Jan 222024
 

With all the little publications I’ve written and illustrated, and all the years of blogging ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT political opinions and the like, it seems that at least *one* of my efforts will go down through the ages: my design for the Orion Battleship. We know to a fair certainty that such a craft was designed in the early 1960s, and that a mockup the size of a car was built; we know some of the components and features of that design. But other than that… we don’t know much. The overall size and configuration are unknown. So, fifteen years ago when I was working on an article for Aerospace Projects Review about large Orion vehicles, I went ahead and made a speculative reconstruction design. I did my best with what was available… and in the years since, nothing seems to have come out to refute the design. I do not contend that the design is an accurate reconstruction; I was never able to get in touch with anyone who knew the Battleship design first-hand to confirm my reconstruction. I could well be *badly* wrong, especially since the descriptions of the original design tend to be second-hand. One day we might find out for sure.

But in the years since I showed my design to the world, I’ve seen it recreated here and there. It seems to be the accepted Actual Design.

Huh.

Behold:

That second video uses a model based on my design, more renders of which are HERE.

Shipbucket:

A purchasable 3D printed, lower fidelity copy of my design on Etsy:

 

My renders – unimpressive even by 2009 standards – even made it into meme format:

If you want to see the Orion Battleship as I designed it in its original format, check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N2.

 Posted by at 12:41 am
Jan 022023
 

The “Enzmann Starship” is named after Robert Enzmann, who “designed” it decades ago. Just exactly *when* has been an issue of some confusion in recent years.

It first came to light in the late 60’s or early 70’s, with claims that he thought it up around 1964 or so. The design is unique: a giant spherical ball of frozen deuterium fuel at the front, followed by a cylindrical ship, ending with a series of Orion-style nuclear pulse engines. It was an *ok* concept for a practical starship, though relatively recent analysis presented in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society argued that it was not nearly as good as imagined. It became something of a sensation in the 70’s after appearing on the cover of “Analog” in 1973.

Nothing has ever been produced, so far as I’m aware, backing up the concept with any sort of detailed design of analysis until that JBIS paper. No reports, proposals, pages of math, from Enzmann seem to be available… just text descriptions of a few sentences and some art. And that’s fine. But in recent years the claims have become more and more expansive. Enzmann, near the end of his life, claimed that the design for a nuclear-pulse vehicle dated not from the time of the Orion program, but back to the *40’s*.

I spoke to Enzmann on the phone a few times over the years. He was enthusiastic, verbose… and baffling. He made lots and lots of claims about having worked on this or that amazing program, but when asked for verifiable details… it was classified. Those who have picked up his mantle and are trying to carry his torch seem to be following in his footsteps there, continuing his claims without much apparent criticism. I’ve recently engaged their twitter contact to get some sort of verification of his claims… but we have now reached the point where not only am I convinced that no such evidence will be produced, I feel no reason to assume anything remarkable is true at all. Behold:

Claiming that nuclear powered aircraft were actually built in the fifties and then buried in a mountain? Yeah… no. I’m out.

 

Where the thread started:

 Posted by at 11:06 pm
Oct 302022
 

The YouTube channel “Found and Explained” just released a video on the 4,000 ton Orion Battleship, with the model used based on my reconstruction from issue V2N2 of “Aerospace Projects Review.” The video was sponsored by a “Star Trek” video game, so there are a *lot* of Star Trek references in the video.

For more information on the project, including blueprints, be sure to check out issue v2N2.

 Posted by at 6:21 pm
Oct 042022
 

My third book, “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1” is, as I understand it, somewhere between “being printed” and “being shipped.” I am thus hard at work on Volume 2. I had hoped to also do a Volume 3, but that is unlikely: Volume 3 would be “Space Bombers.” However, apparently the market for “space” is nothing like what it is for “aviation,” so the idea has been nixed. There is official interest in several other works I’ve planned, so properly published books seem likely to continue for some time.

That said: while the market for “space” is less than the market for “aviation,” my own interest in the two is about equal. And I would be happy to sell works at a number substantially lower than a professional, proper publisher would. A publisher would have books on bookstore or grocery store shelves, while I would only sell from my little website.  And if I’m not incredibly stupid about it (no guarantee of that, of course), a self-published book would, theoretically, bring in more on a per-book basis than one done through a publisher. So I’m contemplating something like a Kickstarter for “Space Bombers.”

As currently laid out, this book would be almost overwhelmingly “The Book Of Dyna Soar,” as the bulk of (available) American space-based bombardment studies revolved around that program. However, it would extend well beyond Dyna Soar, including Orion and other strategic orbital weapons systems studied back in the sixties, on up through much more recent studies including aerospaceplanes and bombers based on the X-33/Venturestar/RLV studies. Being self published I would not be locked into a set page count and, perhaps, could include foldouts and perhaps more color art (depending on funding). This could be released as both an Ebook and a softcover… and, depending on length, a hardback. Other “extras” could include 18X24 or 24X36 prints of diagrams, perhaps on something like mylar.

I am *far* from setting up a Kickstarter for this. I’ve seen a lot of people get *really* mad about funding this or that project and then watching it slip far behind schedule, so I wouldn’t even start a crowdfunding campaign until it was substantially complete. There are a number of topic areas that I really want to delve into more deeply via FOIA and whatnot, a process that has become far more troublesome in recent years. At this point it’s in the “this is an idea to think about” stage. But I am interested in any input on the subject… thoughts on crowdfunding, ideas about subjects to add and, as always, input of documentation on the topic that you might have that you think I may not.

 Posted by at 9:59 pm
Sep 062022
 

I looked through a small fraction of my surprisingly vast pile of CAD diagrams for some I thought might look good in really large format. Some I’ve gone some distance towards formatting them that way already; some are still formatted for small sheets. There are more, of course. In no particular order.

