Coulda Shoulda EMPIRE

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Mar 012020

This video was posted on YouTube some six-ish years ago, but remains worthy of viewing and discussion. It’s a General Dynamics film to NASA from late 1962/early 1963 discussing the study of Early Manned Interplanetary Missions (EMPIRE), NAS8-5026. It describes the future as it should have been… and as how Krafft Ehricke, the presenter of the film and one of the driving forces behind the program, saw it:

1: Manned landing on the moon by the end of the 60’s.

2: Initial manned flights to (flybys and orbits) Venus and Mars in the early 70s

3: Entire solar system explored robotically by the end of the 1980’s

4: Manned mission to Pluto by 1995

Ehricke’s view of the future of space flight from the standpoint of the mid-1960’s was previously shown HERE.

The original film included a number of bits of concept art of both manned and unmanned spacecraft. Sadly no Orion vehicles are on display (it is name-dropped), but the Mars lander/excursion module was of the kind originally proposed for Orion. This was pre-Mariner when the Martian atmosphere was *massively* over-estimated; these landers and their dinky parachutes would, with the real Martian atmosphere, have made impressive craters in the surface.

This is how you do a trailer

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Aug 222019

For Kerbal Space Program 2, at any rate:

A good mix of beauty, awesomeness and hilarity. Note that this seems to imply that Orion and Daedalus nuclear pulse propulsion systems will be a part of it.

I’ve never gotten into KSP. I guess I’ve missed out. When people first started telling me about it years ago I started getting interested until I found out that the planets *weren’t* earth and the rest of the solar system, modeled accurately.Turn it into a true simulation system directly applicable to real-world designs, and I might be interested in going to the bother.

May 2019 Monthly Historical Documents

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Jun 022019

On May 31st, APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers were sent emails containing links to the May, 2019, rewards. This months set of documents and diagrams included high-rez copies of:

Document: “Manned Lunar Vehicle Design,” a General Electric paper from 1962 describing a direct-landing Apollo concept

Document: “AP-76 Project 1226,” a highly illustrated Republic Aviation report from May 1955 describing their design for the X-15

Diagram: “DNI-27C, VFX Design Study Fixed Wing/Buried Engine,” September 1968 North American Aviation fighter design

CAD Diagram: three-view of the Dandridge Cole/Martin Aircraft “Aldebaran” giant nuclear powered launch vehicle notional concept

If this sort of thing is of interest and you’d like to get in on it and make sure you don’t miss any of the forthcoming releases, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

All prior “back issues” are available for purchase by subscribers. Recent months rewards have included:

APR Monthly Historical Documents Program

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Dec 182018

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.

PDF Review: “Neptun,” the German Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

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Dec 042018

In the late 1960’s H.H. Koelle of the Technische University Institut Fuer Raumfahrttechnik in Berlin devoted considerable effort to studying a reusable heavy lift launch vehicle. A good, well-illustrated report was put out in 1968 covering the design:

Entwurfskriterien fur groBe wiederverwendbare Tragersysteme (Design Criteria for Large Reusable Space Transportation Systems)

Note that the Neptun was *gigantic.* It was a two-stage ballistically recovered design, unusual in that rather than being circular in cross-section it was hexagonal. The individual propellant tanks were each the size of or bigger than the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V.

A number of payloads were proposed. One was a sub-orbital intercontinental passenger transport, The passenger “capsule” would land separate from the Neptun itself.

One of the more interesting payloads contemplated was a large Orion nuclear pulse vehicle, transported in two pieces (propulsion module in one launch and payload/pulse units in the other). Presumably this would be a NASA Orion hitching a ride on a West German booster; I suspect politics would have negated the likelihood of the West Germans developing a mass production line for nuclear explosives.

This fusion-powered interplanetary spacecraft is also a NASA design, dating from the early 1960’s.

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light!

Well this is horrific

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Nov 302018

Wife of man slashed with sword on Thanksgiving arrested, police say

“Slashed” doesn’t really do it justice. Vague details below.

