Rotating space station

 art, projects, spacecraft  5 Responses »
Apr 132013
 

NASA artwork from 1962 depicting a single-launch space station. Launched by a Saturn V, this space station would be folded up, then would unfold once on orbit to form something of a torus. Rotation would then supply a measure of artificial gravity. With a design like this, much of the inner volume would not be very efficiently used… as the straight cylindrical segments diverge further from a circular centerline for a hypothetical truly circular torus, the more the inner surface of the segment would seem to slope “uphill.” Thus the interior would probably be stepped so that the floor would be “flat” from the acceleration vector point of view, to keep everything from rolling or sliding “downhill.” In this case the central hub appears to be rotationally decoupled.

Image is related to this radial-arm concept, and was scanned at the NASA HQ history archive.

 Posted by at 6:46 pm

Bell V-280 Valor Tiltrotor

 aircraft, news, projects  17 Responses »
Apr 102013
 

Bell has announced a tilt rotor to take the place of the Black Hawk. It is smaller than the v-22, and featured fixed wingtip engines: the proprotors tilt, but the engines do not. This leaves a clearer line of sight out the side during hover, both for ingress and egress, as well as door gunners.

An attack version is also contemplated.

Bell Helicopter Introduces the Bell V-280 Valor Tiltrotor at AAAA.

FORT WORTH, TX (April 10, 2013) – Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company (NYSE: TXT), revealed today the Bell V-280 ValorTM, its offering for the Joint Multi Role/Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Technology Demonstrator (JMR/TD), at the 2013 Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) Annual Professional Forum and Exposition in Fort Worth.

  • Speed: 280 KTAS cruise speed
  • Combat range: 500-800nm
  • Strategically Self-Deployable – 2100nm Range
  • Achieves 6k/95
  • Non-rotating, fixed engines
  • Triple redundant fly-by-wire flight control system
  • Conventional, retractable landing gear
  • Two 6’ wide large side doors for ease of ingress/egress
  • Suitable down wash
  • Significantly smaller logistical footprint compared to other aircraft

AAAA2013-FVL-LandingScenerio

AAAA2013-FVL-AirplaneMode

FVL%20Rear%20Quarter%20Attack FVL attack

Please enjoy this Bell PR video featuring decent computer graphics and some rather painful acting:

[youtube 1O3Onyas984]

The official Bell V-280 website, with more images and such.

 Posted by at 6:39 pm

Bell BAT

 aircraft, history, models, photography, projects  4 Responses »
Apr 062013
 

A photo of the Bell Helicopter BAT (Bell Advanced Tiltrotor) mockup built in the late 1980s. This was an early competitor in the Light Helicopter eXperimental (LHX) program, eventually won by what would become the RAH-66 Comanche. While the BAT met the early requirements of the program, it was too unconventional.

 Posted by at 10:57 pm

Fusion Rocket

 news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, science, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Apr 052013
 

A new fusion rocket concept, funded by NASA, is generating a little press:

Scientists develop fusion rocket technology in lab – and aim for Mars

Researchers at the University of Washington say they’ve built all the pieces for a fusion-powered rocket system that could get a crew to Mars in 30 days.

The concept is straightforward enough. It’s a variant of the inertial confinement class of fusion rocket. In this particular concept, magnetic fields slam down on aluminum or lithium rings. The rings are very rapidly collapsed inwards by the magnetic field. The momentum of the imploding metal ring is theoretically enough to spark enough heat and pressure in a magnetically suspended  deuterium plasma to create fusion conditions.Importantly, the metal ring also absorbs most of the fusion products; it gets vaporized and stripped of electrons, and directed aft by the magnetic fields. This is an efficient way to couple the reaction to the spacecraft without impinging hot gases on physical structures.

Performance is not spectacular, as fusion engines tend to go… specific impulse of 2,440 to 5,720 seconds. But it ranks up there with the best of the Orion systems.

Some of their publications are HERE.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 6:41 pm

VTOL SST

 aircraft, art, projects  5 Responses »
Mar 302013
 

A 1960’s concept painting from Bell depicting a vertical takeoff and landing supersonic transport. The eight individually podded turbojet engines were hinged so that they could rotate upwards at least 90 degrees, providing vertical thrust. It’s far from certain that this was an actual engineering effort as opposed to pure artistic marketing. Exactly what benefit there would be in a VTOL SST is anyones guest.

 Posted by at 11:37 pm

Grumman pressure-fed Shuttle concept

 drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Mar 282013
 

A Grumman alternate Space Shuttle concept with a low cross range orbiter and a series of pressue-fed storable-propellant rockets for the first and second stages. Pressure-fed boosters like this are heavy and relatively low-performance, but also relatively simple and cheap. The heavy construction required for the large high-pressure tanks makes them readily recoverable and refurbishable.

 Posted by at 11:17 pm

A pipeline alternative

 aircraft, blather, Hmm..., politics, projects  5 Responses »
Mar 262013
 

In the 1970’s, when everybody and their brother was thinking of ways of dealing with oil shortages and the like, Boeing studied the idea of using giant aircraft to carry oil and/or natural gas from Alaskas north slope down to the lower 48. Quite a number of these aircraft were designed; the math seemed to work on the aircraft being possible, but the math didn’t seem to work on them making economic sense. One of these crashes… hoo boy. Still, the idea of watching the Keystone pipeline protestors heads asploding when seeing these monster planes fly over would almost make the risk worthwhile.

Shown below is a photo of a model of one such design, capable of hauling a two-million pound payload (about 10 times the 747’s capability).

nat resources

One of these decades I’ll probably do an APR article on the concept.

 Posted by at 2:42 am
 Older Entries  Newer Entries