A piece of art from 1962 depicting a Westinghouse Electric Corp. concept for a space station meant to provide servicing for nuclear powered spacecraft. it appears to be more of a space craft than a space station, since it is equipped with a substantial nuclear propulsion system of its own. It’s unclear what the set of rings at the “front” of the space station are meant to do.
An advertisement from 1963 illustrating a quite-possibly artistic license nuclear powered space probe heading towards Jupiter. The probe was to use the SNAP-50/SPUR powerplant (300 to 1200 kilowatts of electricity) to power a circular bank of ion engines. The realistic nature of the design should be questioned due to the lack of any apparent communication system… no great big radio dish, in other words.
Patrons of the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon received last month:
Diagram: A foldout diagram of an Apollo-derived logistics spacecraft
Document: “The Piasecki Story,” an illustrated history of the company and its products
Document: “The N.S. Savannah,” a brochure about the sole nuclear powered merchant vessel
Document: “Lunar Spacecraft Design” A paper describing the evolution of the General Electric Apollo design, quite similar to the later Soyuz spacecraft
CAD diagram: 1985 design of the British HOTOL spaceplane
If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
The first two nuclear weapons dropped are very well known. But for a long time that was not the case. In fact, the appearance of these weapons was hidden from the public until late 1960, more than 15 years after they were dropped. As a consequence, there are a number of depictions of these bombs – magazine articles, movies and such – that show configurations that are fanciful and entirely dead wrong because the artists behind them had no idea what an atom bomb actually looked like.
But in late 1960 the Atomic Energy Commission (replaced in 1974 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission… note that even the names denote a change from an organization meant to provide energy to one now devoted to regulation) finally released a pair of photos showing Fat Man and Little Boy. Since then far more information has been released, including the display of real but inert bomb casings in numerous museums.
This is how Aviation Week reported the reveal in the December 12, 1960 issue. Note that even then there was a distinct tinge of political correctness, a fear that showing photos of the bombs would hurt feelings. There’s also discussion of putting the Enola Gay on display at the Smithsonian, something that would not come to fruition for another four decades.
An advertisement from 1960, illustrating Marquardts work on the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet:
If you want more on Project Pluto – and who wouldn’t, as the idea of a locomotive-sized cruise missile flying at virtually unlimited range at tree to level and at a blistering Mach 3+ is fascinating – check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1.
Satellite imagery shows that the Russians seem to be packing up and going home, abandoning the”nuclear powered cruise missile” test site. The article suggests that this is because the missile isn’t working. Other explanations include that the Russians are simply testing elsewhere. In any event, some interesting photos here.
Huh. I’m not sure which is more unusual-seeming: that the second-in-command at SpaceX said that they would indeed launch American space weapons… or that it seems odd that an American aerospace firm would even be questioned about such a thing.
During an appearance on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: “Would SpaceX launch military weapons?”
“I’ve never been asked that question,” Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: “If it’s for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would.”
This should be such an uncontroversial point of view that you wouldn’t even expect it to be raised. But we do indeed live in a time different from when Republic advertised their fighters, Boeing advertised their bombers and Martin advertised their nuclear weapons-delivering rockets.
Reminds me of one of the more disturbing moments from my university education. I was in a class on orbital dynamics (of of my favorite subjects back in the day) when we got to ballistic suborbital trajectories: ICBMs, in other words. Who wouldn’t want to study that? Well… turned out half a dozen or so of my classmates decided that they didn’t, and refused to study that section. This baffled both the teacher and myself; but where I saw their position as foolishness worthy of nothing but mockery, the teacher buckled and allowed them to do something else (details escape me). Even if the idea of lobbing nukes to the far side of the world fills you with existential dread, studying the subject is just math. And getting better at the math of lobbing nukes makes you better at… oh, I dunno, getting better at the math of lobbing reusable first stages to land them on floating landing pads.
Vaguely related: promo art from 1961, published in Aviation Week, with a number of corporations proudly proclaiming their involvement in aerospace weaponry.
Seventeen years ago today, a pack of Surt worshippers hijacked four American jetliners and attacked the Holy City of Shanksville, PA, the Holy City of Arlington, VA, and the Okay City of New York, killing nearly 3,000 people better than them. This led to a war in Afghanistan and partially led to finishing the war with Saddam. The results of *those* have hardly been unqualified spectacular successes. Al Queda was never wiped out, nor was the Taliban, and AQ is now arguably stronger than it was before. So with the benefit of hindsight, what might the US have done better?
Assume that, somehow, you could go back to 9/12/2001 and influence the decision makers. Don’t bother with the “how” of any of that, instead… what would you counsel them to do?
It seems to me that there’s no getting around the need to militarily pound Afghanistan. But there are better ways to have done it. Take, for example, perhaps the greatest military blunder of the last few generations: allowing our Afghan “allies” to try to take bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains in December of 2001. Bin Laden slipped through and the US looked like chumps. Instead, with the benefit of hindsight… a constant day and night bombardment campaign. Build factories in the region to do nothing but manufacture high explosives, to be flown in via C-17s and B-52s running day and night. Make “barrel bombs” that are composed of powdered carbon mixed at the last second with liquid oxygen… barrels containing ten tons of the mixture. Bring the mountains down. Set off *at* *least* one high yield thermonuclear device at an altitude sufficient to preclude meaningful fallout, but low enough to shake and scorch the hills. If the US has developed small nukes with good subsurface delivery systems, bunker busters that will release relatively little fallout… employ them. Let the world know that the US is *just* a little PO’ed.
