Beam builder photos: 1983

 APR, blather, history, Hmm..., Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, photography, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

In the mad dash to collect what I needed for shipment (and for a time storage… there was, until a late development, the full expectation that I and my cats would spend a good long while as officially homeless), I looked through a great many things I had not examined in a long time, and wound up throwing a *lot*of it into the garbage. My college aerospace engineering homework? Garbage. The vast majority of the photos I took in my pre-digital days? Garbage. This was aided in the fact that the vast majority of those photos had found themselves under a leak in the shop roof and had been welded together into an undifferentiated brick of paper. But a few random, scattered photos were found more or less intact… and even then, most wound up in the garbage because, come on, they were little better than garbage when they were fresh from the developer.

A few that were deemed worthy of scanning were three taken when I was in Space Camp in 1983. The three, which are technically *really* *bad,* show a Grumman “beam builder” that we space tykes got to see at NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center. A device intended to by launched by the Shuttle, it would be fed rolls of aluminum “tape” and would bend, cut and weld them together into structural beams, sure just the thing that would be needed by the early 90’s at the latest to help build the solar power satellites, space station and early space habitats that would certainly be under construction by then.

As my damn near 40-year-gone memory suggests, we were told that the device on display was a *real* beam builder as opposed to a mockup. But I can’t be sure about that.

I’ve uploaded the three photos scanned at 600 dpi, including some modest “enhancements,” to the 2019-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox available to all $4 and up APR Monthly Historical Document Program subscribers & Patrons. Is it great stuff? Nope. But what do you really expect from one of these kids?

 Posted by at 4:08 pm

October 2019 Rewards

 aircraft, APR, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 312019
 

It was in some doubt on my end, but I managed to get the October rewards issued in the nick of time. I have been uprooted and moved well over a thousand miles into smaller digs; much of my stuff was abandoned or outright tossed but my files seem, so far, to have survived the journey intact and hopefully complete. I’m in the process of straightening that all out now, and with luck November will be more orderly.

The October rewards included:

Diagram: A very large format scan of the McDonnell Douglas Model D-3235 Supersonic Transport from 1988

Documents: The Boeing “Airborne Alert Aircraft”

A new scan of the Goodyear “METEOR Junior” report, this time scanned from a pristine original

A scan of a collection of JPL CAD diagrams of a Pluto flyby spacecraft circa 1994… sent to me during my college days with the hopes that I could make a display model of it (beyond my capabilities at the time)

In lieu of the CAD diagram usually created for $5 and up Patrons, which I had nowhere near the time to create, a scan of some North American Rockwell brochures on the HOBOS homing bomb system.

If this sort of thing is of interest – either in receiving these sort of rewards or in helping to preserve this sort of aerospace history – consider signing up for the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 3:47 pm

48-Hour Auction: Aerospace Books And Misc.

 awesomeness, books, history, models, nukes, projects, rockets, sales & specials, science, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons  No Responses »
Oct 172019
 

 

UPDATE: AUCTION HAS ENDED.

Here are some things that I think *should* be of considerable interest. If you are indeed interested in making a bid, send it via email to: Buyer is responsible for postage, which for most of these can be Media Mail for low cost. Auction will end 48 hours after I put this post online. Items and photos after the break…

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 10:31 pm

48-hour auction: X-15 Models

 aircraft, art, history, models, projects, sales & specials  No Responses »
Oct 162019
 

UPDATE: AUCTION HAS ENDED.

For sale to the highest bidder… a lot of 1/40 scale (same as the vintage Topping display model) X-15’s, mostly X-5A-3 stretched delta-winged configurations. These are solid-cast resin models that I worked on a number of years ago. From left to right:

1: An incomplete model with the Marquardt SERJ airbreathing engine

2: An incomplete X-15A-3 with upward-swept wingtip fins

3: An incomplete X-15A-3, missing fins.

4 & 5: Completed, painted and decaled X-15A-3 models

6: A vintage Topping X-15 model.One of the horizontal stabilizers had broken off, and repairs were underway.

These are, again, incomplete (except for #4&5), but a decently skilled modeler could finish the job. What you see in the photos is what you get. Except the dust. I’ll blow that off. The level of dustiness might give an indication of how long these have been sitting abandoned. Buyer also pays postage by whatever means desired. If you’d like to bid, send an email to: Bidding ends 48 hours after this is posted. There won’t be any more of these, at least not from me: the molds are not only old, they are now in a landfill.

 Posted by at 12:17 am

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

 art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 132019
 

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell considered the possibility of a 150-ton payload reusable SSTO. Possible missions for it included lunar logistics, space based weaponry and solar power satellite launch. There were, however, no actual paid-for programs needing the capability enough to justify the development cost.

I vaguely recall seeing a diagram of this design somewhere, long ago. An article in “Spaceflight,” perhaps?

 

 Posted by at 8:10 pm

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Orbital Transfer Vehicles

 history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 082019
 

Continuing…

In 1985 Rockwell considered the business possibilities of a range of Orbital Transfer Vehicles. The OTV, in its various forms, was a reusable upper stage designed to move sizable payloads from LEO to higher orbits such s geosynchronous. To facilitate reusability, some designs included aerobrakes to reduce the need to burn fuel when returning from high orbit to low. Some OTVs included manned options. The men were not needed for piloting the OTVs, but to perform missions such as satellite servicing in GEO.

 

 Posted by at 1:54 am

Aerospace Ephemera

 aircraft, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 022019
 

I found a few things that might be of interest. Not selling them (unless you want to offer me ten grand each… then I suppose I could entertain the notion), just thought them interesting:

1: A Boeing property tag from the SST program.

2: A thank-you card printed up for Werner von Braun. Sadly, not signed. Came tucked into the Spivak archive a year or two back. Seems he might’ve had a 60th birthday party or something and either handed these out or mailed them to attendees or well-wishers or some such.

3: The invitation that was mailed to me back in April of ’96 to go witness the first public launch of the Delta Clipper. I was invited due to my activity within the Iowa State (University) Space Society. We put on the Mid Continent Space Development Conference every year and repeatedly had Bill Gaubatz of McDonnell Douglas come and give a presentation on the Delta Clipper program.

 

 Posted by at 10:52 pm
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