Lockheed CL-400 “Suntan”

Lockheed M-21/D-21:

Lockheed A-12:

Lockheed SR-71A:

Lockheed YF-12A:

X-20 Dyna Soar/Titan III:

A number of 10-Meter Orion vehicles/sub-vehicles:

USAF 10-meter Orion:

General Dynamics “Kingfish:”

North American XF-108:

Lockheed A-12 concept w/canards:

Boeing B-47E:

Boeing B-52G:

Boeing B-52H:

Boeing B-52H + Skybolt:

Boeing DB-47E + Bold Orion:

Rockwell Star Raker:

Boeing “Big Onion” SSTO:

Boeing Space Freighter:

NASA Saturn C-8:

Lockheed STAR Clipper:

 

 

 Posted by at 4:47 pm
Nov 172021
 

And a space program!

A few weeks ago the United Nations put out a video where an indifferently rendered Utahraptor goes before the United Nations and argues that he knows a thing or two about extinction, that extinction is a bad thing, and that humans should not subsidize their own extinction. Rather, humans should work *against* extinction. These are all good points. And the logical conclusion to draw from this is that mankind should, at once and without delay, convert the money currently being wasted on social welfare programs into industrial-scale efforts to develop gigaton-yield thermonuclear devices, deep-space comet and asteroid detection and tracking systems, fast and efficient interplanetary transport system. The nukes would be used to divert potential threats; the improved propulsion and power systems would have the secondary benefit of opening the entire solar system and its resources to exploitation and colonization. heavy industry and its pollution could be moved off-world; Earth could be converted into a garden. By doing so, mankind – and every species we choose to bring with us – would be rendered *almost* immune from extinction. Nothing else mankind could possibly do would have a hope in hell of being even a minuscule fraction as impactful.

 Posted by at 10:12 am
Oct 062021
 

Yeesh. I continue to successfully get rewards out to Patrons and subscribers in a timely fashion… but I also continue to fail to publicize the fact. Last day of September, the rewards for that month were sent out. The September 2021 rewards included:

Diagram: “Early X-3 cutaway:” A large format cutaway illustration of a not-quite-final Douglas X-3 configuration

CAD Diagram: the command module of the Solem “Medusa” nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

Document: a giant 1100+ page “Data Sheets for Ordnance Type Materiel,”1962 US Army “catalog”of pretty much all their stuff. Includes an illustration (often, though not always, including a basic diagram) and data for everything from trucks to tanks to bayonets to pistols to rockets.

Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.




 Posted by at 5:11 pm
Mar 312021
 

Just released, the March 2021 rewards for APR Patrons and Subscribers. Included this month:

Diagram/art: a large format scan of an artists concept of the XC-14. This was printed with a large number of signatures; they seem to be Boeing engineers.

Document 1: “Project Hummingbird.” An FAA document summarizing the characteristics of STOL and VTOL aircraft circa 1961, including bogh built and proposed types. This was scanned from a clean original!

Document 2: “The Thor Missile Story.” Old, old, incredibly old school media… a film strip propaganda piece about the statues of the Thor IRBM.

CAD diagram: the WWII era German DFS 228 rocket powered high altitude recon plane, proposed operational version.

 

 

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.




Because I forgot to mention the January and February rewards… subscribers/patrons got these (new subscribers can order them as back issues):

January 2021: Titan IIIC/IIIM booster rockets; CAD diagram of Post-Saturn concepts; a Convair Heavy Bombardment Airplane brochure; a fractional XF-103 mockup review and technical description; a fractional Westland paper on VTOL; a General Dynamics report on a proposed turboprop transport for Saturn stages.

February, 2021: An Aerion SST brochure; a Lockheed SST diagram; Dornbergers report on a commercial rocket powered airliner (scanned from a clean vintage copy); an early Convair jet flying boat bomber brochure; a CAD diagram comparing General Atomics’ ten-meter Orions for the USAF and NASA.

 Posted by at 5:13 pm
Aug 312020
 

Late 1970’s depictions of “realistic” starships as understood at the time. These include an Orion vehicle (which, despite claims to the contrary, would make a terrible starship, since the specific impulse of a reasonably conceivable Orion is an order of magnitude or two too low for practical interstellar craft), two Bussard ramjets, and a “golden globe” minimum weight starship proposed by Robert L. Forward, whose operating principles I am currently a bit fuzzy on.

Bussard ramjets would use magnetic fields to collect interstellar hydrogen. The hydrogen would be compressed in a fusion reactor, preferably a steady-state one, and used to provide thrust to the starship. For a number of years this concept promised great things, but in recent decades it has been pretty much discounted. On one hand, the magnetic fields are not very likely going to work well at a reasonable mass, and they tend to not form open-mouthed funnels, but rather closed-mouthed “cups,” thus preventing the hydrogen from getting into the engine. Whoops. Second, thrust is unlikely to exceed drag much above maybe a percent or two of lightspeed, meaning a Bussard ramjet might serve as a decent “anchor” or drag brake, but not as an accelerator to relativistic velocities.

 Posted by at 7:11 pm
Apr 052020
 

Once again Patreon seems to be becoming unstable. So I’ve got an alternate: The APR Monthly Historical Documents Program

For some years I have been operating the “Aerospace Projects Review Patreon” which provides monthly rewards in the form of high resolution scans of vintage aerospace diagrams, art and documents. This has worked pretty well, but it seems that perhaps some people might prefer to sign on more directly. Fortunately, PayPal provides the option not only for one-time purchases but also monthly subscriptions. By subscribing using the drop-down menu below, you will receive the same benefits as APR Patrons, but without going through Patreon itself.




Details below.

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 Posted by at 9:11 am