Aug 272016
 

Earlier this year I posted this image of a late 60’s/early 70’s Lockheed space station:

And asked if there was any hard data out there on the design. Much to my disappointment, but not to my surprise, there doesn’t seem to be any. Clearly the artist devoted a considerable amount of effort to the project… it’s not something slapped together on a whim. But it’s also likely something that got buried and may never again see the light of publicity. So some months back I decided to try to figure out just how big it was supposed to be. Fortunately there are reasonably clear humans for scale.

First off: one thing you discover real fast about the world of concept is art is Do Not Trust Scale References. Things aren’t scaled *down* too often, but things are scaled *up* with annoying frequency. Because Bigger Is Better, I suppose. Consequently, the artist here *could* have taken serious liberties; scaling things up by a factor of 1.5 or even two would not be unheard of. But… this is seemingly all there is. Without further data, you have to work with what you have.

So, starting with the cutaway image, there are a number of male human figures. Assume that the average is about 70 inches tall (for those of you in countries that *didn’t* land men on the moon, 70 inches is about 5.7621e-17 parsecs). Three figures are fairly clearly visible on the uppermost module… one is 67 pixels tall, one is 69 pixels tall and one is 77 pixels tall. The average there is 71 pixels. Thus… 71 pixels = 70 inches. For simplicity, let’s just assume that 1 pixel equals 1 inch.  The diameter of the module can be estimated based on the top and bottom points of the cylinder. The top  is clearly visible via the cables entering into it;  the underside has similar cables which are not visible due to the module being slightly rotated. If we assume that the bottom is as far from the visible edge as the top is, that gives a diameter of 386 pixels, or 386 inches.

module 1 dims

Interestingly, and perhaps tellingly, the diameter of the Saturn V first and second stages was 396 inches. I think it’s perhaps safe to assume that we’re looking at modules designed to be that same diameter. Drawing one of the modules in CAD by tracing over the geometry gives a module length of about 1116 inches.

lock station module

Coming up next time on “Don’t You Have Anything Better To Do Theater:” the overall layout and dimensions of the space station.

 Posted by at 3:37 pm
Aug 262016
 

Currently on eBay is a vintage Greek “Biscuit Card” featuring a simplified artwork replicating an internal-detonation nuclear pulse rocketship illustrated by Frank Tinsley. The original artwork was for a magazine ad for Arma Bosch in 1959 and is *not* any sort of official engineering design, just a magazine artists impression.

I’ve never seen the biscuit card version. I’ve no idea if this was a local Greek production, or the card was published in multiple languages.

Here’s the biscuit version:

ebay nuclear rocket tinsley 2 ebay nuclear rocket tinsley 1

Here’s the Tinsley original.

 

 Posted by at 10:42 pm
Aug 242016
 

An early/mid 1960’s concept model of an interplanetary spacecraft using a nuclear fusion powerplant. Back then there was a LOT of faith in the idea of fusion reactors being just around the corner. One very obvious design flaw? No radiators. Any internal-fusion system (or internal-fission, for that matter) would need *vast* radiator surface area.

Details on the photo are unavailable. I originally downloaded this image from the GRIN (Great Images in NASA) website, which has now been closed in favor of a Flickr account that is difficult to search. Feh. If you want the full-rez version *another* Flickr account has it HERE.

GPN-2009-00027

 Posted by at 5:12 pm
Aug 192016
 

Earth-Like Planet Around Proxima Centauri Discovered

*If* true (it seems to actually be more in the “rumor/not-quite-ready-for-scientific-publication” stage… not helpful is the “anonymous sources” aspect of the story), this could be FRIGGEN’ SPECTACULAR. An Earth-like planet only 4.25 lightyears away puts another Earth within practical starship distance. Sending humans there is still a prospect for some generations down the line, but tiny laser-pushed probes could get there within the careers of people currently working in the space industry.