APR Patreon October 2018 rewards

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Oct 282018

I’ve just sent out the rewards for October, 2018, to APR Patrons. This months rewards include:

CAD diagram: 20-meter Orion spacecraft

Diagram: Genealogy of Piper aircraft

Document: “Story of the Uprated Saturn I” NASA-MSFC brochure circa 1966 describing the Saturn Ib, including future possibilities

Document: “Preliminary Design Study of a Three Stage Satellite Ferry Rocket Vehicle,” 1954 Goodyear paper describing the METEOR launch vehicle. First of a number of METEOR documents I have.

Document: “The Rocket Research Aircraft Program 1946-1962,” Edwards AFB booklet describing the various rocket aircraft tested up to the x-15

If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

APR Patreon April 2018 rewards issued

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Apr 292018

Rewards have been issued to APR Patreon patrons for April, 2018. This month, the “Diagram” is a Sikorsky lithograph of a Heavy Lift Helicopter concept. The Documents include a US Army catalog of airborne weaponry; a paper describing possible additional missions for the Saturn launch vehicles, and BOAC brochure extolling the virtues of the Comet 4 jetliner. The CAD diagram is of the British Interplanetary Society’s “Deadalus” starship design.

If you are interested in helping to preserve (and get copies of) this sort of thing, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

Pax Orionis Progress!

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Mar 012018

If you’ve hung around this blog long enough you may recall “Pax Orionis,” a book i started writing detailing an alternate history where the United States went ahead and developed Project Orion. I even started a Patreon to support the development of the book! But after a few of the stories were written, it sorta faded into the background as other needs and projects became overwhelming.

I’ve finally finished the next Pax Orionis story, “The Magicians.” It is *not* the story I was working on the last time I posted… still pecking away on that one (“Starship Troopers”). The one I’ve just finished is about 20 pages and is currently in massive need of editing and revision (it’s a mess), but it is at least completed. So more stuff *is* coming!

Almost promptly after my previous post saying I was back on the job of writing Pax Orionis, I got sucked into another, completely different writing project, a bit of Lovecraftian sci-fi/horror called “The War With The Deep Ones.” I’ve written a whole bunch of that… pretty much a whole novels worth.

You can read the first of those stories (“Honolulu”) here:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=36676

And you can get the second installment (“Champion of the Seas”) here:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=36833

Pax Orionis diverges from our timeline when the Cuban Missile Crisis becomes the Cuban War. Pax Orionis is being written as something of a history collection, including official accounts, personal recollections, tech reports, excerpts from history books and novels and magazine articles. if this sounds at all interesting, feel free to take a look at some of the earlier posts, and certainly wander by the Pax Orionis Patreon. If you sign up, it’s only a buck… and only when new stories get posted. You can also catch up on the earlier stories such as “Deadliest Catch,” “Birth of the Bomb” and “The Blast from Jackass Flats.”

APR Patreon rewards, February, 2018

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Feb 272018

Rewards have been issued to APR Patreon patrons for February, 2018. This month, the diagram is a 1/40 scale B-52B diagram. Normally the diagrams are sent out at full 300 dpi (with 125 dpi for the $1.25 patrons), but at 300 dpi the diagram is simply Way Too Big at over 40,000 pixels wide. Most image viewing programs will simply go “nope”and refuse to even try to display such images. so this month the image is sent out at 200 dpi (still slightly over 30,000 pixels wide), and 83 dpi for the $1.25 patrons. The 83 dpi version is also included for the higher level patrons for easier viewing.

Also: the documents this month include a United Aircraft paper on advanced future space propulsion systems as seen from 1969, and a January 1953 Douglas Aircraft design study for the DC-8. The CAD diagram this month is the Ganswindt Weltenfahrzeug… a truly terrible design for a spaceship from 1899. Terrible though it may be, it one of the first designs that is clearly in the Project Orion family tree…

If you are interested in helping to preserve (and get copies of) this sort of thing, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

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