Patreon: October 2014 rewards released

 aircraft, drawings, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Oct 102014
 

The October rewards for the APR patrons have been released. They include:

PDF document: “A Recoverable Air Breathing Booster,” A Chrysler study from 1964 for a strap-on booster system for the Saturn Ib incorporating additional H-1 rocket engines and jet engines for recovery.

PDF Document: “XF-103 Descriptive Data,”a Lockheed collection of information on the then-current XF-103. This is from a Lockheed collection of information on competitors designs.

Large format diagram scan: the Boeing Advanced Theater Transport. A later version of the tilt-wing “Super Frog.”

And for the higher-end patrons, a CAD diagram of an early NACA-Langley design for what would become the X-15.

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If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

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 Posted by at 12:32 am

Inflatable “room” for ISS

 blather, Hmm..., news, projects, spacecraft, youtube  18 Responses »
Oct 092014
 

Private Inflatable Room Launching to Space Station Next Year

The “Bigelow Expandable Activity Module” will go up next year on a SpaceX “Dragon” capsule and will, if successful, add some much needed habitation volume to the ISS. It is a fairly small module, however. Doesn’t seem to have windows.

This Bigelow PR video shows the BEAM, along with the BA 330 stand alone inflatable space station. Put a few of those together connected by a truss and tumble ’em end-over-end to generate “artificial gravity,” and maybe finally there will be a truly useful space station, good for studying something other than just how bad long term needless weightlessness is on the human body.

If you have a rotating “bar bell” of habs connected to a non-rotating core station, that would permit the study of what we *really* need to study: the long term impacts of variable G levels. We already know that zero G is bad enough that we’ll almost certainly never accomplish much using crews subjected to it non-stop over long periods. But how about crews who spend part of their day in zero G, and part at, say, 1/10 G?

Since the BEAM can be carried up with a Dragon, this leads promptly to the obvious speculation about launching a Dragon and a BEAM somewhere *other* than the ISS. Lunar flybys, asteroid rendezvous, etc. using the BEAM as a sizable mission module.

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 Posted by at 11:05 am

XCOR Lynx progress

 aircraft, awesomeness, history, news, photography, projects, rockets, spacecraft  17 Responses »
Oct 072014
 

While the going seems to be slow, it’s nice to see actual physical progress on a new spacecraft (suborbital, sure, but still…). Over HERE XCOR has released a few high-rez photos of their Lynx spaceplane being assembled. The cockpit is now attached to the fuselage. The aft of the pressurized cockpit is an odd looking structure, a very complex carbon fiber single-piece bulkhead. Usually such things are simple metal pressure vessels made from cylinders and spheroids, but this one features a more-or-less flat aft bulkhead (presumably for space-saving purposes) with a whole lot of ribs for strength. Must’ve been fun to mold…

I keep hearing ominous things about the hybrid rocket propulsion system on the Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two. It’s getting to where I won’t be surprised if Lynx beats ’em into space with a paying customer. And if that does happen, I wonder at the possibility of VG switching out the hybrid for an XCOR liquid system…

 Posted by at 8:08 am

Latest arrivals

 awesomeness, drawings, drawings&documents, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 062014
 

A box of documents showed up today. They are loans, to be scanned and returned, but I figured some of y’all might find a few of interest. If you are interested in making sure that these sort of things are preserved, I recommend wandering by the APR Patreon and signing up. And just as importantly… tell anyone else you know who might be interested. The more people signed up, the more I’ll be able to do (and the more of these documents will be made available to you).

documents

 Posted by at 3:38 pm

Private manned mission to the Moon: 2018

 Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Oct 062014
 

I’ll believe it when I see it…

From 2018, Space Adventures flights will take members of the public on the first commercial journeys to the moon

 

Space Adventures is the company that has sent a handful of paying customers up to the ISS over the years. Their goal is to send two customers to the ISS for ten days, and then send them on to the moon for an Apollo 8-style flyby (no landing). SA has been pushing this concept for a number of years. Not really sure why they got this bit of press recently but… shrug. If they can pull it off, more power to ’em.

