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

Who wants a Black Horse?

 art, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 022019
 

Better part of 20 years ago I started building a 1/24 scale model of the Black Horse SSTO spaceplane. This USAF design was a purely rocket powered vehicle, with engines that burned kerosene-based fuel with hydrogen peroxide oxidizer; it would take off horizontally from a runway with the H2O2 tanks prit near empty, rendezvous at altitude with a tanker aircraft and bring aboard all the H2O2 it needed, then blast off for orbit. It was a cool concept, and it *might* have even worked. So for reasons of my own I decided that what the world needed was a ridiculously large model of the Black Horse. I got as far as a fiberglass shell of the main wing/body, missing only control surfaces, wingtip fins, rocket engines and surface detailing. And then… life intervened, the model got set aside and put out of the way, out of sight and out of mind.

So… anyone want it? As is, with a light dusting of genuine artisanal Utah dust. No reasonable offer refused. Shipping cost is on the buyer; I expect it’ll cost a fair amount, but it is pretty rugged since it’s fiberglass (the original was made of foam and plaster, a fiberglass mold made and a fiberglass shell cast for the final finishing which I never got to). If nobody wants it, no sweat… off to the trash. I’ll give it a day or so.

   

 Posted by at 11:33 am

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Next Generation Shuttle

 history, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects  No Responses »
Oct 012019
 

Continuing…

In 1985, the Space Shuttle program was already about a decade and a half old, the shuttles themselves were already starting to show themselves as “old tech.” It was clear that they would need replacing with a next generation of vehicle, and of course Rockwell wanted to build whatever “Shuttle II” came along… if for no other reason, a Shuttle II would make the Shuttle instantly obsolete and wipe out Rockwell’s Shuttle-based income. It was obvious that such a system would enter service sometime after the year 2000. Not, of course, very long after 2000. That would be nuts.

Interestingly, the illustration Rockwell used for the Next Generation Shuttle was not a Rockwell design, but a NASA-Langley concept for a small “Orbit-on-Demand” vehicle. If you’d like more information on this exact design, boy, have I got a deal for you: it was described and illustrated in US Launch Vehicles Projects #03.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 7:23 pm

Giggity

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, photography, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 282019
 

Homina.

The Starship program will be updated during a livestream later today:

 

Forget about the design specifics; the thing that will impress me the most *if* the Starship prototypes work is the fact they were built not in a robotic factory in cleanroom conditions, but basically on a beach.

 Posted by at 3:16 pm
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