There are undoubtedly problems. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf; this means that the habitable zone around the star is quite close-in. That in and of itself if not a problem, but problems do arise:

  1. That close to the star, the likelihood is that a planet would not be able to keep a moon.
  2. Without a moon, the planet is probably tidally locked to the star (one side forever faces the star, one side faces away, like the Moon being locked with Earth). This means that the habitable zone of the planet itslef it probably a ring where the star is always near the horizon.
  3. Proxima Centauri is kinda unstable, having some decent sized flares now and again. Wouldn’t be so bad… if the planet wasn’t so close.

But even with those issues… *IF* this turns out to be an accurate find… giggitty!

 Posted by at 2:12 pm
Aug 162016
 

Here is Part Five of the story of Sarah, Zane, Loff and George transporting a shipload of rich folk to Gimli, a place where regular folk just don’t get to go. This, at long last, is the conclusion to the story (it’s been done for a couple months, but I’ve been a bit busy of late).

If you want to catch up in advance, Part One is available HERE, Part Two is available HERE, Part Three is available HERE, Part Four is HERE, and the previous story, “Mass Disappearance,” is available HERE. A couple story fragments starring this crew are available HERE and HERE.

If you like it, feel free to tell your friends, family, co-workers, random strangers, whoever. Like it, hate it or meh it, I’m interested in your thoughts via comments. In particular: do you read it in EPUB pr PDF??

“Going to Gimli Part 5,” PDF version

“Going to Gimli Part 5,” EPUB version

 

Also available is “Going to Gimli” in a complete edition. As a bonus, this version includes not only the worst cover art you’ve seen outside of… well, a whole lot of other self-published books, but also a technical diagram and a portion of the Zaneverse “bible” that describes the basics of artificial intelligences. Finally understand what the terminology means! This complete edition is available with the EPUB and 74-page PDF versions bundled together.
Download “Going to Gimli” for $3.

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And as always…

 


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 Posted by at 9:37 am
Aug 112016
 

Starting in the 1970s and running through much of the 1980’s, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ran numerous studies of Thousand Astronomical Unit (TAU) spacecraft. These were somewhat akin to Voyager class probes, but with important differences. instead of small RTGs for power, they would use SP-100 class fission reactors, mounted many dozens of meters away at the end of long booms. Located at the center of mass of the system would be a bank of ion engines; the nuclear electric propulsion system would operate for *years* to boost these craft to extremely high speeds. Still, it would take decades for them to travel 1,000 AU from the Sun, many times further than Pluto. There, large optical telescopes would take parallax measurements on distant stars; by positioning numerous TAU craft in every direction, the measurement baseline would be vast, and precise distance fixes could be made for stars on the other side of the galaxy.

A number of TAU designs were examined, but the one shown here in JPL art seems to be pretty representative. These probes would have to be engineered with a high degree of both reliability and autonomy as their main observation missions would only begin something like 50 years after launch. Diagrams of a different design and more information were presented in US Spacecraft Projects #3.

jpl tau

 Posted by at 1:54 pm
Aug 102016
 

The FAA recently approved plans by the company “Moon Express” to send the MX-1E probe to the lunar surface. This has garnered some press, a lot of it focused on plans to land human ashes on the moon (with some outlets being spectacularly wrong about some aspects of human ashes in space, such as claiming that this will be the first time ashes have been launched into space). Moon Express is claiming that once proven, they will be able to send missions to the moon for $10 million a pop. Included here is requisite verbiage about mining helium 3 from the moon for fusion reactors, though that of course remains a market without a market.

Moon Express has apparently contracted with Rocket Lab to launch their small lunar lander atop Rocket Lab’s “Electron” launch vehicle. If, like me, you reacted to that sentence with “Who? What?” it’s because Rocket Lab, a New Zealand company, hasn’t actually launched one of their Electrons yet.  Electron *looks* like a smaller Falcon 9 made out of carbon fiber.

 Posted by at 9:44 am