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There’s no indication of price for this on the Space Adventures website. However, when SA first started sending people to the ISS, the ticket prices was, IIRC, $20 million. Today it’s $50 million. And when SA first announced their lunar mission idea some years ago, I recall the price being $100 million for each of the two passengers. So I would assume there’s been roughly similar price inflation. Gotta wonder what SpaceX could do it for…

 Posted by at 7:52 am

PDF Review: “Advanced Supersonic Technology Concept”

 aircraft, APR, drawings, history, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Oct 012014
 

After a substantial delay, I’ve posted the first of two PDF Reviews for September over at the APR Blog. This one covers a Ling Temco Vought concept for an SST from 1973.

 
Pages from Advanced supersonic technology concept study reference characteristics_stitch1

 

These PDF Reviews are brought to you by the APR Patreon. For as little as 75 cents per month, you can help me dig into the forgotten corners of aerospace history… and get yourself some goodies in the process. Head on over!

 Posted by at 9:11 pm

Multibody McDonnell Douglas Cargo Plane

 aircraft, art, eBay, projects  1 Response »
Sep 292014
 

Currently up on eBay is an original watercolor illustration of a McDonnell-Douglas cargo plane concept. Details are lean, but it looks like it dates from the 1980’s.

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A multibody design make sense for heavy cargo lifters. By spreading the load across the wing, rather than suspending it from a single point, the wing is stressed considerably less. Of course, drag is noticeably increased and runways need to be wider.

This particular design seems a little odd… especially with the leading edge of the wing. Unless the aft fuselage is taller than the forward fuselage, or the wing is tilted up at a substantial angle of incidence, then the leading edge of the wing should be submerged into the upper fuselage, as the trailing edge is. Artistic oversight?

 Posted by at 4:14 pm

Patreon: September 2014 rewards

 aircraft, drawings, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Sep 202014
 

After a bit of a delay, the September rewards have been released. These include a large-format inboard profile of the North American Aviation F-108 Rapier Mach 3+ interceptor:

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And “Notes on Space Technology,” a compilation of notes by the Flight Research Division of the NACA Langley Research Center based on a space technology course given in the early part of 1958. A hefty 670+pages in length, this covered just about every aspect of space travel as understood in 1958. While I haven’t read the whole thing, it appears to be not only of historical interest, but also useful to get a pretty good general grasp of space travel science, principles and technologies.

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Also included for the higher level patrons are three CAD diagrams:

Boeing Bird of Prey stealth, manufacturing and materials testing prototype aircraft from the 1990’s

Zenith Star experimental space based laser anti-missile system, 1988

Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2, a maneuverable hypersonic glider for missile-launched warheads

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The September rewards are about a week and a half late in being released. Since I hope to get the October rewards out a little earlier than normal, that means that the September releases will probably be available for a short time.

If you would like to access these items and support the cause of acquiring and sharing these pieces of aerospace history, please visit my Patreon page and consider contributing.

patreon-200

 Posted by at 9:41 pm

Almost the F-15

 aircraft, art, history, projects  1 Response »
Sep 172014
 

McDonnell Douglas artwork from ~1970 showing the F-15 late in the design process. While it’s recognizably the F-15, a number of differences are visible, primary being the ventral fins and slimmer nose.

1970 F-15

 Posted by at 10:49 pm

Almost, but not quite, the final Dyna Soar/Titan III

 APR, art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  11 Responses »
Sep 152014
 

Artwork showing the major Dyna Soar/Titan III contractors. The Titan IIIc show here includes the large pitch stabilization fins (and small yaw fins) attached to the solid rocket boosters. Not depicted are the thrust vector control fluid tanks. At the time, the fins were thought needed to counteract the pitch moment that would be produced by the wings of the spaceplane way up front. In the end, it was concluded that thrust vector control would be more than adequate for the task; and while the Titan IIIC never launched a Dyan Soar, it retained the TVC capabilities that were produced to deal with the Dyna Soar.

DynaSoarProgramEarly1960s

Much, much more on the Dyna Soar, including the final few Titan III variants, can be found in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N4.

 Posted by at 9:54 am
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