AMROC art

 art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 142021
 

A piece of concept art depicting the AMROC Industrial Launch Vehicle 1, circa 1987. AMROC specialized in hybrid launch vehicles, and the privately funded and developed ILV was no different. What the vehicle looks like is a liquid propellant core vehicle with a bunch of solid rocket strap-on boosters… but what it actually is is a core made up of liquid oxygen tanks, surrounded by clusters of solid fuel motors. The motors were fed LOX from the core, firings together to create a sort of plug nozzle using the aft end of the propellant tank to react against (though it appears the bulk of the expansion took place within individual nozzles). When the first stage motors burned out, the whole thing fell off as a single stage. The vehicle had four stages; stages 2,3 and 4 were made of different solid motors around a common liquid tank core. The whole stack was 82 feet long. It was supposed to have been able to deliver 1800 kilograms to a 200 km orbit from KSC, or 1350 kg to 200 km polar orbit from Vandenberg; a little over 1400 kg to a 1000 km KSC orbit or about 1050 kg to a 1000 km polar orbit. First launch attempt was to be in the latter half of 1988… that didn’t happen.

 Posted by at 11:35 am

XB-46 photos & early F-111 concept

 aircraft, history, models, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Jan 102021
 

A few seemingly random (because they are) photos. First: a display model of an early General Dynamics concept for what would become the F-111.

And then… two photos of the Convair XB-46 in flight.

 

 

I’ve uploaded the full-rez versions of these to the APR Dropbox, into the 2021-01 APR Extras folder. This is available to any APR Patron or Subscriber at the $4 level and above.

 Posted by at 12:17 am

Time running out for Space Shuttle

 awesomeness, books, history, politics, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 072021
 

I communicated with Dennis Jenkins today. “Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013” had one single printing, there will be no more… and that one printing is finally nearly sold out. It is still available at the original retail price of $170. But once it’s sold out, the secondary market will be the only place to get it and the price will skyrocket… it’s already $228 to $448 on abebooks, a single $364 copy on ebay. Hell it might even be a good investment for resale. This three-volume set is a remarkable work and is worth every penny. Make sure to get a copy before the Green New Deal kicks in and it becomes difficult to ship things!

 

 Posted by at 5:53 pm

Now THAT is a flying car

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., projects  No Responses »
Jan 042021
 

Let me get this out of the way: flying cars are a COOL IDEA that, when the rubber meets the road and the math hits the calculator, generally doesn’t make much sense. You end up with a car that isn’t that good married to an airplane that isn’t that good. More expensive than either a car or a light airplane should be, with the performance of neither.

Nevertheless, it remains an evocative notion. And from the standpoint of an aerospace engineer, an interesting engineering exercise. And one of the more recent, more interesting flying car concepts is the “Firenze Lancaire.” This design says “to hell with making a flying car for the masses” and goes straight for the “hypercar” market. The end result is a carbon fiber bodied vehicle with Tesla motors and batteries for getting around on the roads, and two turbojets for getting around in the air. The car is quite large and would be difficult to park, but if you’re paying five million dollars for a car you’re probably not taking it to WalMart.

The website is filled with snazzy images. It just looks sci-fi-cool. But it also looks… kinda incomplete. There are no control surfaces; the wing structure is largely undefined. The wing folding mechanism is interesting and all, but the wings do not appear to have a good structural attachment to the car. They look like a modest G-load and they’ll snap right off.

Is this for real? Is it a serious engineering effort… or is it just someone’s demonstration of their ability to make spiffy CAD models? I don’t know, though I have suspicions. There are enough moving parts on this thing to get it legally qualified as an Autobot, and that worries me some.

 

 Posted by at 1:32 pm

December 2020 APR Rewards

 aircraft, APR, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 312020
 

Just released, the December 2020 rewards for APR Patrons and Subscribers. Included this month:

Diagram: a large format diagram of a Lockheed cruise missile. The designation of the missile is not given, but this looks like a SCAD design.

Document 1: Consolidated Class VB Carrier Based Bomber, from 1946

Document2: “Economic Aspects of a Reusable Single Stage To Orbit Vehicle,” a paper by Phil Bono on the ROOST launch vehicle from 1963

Document 3: “Shuttle Derived Vehicles,” a NASA-MSFC briefing to General Abrahamson from 1984

CAD Diagram: XSM-64A Navaho, the configuration that would have been built as an operational vehicle had the program gone forward

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 1:30 pm

Possibilities of New Business Growth: ET Tank Farms

 history, Hmm..., projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 252020
 

In 1985, Rockwell International considered the possibility that there might be profit in clustering the External Tank from the Space Shuttle in Earth orbit. There the tanks could be filled with propellant to serve as orbital “gas stations,” or rebuilt into space habitats or other structures, or simple reprocessed for the raw structural materials. In order to do this the Shuttle would have to shed a noticeable fraction of total payload. Something not given a whole lot of thought was what to do about the insulating foam applied to the tanks; ultraviolet sunlight, thermal cycling and a harsh vacuum would cause the foam to break down ans turn each orbiting tank into a little comet, the nucleus of a cloud of foam bits.

Still, it would have been nice if the tanks had been used rather than simply dumped into the Indian Ocean.

 Posted by at 12:55 am

Possibilities of New Business Growth: ICBMs

 AARRRGH, history, nukes, projects, rockets, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 242020
 

In 1985, Rockwell International considered the possibility that there might be profit in ICBMs. In particular, small ICBMs (“Midgetman”), road-mobile with a single warhead. Sadly, the SICBM did not come to be. Nor did any other ICBM. The current ICBM that the USAF fields is the Minuteman, merely an updated version of the same missile first fielded nearly *sixty* years ago. The Peacekeeper ICBM was deployed the year after Rockwell produced this document… and the Peacekeeper was withdrawn twenty years later with no replacement in sight

 

 Posted by at 12:55 am

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Space Cocoons

 history, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 232020
 

In 1985, Rockwell International considered the possibility that there might be profit in long-term “storage sheds” for satellites. These would provide physical protection for the satellites against radiation, micrometeoroids, lasers and the like; the satellites within would be kept in reserve for the day when other satellites are disabled, such as by enemy action. Presumably these cocoons would provide communications and power as well.

 Posted by at 5:19 pm

LTA art

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Dec 142020
 

A while back someone on ebay was selling vintage glossies of concept art of lighter than air cargo lifters, something that got studied with some seriousness in the 70’s and 80’s. As always, money was spent, progress was made, projects were cancelled and nothing came of it.

 

 Posted by at 5:44 pm

Aevum Ravn X

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 032020
 

Ummm. I don’t know squadoo about these folks, but I have questions.

It seems they have a hangar and a mockup and some pretty graphics. I’m not sure they have a sensible business model. The idea is to launch a small rocket into orbit from underneath a newly-built fighter-sized UAV. Why not just launch from under a surplus fighter-sized fighter?

 Posted by at 11:16 am
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