Black-and-white copy of a piece of artwork depicting two Boeing Model 733 SST concepts. Circa 1963 or so.
A high-rez version of this has been posted to the APR Patreon Dropbox “2015-09 APR Extras” folder, available to all $4 and up APR Patrons.
I continue to tinker with the CAD diagrams for “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion,” as well as creating new ones. I decided to see what the diagrams for the 10-Meter design for the USAF would look like in a larger format… in this case, two sheets 40 inches by 10, at 1/96 scale. A fair bit of formatting needed as yet, but on the whole I think they look pretty good.
Anyone interested? I’m thinking a combination of prints (folded into a book or rolled) and cyanotype blueprints on vellum. If this idea is popular (I’m going to take at least this design to print, just for myself), I’d do something similar for the 10-meter NASA vehicle, the 20-meter NASA vehicle and the 86-foot 4,000 “battleship.”
Boeing art from the late 1970s depicting the construction of a base in low Earth orbit, which in turn would be used to construct components of solar power satellites, which would then be slowly boosted to geosynchronous using electric propulsion. Even though the base would be dwarfed by the SPS itself, the base was monumental in scale compared to any other manned space facility proposed before or since.
The artwork (scanned from a brochure that was folded down the middle, thus there’s a half-repaired fold line) depicts not only a Space Shuttle orbiter, but also the second stage of a ballistically recoverable Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle.
I have posted the full-rez version at the APR Patreon Extras Dropbox folder for 2015-08 (while it’s 2015-09 now, the file began the process of uploading at 11:59 PM by my watch, so…). If interested, please check out the APR Patreon and consider joining. Lots of benefits!
In the late 1970’s Rockwell international studied the “Star-Raker,” a large airbreathing horizontal takeoff and landing SSTO designed to support the Solar Power Satellite program. This 2,268,000 kg gross weight vehicle would have a payload of 89,200 kg; the claim was that this vehicle could fly roughly daily and very cheaply. Of course, at about the same time Rockwell was claiming that the Space Shuttle would have a two-week turnaround and would be the cheapest ticket to space…
While Star-Raker was far from the biggest or most powerful launcher studied for SPS, it was certainly one of the more interesting concepts. While a number of SPS reports have described the Star-Raker, to my knowledge a dedicated Star-Raker design report has not come to light. If anybody knows of such a thing, by all means let me know.
Star-Raker garnered a bit of press back in the day, likely due in part to the fact that Rockwell released a number of pieces of concept art, like the one below showing the vehicle in orbit.
I have uploaded the full-rez version of this to the APR Patreon “Extras” folder for 2015-08 on Dropbox. It is available for all $4 and up APR Patrons.
This looks like an interesting book:Goodyear GA-28A/B Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Tailsitter Project of 1950
It’s available in both paperback and epub from Amazon
The same author also produced the excellent Secret Aerospace Projects of the U.S. Navy: The Incredible Attack Aircraft of the USS United States, 1948-1949
A Rockwell illustration showing an almost-but-not-quite-final Space Shuttle design. The only obvious major difference between this design and actual Shuttle is the rounded dome on the nose of the ET. This *may* have been a cover over a de-orbit solid rocket motor, but if so it was a small one. Other changes include differences in the booster sep motors; this painting shows four nose BSMs in a straight vertical line and four tail BSMs in a straight vertical line. As built, the forward BSMs were in a 2X2 square array, while the at BSMs were arrayed around the nozzle. Some minor difference in thermal tile pattern on the forward fuselage of the Orbiter.
The full-rez version has been made available for $10-level patrons at the APR Patreon.
Just released today… an official “History of the Manned Orbital Laboratory” by Carl Berger of the MOL Program Office, 1970. This originally Top Secret history still has a number of blacked-out text redactions and, sadly, no illustrations in its 356 pages. I’ve only skimmed through it, but it looks to be an interesting read.
Direct link to the “History of MOL” PDF file
The table of contents:
Due to the contributions of APR Patreon patrons, over the past little while I have been able to acquire some useful aerospace history publications:
If you would like to help the cause, please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
Here’s a presentation describing a number of European space transport concepts, including the HOTOL, Sanger II and Hermes spaceplanes, Automatic Transfer System and a few others. As a presentation, it is loaded with illustration. I have clipped out some of the better Hermes illustrations and included them below.
Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon.
Checking out tonights TV listings, at 8 PM and 11PM (Mountain Time… go ahead and convert it yerself, ya coastie buggers) on the “American Heroes” channel (287 on DirecTV) is:
Hitler’s Death Ray: Nazi scientists work on developing a solar mirror that could destroy any city on Earth while situated 5,100 miles in space.
I have the feeling that I’ll wish that I had the capability to record this. VHS doesn’t work anymore, don’t have DVR, so there ya go. I’ve got the urge to yell at something monumentally stupid, and this would seem to have a full hours potential for “Ancient Aliens”-level dumbth coupled with either lazy CGI or potentially surprisingly spiffy CGI.
UPDATE: Well, unshockingly, that was crap. Spent a total of maybe two minutes on the Nazi Space Mirror, providing exactly zero new information. *Claimed* that there were detailed plans, showed zero evidence of it. The rest of the “documentary” was a generic “Nazis had advanced technology and built rockets, blah, blah” schtick. Even threw in Die Glocke to round out the quota of requisite bullshit.
Cripes, the narrator couldn’t even get Eugen Sanger’s name right: repeatedly called him “Sanager.” Bah.
