An illustration from circa 1960 showing the launch of a communications satellite. Note the booster falling away in the background… unlike pretty much every booster the US actually built, this one is a slim cone. The caption very likely does not accurately describe this; it is unlikely to be a geosynchronous satellite given not only the low altitude depicted but also the fins on the booster stage.
The Aerojet M-1 rocket engine was to be a beast of an engine. Bigger than the F-1 with almost as much thrust, it differed in being fueled with hydrogen. Its intended role was to power post-Saturn “Nova” type rockets. It got as far as testing major components, but no complete engine was ever test fired. The need for such an engine went hand-in-hand with the development of very large boosters; the M-1 could have been used for either first stage or upper stages, but no booster sizable enough for such an engine survived the mid-sixties, so the M-1 died away.
A photo found for sale on ebay a while back shows a display model (circa 1973) of a Rockwell International concept for a Grumman Gulfstream 2 corporate jet modified for VTOL capability. This was not meant to be an operational concept, but a research vehicle to demonstrate VTOL technologies and operations in a jetliner-like aircraft, with the potential to be implemented into larger passenger-carrying jetliners such as the DC-9. This would allow such airliners to operate from smaller airfields. But the fuel-hungry nature of VTOL aircraft put an end to such notions in the 1970s. This aircraft would have used lift fans in flattened pods on the wings (each pod containing two YJ97 GE-100 gas generating turbojets) and vectorable-nozzle forward-thrust fans (again with two gas generators), for a total of six jet engines.
A glimpse at the first draft of the diagrams for US Transport Projects #8. The careful observer will note that there have been a number of “Forthcoming” posts over the last several months with no followup of a final product. There will be, at some point, a mass release of a larger than usual number of USxP issues.
An advertisement from 1963 illustrating a quite-possibly artistic license nuclear powered space probe heading towards Jupiter. The probe was to use the SNAP-50/SPUR powerplant (300 to 1200 kilowatts of electricity) to power a circular bank of ion engines. The realistic nature of the design should be questioned due to the lack of any apparent communication system… no great big radio dish, in other words.
Patrons of the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon received last month:
Diagram: A foldout diagram of an Apollo-derived logistics spacecraft
Document: “The Piasecki Story,” an illustrated history of the company and its products
Document: “The N.S. Savannah,” a brochure about the sole nuclear powered merchant vessel
Document: “Lunar Spacecraft Design” A paper describing the evolution of the General Electric Apollo design, quite similar to the later Soyuz spacecraft
CAD diagram: 1985 design of the British HOTOL spaceplane
If this sort of thing is of interest, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
Turns out that the “Museum of Flying” has on display a large model of the Douglas Model 2229 supersonic transport. This design was studied for the FAA in the early 1960’s, and would have gone up against the likes of the Lockheed L-2000 and the Boeing 2707… had Douglas not determined that SSTs were economically infeasible and dropped out early. Consequently, the 2229 is one of the more difficult designs to get any good data on. I’d love to get a bunch of photos of this model from every conceivable angle (especially orthogonal views) and, it at all possible (very likely not), I’d also love to get measurements.
Someone visited back in 2015 and posted a few photos:
For all I know the museum may also have a nicely detailed engineering study document tucked away in their archive, but I have no “in” there to find out.
Circa 1960, courtesy Douglas Missile and Space Systems. Both the “flying saucer” and the lunar lander in the background are actually familiar designs, each having appeared from time to time in various media outlets. it’s unclear how *serious* either of these designs were, however. I do know that United Technologies, where I worked from 2000-2004, had an old model of a similar flying saucer on non-display in one of the shops. It was something like 3 to 4 feet in diameter and actually semi-functonal: it was mounted on a gimbal and fitted with a number of small plexiglas-fueled hybrid rocket motors. For displays the motors could be fired up and the saucer would, I believe, rotate and tilt and whatnot, responding to inputs from joysticks on the display stand.That always seemed a terrible idea: not due to the risk of fire or explosion, but because of the brain-melting screech those little rockets would put out.
I have no idea what happened to that display piece. Might’ve wandered home with someone. Might’ve moved on to another company. And chances are quite good that, like a whole lot of United Tech, it was simply trashed.
An advertisement from 1960, illustrating Marquardts work on the Project Pluto nuclear ramjet:
If you want more on Project Pluto – and who wouldn’t, as the idea of a locomotive-sized cruise missile flying at virtually unlimited range at tree to level and at a blistering Mach 3+ is fascinating – check out Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1.
An ad for Thompson Products from 1958. The cargo rocket shown here is pure artistic license, with almost certainly no actual engineering behind it. It’s pure science fiction for the purpose of advertising razzmatazz. And yet… the similarity to the latest design of the SpaceX BFS is pretty remarkable.
“Thompson Products” may not be immediately familiar. But in October 1958 (about two months before this ad was published in Av Week, so… shrug) Thompson Products merged with the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, forming Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc. … TRW. So… huh, how about that.
