Martin Nova Designs
A great deal of information is on hand about the numerous designs created in the early-to-mid 1960's for super heavy lift boosters under the blanket "Nova" program. These drawings are included not only to provide information on several of these designs, but also to tell a cautionary tale regarding what can happen to rare data.
Some years ago, I went on vacation to Washington, D.C. (Note: a good place to visit... so long as you stay within certain confines. Leave those areas, and you've exited the United States for some moderately scary Third World hellhole.) When there, I had the chance to spend six hours or so in the NASA headquarters archive. One of the documents I found was on Martin Nova launch vehicle designs. I dutifully made many photocopies, but not of the entire document... time did not permit. The document sat in what I jokingly referred to as my "files" for years, wholly inadequately cataloged. It eventually would up separated from the other Nova documents and copies I had.
In July of 2005, I moved from California to Utah. Professional movers boxed up my stuff. Dozens and dozens of boxes of papers and books spent many weeks to even begin to unpack. At last I found this Nova document... wadded up to serve as packing. Gah!. The document, which was not complete to begin with, was found to be missing several pages... probably wadded up as packing in some other box, and thrown out without noticing.
So, it seemed best to scan these remaining drawings in before some other misfortune befalls them. I scanned them in as best I could, given their unfortunate condition... flaws can be seen in many of them. I decided to leave the flaws in, rather than labor over removing them.
I have managed to stumble across a surprising number of original and interesting aerospace documents; and I've found that for a number of them, no copies seem to exist in archives. So I have to wonder how many copies of some of these *still* exist... and how many reports have been simply erased from existence.
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