An alternative Shuttle design from 1971, this Lockheed configuration would be recycled two decades later for the Venture Star. Click to embiggenate.
This is pretty much exactly the sort of artistry one doesn’t see too much out of the aerospace industry anymore. Undoubtedly similar inboard profiles of conceptual designs are produced, but they are done on computers… and while that assures accuracy, it also loses something of the visual appeal.
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3 Responses to “Lockheed LS-200-5 inboard profile”
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All the drawings I have of it show only three main engines, but this one shows no less than eleven.
Are the engines supposed to be a new design, or something existing, like the J-2?
What I’d really like to see is the classified variant Lockheed studied with the linear plug-nozzle engine.
They really should have built this; although there may have been a ice shedding problem in relation to the V-shaped wraparound ET, at least it got rid of the Shuttle’s SRBs.
IIRC this design used a titanium or metal skin so the ice strike damage might have been less of an issue.
[…] a followup to this, here’s the LS-200-10 Shuttle concept from […]