Around 1963-64 a fair amount of effort went into the concept of a single-launch space station with artificial gravity. These stations would be launched atop a Saturn V and would deploy either toroidal or radial structures for the crew to inhabit. The design below (probably Lockheed) is reasonably representative of the radial-arm configuration. During launch the three arms would fold down “behind” the station core, and would deploy out 90 degrees once in orbit.
A magazine ad from 1958, extolling the nuclear aircraft project and seeking employees. The aircraft shown should probably be considered hypothetical, rather than the result of a concerted engineering design. Still… I am looking for more information on it. And what’s frustrating is that some 30+ years ago I *did* see more on it. I recall poking around in the basement of a library in Iowa, digging through their musty collection of magazines, when I saw something else on this, showing a top view of this design. But at the time, the ten cents required to make a photocopy was a cause for concern, especially as I had many other copies to make. I didn’t copy it, and I’ve been beating myself up about it ever since. Is it familiar to anyone?
The aircraft in search of a mission loses its mission:
“Stratolaunch is ending the development of their family of launch vehicles and rocket engine,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement. “We are streamlining operations, focusing on the aircraft and our ability to support a demonstration launch of the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL air-launch vehicle.”
Yeah… I’m sorry, but developing an over-sized aircraft to launch the under-sized and over-priced Pegasus XL? Not a good business model. This news pretty well confirms that this was a “vanity project” by billionaire Paul Allen. When he died in October, the management of his companies and projects passed into the hands of people more interested in profit than whatever dreams he had. This should be a cautionary tale for the likes of Musk and Bezos… get their own dream projects running, successful, and *profitable* just as soon as they can. Because the moment they are gone… the dream dies.
As there is likely not a museum big enough for the Stratolaunch, I expect it will be broken down for parts before too long.
Boeing lost to Lockheed the competition that produced the C-5. But Boeing wound up making out like bandits; they took their efforts and turned it into the 747 and sold the hell out of ’em. Lockheed of course wanted in on that action, but their efforts to turn the C-5 Galaxy into a civilian aircraft by way of the L-500 were unsuccessful. Plans were in place for both passenger and cargo haulers, with various pitches such as stuffing the aircraft full of automobiles.
This was from 1970. Those Cadillacs and Continentals suggested as alternatives would soon fall victim to the early 70’s OPEC oil embargo and the subsequent skyrocketing price of gas.
An advertisement from 1963 depicting a Bell concept for an operational derivative of the X-22 VTOL. This was designed as a naval anti-submarine aircraft; it looks like it might be a little bit bigger than the surprisingly small X-22. The configuration is much the same as the X-22, but the fuselage is much rounder, especially around the cockpit.
On Jan 9, the giant Stratolaunch plane did a taxi test that reached a top speed of 219 kilometers per hour (137 mph), and the nosewheel rotated off the ground. Flight tests probably aren’t far off.
I remain a little baffled about the business plan for Stratolaunch, especially since the initial payload is apparently supposed to be *three* Pegasus XL launch vehicles. That eems an odd thing to do. But Stratoluanch intends to eventually build their own better-optimized expendable and reusable launch vehicles. And the more launchers, the better.
Bell has unveiled their idea of what an electric intra-city VTOL “taxi” would be, in the form of the “Nexus” AirTaxi. one wonders if it’s more human than human?
On one hand, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bell X-22. On the other hand, there are some design choices there that make me scratch my head. The thrust from forward ducts would be bisected by the main wings at forward tflight and then blast right into the rear fans. During transition, the forward thrust would be disrupted by the main wings, which would seem to lead to some fantastic turbulence.
Two pieces of NASA-marked (but likely not NASA-produced) concept art from the 1960’s depicted artificial-G space stations.
The first station (previously presented here in black and white not so long ago) depicts a substantial three-armed station witha multi-segment spine and three habitats. At one end of the spine is a nuclear reactor and its radiator; at the other end is a presumably rotationally0decoupled docking section. There is also an external “track” with two cars seemingly to provide transport from one habitat to another; it doesn’t really seem like this would provide a substantial improvement in transport over simply taking an elevator from one hab up to the spine and then down another elevator to the destination hab.
This space station, which appears from the art style to be a Grumman design, is a single-launch space station to be launched atop a Saturn V. The two arms would fold back for storage on the launch vehicle and would deploy once in orbit. An Apollo CSM is shown approaching for docking along the centerline; it’s not clear if the docking cone was rotationally decoupled. if it was not, the two Apollo-like capsules hanging off the sides of the cone are a bit of a head scratcher.
Both renderings have been uploaded in their full resolution to the 2019-01 APR Extras dropbox folder. This folder is available to APR Patreon Patrons and APR Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers at the $4 per month level and above.
Sikorsky is currently flying the S-97 “Raider” helicopter featuring the ABC (Advancing Blade Concept) rotor. ABC rotors look like conventional coaxial rotors, but differ in being structurally stiff and inflexible. The idea is that ABC rotors allow faster flight: in a conventional single-rotor helicopter, the faster airflow means that on one side of the rotor disk, the “advancing blade” slams into the air at a very high speed, potentially generating a lot of lift. But on the other side of the disk, the “trailing rotor,” which is moving aft at a speed not far off from the airflow, generates very little lift. This of course imbalances the aircraft and limits forward speed. The ABC system, by having coaxial rotors, make sure that there is always balanced lift. The S-97 is not the first helicopter that Sikorsky has built with ABC rotors; the S-69 flew in the 1970s, reaching a top speed of 260 knots. But it suffered from serious vibration issues and did not lead to a production aircraft. The S-97 seems to have fixed most of the issues, and it is hoped that a production contract may eventually come.
The ABC concept dates back *at* *least* 52 years. Below is an illustration from 1966. Interestingly this design more closely resembles – at least superficially – the S-97 than the S-67. The S-69 used two turbofan engines to provide forward thrust, while the S-97 used, like this illustration, a pusher propeller.
Continuing to rough out some Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle CAD models. Instead of lumping them all together I’m breaking them into “genres,” partially because my computer is starting to balk at the the size of the full collection. Below is the “Solar Power Satellite Launchers” collection. Included, from left to right, Rockwell Star Raker, Boeing TSTO, Boeing “Big Onion” SSTO, Saturn V, NASA Personnel Launch System ( a Shuttle derived design), Boeing Space Freighter, NASA-JSC HLLV. There are a few more designs that could probably be added to this collection. Suggestions?
As previously indicated, there is a good chance of a 1/288 scale model of some of the designs such as the Saturn V and the Star Raker. But *all* of them? Probably not in that scale. What seems reasonable is something akin to the old Monogram “missile collection” kits, with all of the HLLVs in something like 1/500 or 1/700 scale. A similar collection of Nova/Post-Saturn boosters is possible.
The Space Freighter would be substantially impressive in 1/288… but really rather enormous.
