General Dynamics SLOMAR

SLOMAR = Space Logistics, Maintenance and Repair, a study program begun by the USAF in 1959. Funds were not actually made available until June of 1960, with the bulk of the work carried out over the following year. The basic objectives of the SLOMAR study were to estimate future military space needs in terms of support for manned space stations and produce preliminary designs of vehicles to fulfill that mission. Nearly 50 years later, SLOMAR remains shrouded in vaguery, since it was classified at the time and little has been declassified since.

One item that has been declassified is a brief memo describing and illustrating the main competing contractors various designs. Included within is the General Dynamics concept, a manned lifting body spaceplane with a payload of 6,000 pounds. Being a lifting body gave it cross range potential; the landing footprint was expected to be 1750 by 5200 nautical miles. Little other data was presented in the available documentation, unfortunately. The launch vehicle is unknown; it looks of the right sort of size to be launched by a Titan III, but the 12 foot diameter propulsion module is larger than the 10 foot diameter Titan III core. It may have been designed to launch atop a Saturn 1, or perhaps a launch vehicle of General Dynamics’ own design.

So, that’s another contest with no winner.