A 1967 North American concept for a hypersonic (Mach 6) passenger transport. Sadly, no further data. If anyone has more – such as a diagram – I’d love to see it.
Aug 032013
Aug 022013
If this reminds you of “1984,” it’s only because you’re paranoid.
Your TV might be watching you
The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs’ built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you’re watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you.
Awesome.
Jul 292013
A NASA painting of a 1969-vintage Space Shuttle concept. This was known as the “DC-3” configuration, and was designed – or at least heavily pushed – by Maxime Faget, and was adopted by several McDonnell-Douglas designs. It featured two manned and reusable rocket powered stages, both burning hydrogen & oxygen, both with straight wings. The smaller orbiter would basically “belly flop” into the atmosphere when re-entering. The straight wings would not provide a whole lot of lift, but they would also not be very massive. Thus the vehicles were relatively lightweight, but with restricted crossrange. Both stages also had turbofan engines mounted in the nose for cruise and landing assist.
Jul 282013
The project to draft up all the US nuclear weapons, with a secondary emphasis on delivery systems, continues at a low level. Some of these will pop up in future US Bomber Projects issues, but the purpose of the project as a whole… dunno. A “Know Your Nukes” guidebook seems like a good idea to me but… dunno.
Jul 242013
A closeup of part of the “wheel” of the early-60’s Lockheed space station concept. Via NASA history office.
A number of early rotating space stations used “wheels” like this, with straight cylindrical segments forming a torus. While this would be relatively easy to build, it would have the result that the flat floors would be “curved” from the standpoint of “gravity.” Things would roll “downhill” towards the joints between segments.
There are some definite head-scratchers in this.
- A whole lot of paper books, a pretty substantial library. Anyone who had ever picked up a box of books knows that paper is *heavy.*
- That’s a heck of a couch.
- With a small-minor-diameter torus like this, there’s no getting away from the fact that each compartment is going to have traffic through it. Still, it seems a dubious choice to put one of the main entryways into the torus in the machine shop. Anyone working in there is likely going to be effectively deaf, and possibly blind. Not to mention you’re going to have people wandering through a machine shop. This, I think, should be in a segments furthest from a “spoke” so that it gets less traffic… and nobody dropping in from above.
- Once you’ve dropped into the machine shop from the spoke… good luck getting back up to it.
- Don’t ask me to explain the rectangular doors with the circular doors built-in.
- Is that a pile of logs? Stocking up for those cold winter nights, perhaps?
Jul 222013
Lockheed artists impression from the very early 1960’s, depicting a space station with a “wheel” for artificial gravity. From a slide at the NASA Headquarters history archive.
Jul 222013
If I do not finish these two in the next week – and I have serious doubts – then it’ll be a good long while before they’re done and released. I am, of course, willing to be bribed to pour the coals on…
Jul 202013
Issue number 2 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:
- Rockwell D 645-1: LH2:: A variant of the low-cost missile carrier using liquid hydrogen for fuel
- NAA High Performance Penetrator: a 1963 design for a supersonic bomber, led in part to the B-1
- Boeing Model 701-273-1: Second in a series on the evolution of the XB-59
- Lockheed GL-232: A subsonic nuclear powered bomber
- Boeing Space Sortie: A small unmanned spaceplane
- Martin Model 233-2: Second in the series on the development of the XB-48 – a wartime turbojet powered medium bomber
- Boeing Model 461: Second in the series on the development of the B-52… and early postwar turboprop heavy bomber
- Northrop Low Altitude Penetrator: A competing idea for what became the B-2
USBP#02 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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Jul 202013
Issue number 1 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:
- Rockwell D 645-1: a 1979 low-cost subsonic missile carrier
- NAA 1495-25 PAMSS: an early ’60’s concept for rebuilding an XB-70 into a prototype for an all-new bomber
- Boeing Model 701-273-0: First in a series on the evolution of the XB-59 supersonic bomber
- Convair B-58-C-1: a two-engined tactical bomber
- Lockheed CL-2102-2: A stealthy flying wing
- Lockheed Model 195-A-13: An early nuclear powered bomber
- Martin Model 233-1: First in a series on the evolution of the XB-48… a wartime turboprop medium bomber
- Boeing Model 444 A: First in a series on the development of the B-52… a late war turboprop heavy bomber
USBP#01 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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Jul 202013
The second of two images of the Saturn-carrying hovercraft from Bell. Here it’s shown unloading a Saturn stage… it looks like the front end of the S-IC stage, but it doesn’t look like it would fit with the semi-conical engine fairings, never mind the fins.
