon I’d fly it into space. Ah, to be that young and stupid again…

From NASA-MSFC, 1967.

One of the best webcomics available, XKCD, hits one out of the park. Again.

It’s amazing enough to find a comic strip writer who even knows what Project Orion was. It’s freakin’ glorious to find one who understands what Project Orion may be.

Forging ahead on this project, working multiple angles at once. One project currently in works is collating all my NPP-based CAD drawings, and figuring out what more I need to do. As it turns out, I’ve a fair amount yet to do.

It is my expectation that the book will be loaded with diagrams, both new ones of my own creation, and as many of the original diagrams as possible. Additionally, it is my hope that a good deal of new color artwork will be created for the book. But that particular decision is a ways off yet.

I’ve taken the widely separated and sometimes densely-mashed-together CAD drawings and started to put them into their own C-sized sheets with a proper border. Below you can see a bunch of ‘em… not a one of which I’d declare finished. Hopefully the resolution is high enough to make them look appealing, and low enough to be damned frustrating, so that you are left with an overwhelming urger to see to it that this book project is completed. If that urge causes you to shower me with cash, so much the better…

Depending upon the detail and interestingness of the design being shown, several sheets could be devoted to it. For example, seen here are external views of the Orion Battleship, inboard profiles of it, the first starts at external views showing all the primary ports and doors open and views of the landing boats.

If interested, take a look at the first one with the list of subjects. Note the apparently random distribution of drawing numbers to topics; this is because I listed topics in the order in which they occured to me, not because of any particular logic. If I’ve forgotten something (and I know I have… I need to put the Orion from “Orion Shall Rise” on there), let me know.

NOTE: Once again, the topic of the book is nuclear pulse propulsion, not “starships” or “nuclear propulsion.”

I scanned in the cover of my best copy of the October 1973 issue of “Analog” science fiction  magazine (art by Rick Sternbach) and tinkered with it. Got rid of the text, cleaned up scuffmarks and the like, and generally tried to improve the appearance of the art as much as possible. Given the low-rez printing and the small physical dimensions of Analog, there’s only so much that can be done. 

It’s a hell of a piece of art; I’d love to see a full-sized high-rez print of it. But I suspect the original art, once sent to Analog, either got tossed or lost. But you never know…

Around about ten years ago (during another employment dry spell), I got a contract from NASA-MSFC to build a few models of the General Atomic 10-meter Orion. I built five, I believe… three in 1/144 scale, two in 1/72.  I took some fairly horrible photos of them before shipping them off. These were of course film photos, a digital camera still being another three or so years in my future. Two of the 1/144 models are shown below:

I could certainly do far better today. A combination of vastly better references and improved modelling skills could produce one hell of an Orion.