1/48 MOL update

 art, books, history, models, news, projects, spacecraft, weapons  2 Responses »
Apr 252014
 

The CAD model for the 1/48 MOL kit for Fantastic Plastic nears completion. It is being modeled to represent the final generic design, without a whole lot of extra parts to keep costs down. However, the design is such so if you want to model one of the more complex versions, this will be easy to do.

Here is the MOL CAD model shown to scale with a Zenith Star CAD model I’ve built. Because… why not?

MOL-ZS 1

The Zenith Star is not planned to be produced as a kit, but rather was produced for the purposes of creating diagrams for a potential book (discussed HERE). Still, it’d make a snazzy – if rather desperately expensive – display model.

The view below shows the planned basic construction of the MOL model. A few external shells supported by internal rigidizing supports.

MOL-ZS 4

 Posted by at 8:38 pm

1964 Worlds Fair “Space Taxi”

 history, projects, spacecraft, youtube  2 Responses »
Apr 232014
 

Via CBS News, a (rather uncomfortably presented) description of an HL-10-based lifting body spaceplane (known as the “Yellowbird,” not that you’d be able to guess from this black and white video). Not particularly enlightening about the taxi itself, but kinda interesting in the presentation.

[youtube D_OttJ6X0jo]

This taxi was also included in the Martin film “Rendezvous in Space.”

yellowbird

 Posted by at 7:53 am

Mystery aircraft photographed again?

 aircraft, drawings, Hmm..., news, photography, projects  8 Responses »
Apr 172014
 

A potential followup to THIS POST seems to show a better view of what may be a new stealthy aircraft:

Wichita’s mystery in the sky

UFO1

A tiny amount of processing gives this:

UFO2

To me, this might be a B-2, The underside of the “nose” certainly looks like the complex contouring of the B-2. But the trailing edge *looks* unlike the B-2. Another sites’ attempt at processing gives an interesting trailing edge:

Clearer photo of mysterious unidentified flying object taken in Kansas

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If this is accurate, the aircraft looks like nothing so much as the Boeing Model 988-122, one of a series of stealthy and semi-stealthy highly maneuverable multi-role aircraft designed around 1996:

Boeing 988-122 iso Boeing 988-122

 Posted by at 10:05 pm

Book ideas

 blather, books, drawings, history, Hmm..., My Fiction, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  3 Responses »
Apr 162014
 

A while back I sold limited editions of some 11X17 drawing-package booklets (of the BoMi, BWB, X-20 Dyna Soar and nuclear pulse propelled starship concepts). Based on comments that have come in from a few of the buyers (see: http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=23871), they seem to have been well received. While these particular books are now done, it got me thinking about a few possible future works:

1) “A Guide To American Nuclear Explosive Devices.” Finally, an idea for what to do with the diagrams of the nuclear bombs I’ve created (see HERE). The book would feature full-page scale diagrams of every American nuclear bomb (including RV’s) that I can reliably create. The following page would contain all the particulars know for the bomb… weight, yield, dates in service, that sort of thing. Plus, a standard illustration/graph/chart showing the damage effects for ground bursts and air bursts, probably at a common altitude.

2) “A Guide to the Strategic Defense Initiative.” This would would be more like sci-fi. By assuming the trope of an alternate history, I can present diagrams of things that I cannot, in reality, present *reliably* *accurate* diagrams of. Things such as the Brilliant Pebbles, the Saggitar orbital railgun, the Zenith Star test laser, the larger planned operational space-based laser, the larger still “Phaser” phased array laser, neutral particle beam weapons, etc. have the problem of only being known from concept art and diagrams of disappointing quality, so my own diagrams would be highly speculative. But in a fictional setting… shrug. Also included would be SDI launch systems such as the ZSLS, the McD “Barbarian,” Shuttle-C and the General Dynamics (“Millenium Express”), McDonnell Douglas (“Delta Clipper”) and Rockwell (“Platypus”) SSTO concepts from 1991. These last three I can at least present quite reliable diagrams of.

These would each be some ways down the line. I *really* need to finish up the Space Station V book first; the nukes books needs one to two research trips, and the SDI book needs a whole lot of drafting, including 3D modeling.

 Posted by at 9:46 pm

Brilliant Pebbles in Popular Culture

 art, drawings, history, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  11 Responses »
Apr 162014
 

So there I was, watching an episode of the FX series “The Americans,” when what comes on-screen but a diagram of the Brilliant Pebbles space-based anti-missile interceptor:

brilliant pebbles

For those unaware, “The Americans” is a spy drama set in 1981, with a pair of Soviet spies pretending to be an American married couple trying to dig up information on the Strategic Defense Initiative. In one episode, a report comes into their hands in the form of microfilm; one page is shown as if viewed through a little microscope, showing the BP interceptor and “life jacket.” Above is a photo I took of the image, direct from a TV screen. I don’t recall having seen this particular diagram before; if anyone knows the source, I’d be interested.

“The Americans” has a number of anachronisms. First, SDI was not proposed by Reagan until 1983. Second, Brilliant Pebbles wasn’t designed until 1986. Third, the “Illegals” program the show is based on apparently didn’t begin until the 1990’s, *after* the fall of the Soviet Union. Still, it’s interesting to see such things on-screen. I have provided a few such historical tidbits to a few productions, though so far nothing I’ve provided has been shown even half as clear as this (still to come: two large format SST diagrams that may appear in a pilot episode). Much earlier in the season there was a briefly-glimpsed “stolen document” on space-based nuclear pumped X-Ray lasers which caused me to perk up and wonder where they got it… until I noticed that the illustration on the cover of the report was of Skylab. It was something cooked up by the art department, it seems. Good enough for TV work, I suppose, seeing as how it was on screen for maybe one second, and, let’s face it, most people wouldn’t recognize a diagram of Skylab if they had an hour to examine it.

 Posted by at 7:56 am

Martin SSTO Art

 art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Apr 102014
 

Around the time NASA was studying the likes of space colonies and solar power satellites in the 1970’s, it was also commissioning studies of advanced launch vehicles which would be cheaper than the Shuttle (which as yet had not launched nor proven to be as massively expensive as it would turn out to be). One such design was a single stage to orbit vehicle designed by Martin Marietta. Similar to the Shuttle Orbiter in configuration, it was comparatively very fat due to being stuffed full of liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen. Diagrams have been floating around of this thing and are readily accessed; less rarely seen is color artwork of it.

Shazam:

martin ssto

 Posted by at 5:00 pm
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