Also: Al Queda was never going to be defeated in the way the Nazis or the CSA or the Imperial Japanese were. They are less a unified government than an ideology. Even if you were to wipe out Al Queda, there would be others who would simply take up the mantle. The problem is that the religious ideology that underpins Al Queda is widespread and deeply entrenched. The Nazis were wiped out because not only was Nazi Germany defeated, but a massive postwar program of “de-Nazification” effectively deprogrammed all the people who *could* have been Nazis. To do the same after 9/11, the program would have required the military conquest and subsequent deprogramming of well over a billion people. That… that ain’t gonna happen. Not without a pretty impressive pandemic to thin out the numbers, anyway.
So, how do you fight a belief system that has survived for centuries and thrives on its adherents living in horrible conditions? Competition. Of course, our culture doesn’t permit such things as forcing other countries to allow a massive influx of missionaries (though it’s entertaining to imagine such places being flooded with Hari Krishnas and Scientologists, all under the watchful eye of ED-209 bodyguards). So, the US should have culturally competed in another way: blatant shows of Just How Awesome We Are. How could the US have done that? Go outside some night. Look up. Chances are fair that you’ll see a great big ol’ Moon up there. With the money the US spent on invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, the US could have dotted the near side of Luna with colonies. Big, shiny, gold-plated colonies with bright lights and giant “Trump Casino” signs on them. Start paving the lunar surface with PV arrays and microwave or laser energy transmitters. This would make the colonies at least marginally practical, and would be a vast “Ha Ha, FU” by actuallychanging the appearance of the Moon. Especially when you announce that the colonies are open for business and tourism… but that those of Certain Ideologies – and those from nations where Certain Ideologies dominate – are not allowed. Let the world know that the US is going to dominate the future of the universe… and that some people will be locked out. Let them have their caves and their dunes and their dust. We’ll have the stars.
Another idea, almost certainly more doable with 2002-era tech: a crash program to develop not just many terawatts of installed nuclear power, but also programs to make thermal deploymerization systems workable, effective, efficient, cheap and *common.* With enough excess electrical power fed into TDP plants, fed with sewage, garbage, excess plastic, biowaste and the like, the US could almost certainly have made itself more than fossil-fuel independent by 2018. Additionally, the technology would make the US vast sums of money by selling it first to our allies, and then to everyone who is not our enemy, and then eventually to those we’re on the fence about. Imagine a world where petroleum is cheap, available, nearly carbon neutral, and provides zero dollars per year to the likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. A world in which neither NATO nor the Russians give a rats ass about middle eastern oil is a world in which NATO and Russia have no reason to fight in the middle east to procure resources or prop up crappy regimes. A world in which the Russians have no interest in selling tanks and missiles to the Iranians or the Iraqis because they have no money with which to *buy* those weapons. This would be a world with the US in technological and economic ascendance, while those who wish us ill would be experiencing a widespread and permanent economic contraction. To *really* drive the point home, migration out of such places would have to be strictly controlled, greatly limiting the ability of Al Queda and related groups not only to carry out attacks in the wrest but to influence the future of the west. Keeping them bottled up would also drive home to the locals that their situation is only getting worse while things are getting brighter in the west.
Forever sending our troops to go and stir up the dust… this just isn’t really working.
Wow. Just… wow. I know, I know, “It Was A Different Time,” but holy donkeyballs, I can’t begin to comprehend the mindset that decided… “You know what would be fun? Let’s do THIS:”
Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto survived the bombing of Hiroshima and came to the US in 1955 to help other survivors get some plastic surgery. He appeared on “This Is Your Life,” which did some *really* questionable things. In describing the bombing they throw in some sound effects; the good Reverence looks like he’s about to jump directly out of his skin when the air raid siren fires up. And then they bring out Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, to shake his hand (at about 16:22; he was reportedly dunk and it shows).
Dude.
DUDE.
The middle of the 1950’s was a very different time for television, of course. There was a determination to be as chipper and upbeat as possible, something that no longer really exists. There was also a widespread understanding that the United States was in the right in nuking Japan (which, of course, it was, but it’s not a *good* thing, just a “least bad” thing), and in general seemed pretty happy about it… a happiness that is pretty damn cringe-worthy when put up against a feller who himself got nuked. A feller who, pretty clearly, didn’t really understand just what the frak he was doing on that show, and what the show was. They seemed to spring the whole thing on him.
A piece of 1960’s (published in a book in 1967, but it looks older than that) artwork depicting a five-man nuclear-electric spacecraft. heading to Mars. The spacecraft is long for radiation shielding purposes; at the far distant forward end is the reactor, with the crew and ion engines in the conical section in the tail. Between the ends is a long boom attached to which are the propellant tanks and two large radiators. This is more or less the propulsion system and layout originally planned for the spaceship “Discovery” from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” with the difference that the ion engines were on the other side of the crew module, and the spacecraft “towed” the reactor and radiators, rather than pushing them.
