Oct 152008
I visitted the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum archive today, and came away with a haul of scans and photos. One of the finds was a boxload of artwork showing various lifting body concepts, many focussing on the X-23/24 geometry. One of these is shown below… an X-24 derivative with a “trailer” for carrying cargo. The dae is unclear, but this must have been realtively early in the career of MOL, given the relatively short length.
6 Responses to “Lifting body as resupply vehicle for MOL”
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Really cool images, many thanks Scott for this premiere.
It is damn interesting to see how advanced were some space concepts in the 60’s and how poor (see CEV/Oriion) are today….
This makes me think of the lifting body used for the rescue in the film Marooned, which causes me to ask: Was that based (as seems likely) on an existing project? Perhaps the X-24?
I’m recalling that it was launched on a Titan III in the movie, but I may be wrong.
Funny enough, I saw these and my thought was “Marooned!” Love that flick, as slow as it is in parts. One of my first “big screen” experiences, along with “2001”.
My God, they anticipated Hermes and the giant disposable orbital module it ended up with – before it was canceled – with that design.
Pity ESA didn’t look at this design… it could have saved them a lot of trouble in regards to Hermes.
Interesting! Reminiscent of the later X-38/PLV “caboose” concept for ISS resupply. Wonder if the lifting body shown has any relationship to SAINT II.
[…] an addendum to this post, here is some more Martin artwork (via the Glen L. Martin museum archive) showing orbital X-24 […]