Images of the Mariner 4 probe, which flew past Mars on July 15, 1965, the first time a spacecraft successfully explored the planet. Note the “Solar pressure Vanes.” These were, as may seem obvious from the photos, very lightweight reflectors. While solar photon pressure was not enough to turn the Mariner 4 into any sort of meaningful solar sail, it was enough to actually adjust the attitude of the spacecraft.
Issue 03 of US Launch Vehicle Projects is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #03 includes:
USLP #03 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
——–
—–
The CAD drawings created for USBP reformatted and rescaled for 11X17 collected in a separate volume. Drawings have in some cases been corrected, improved and added to.
USBP 11X17 10-12 collects the diagrams created for issues 10, 11 and 12, including:
Boeing Model 464-34-3, Republic mach 7, Lockheed CL-1301-1, Convair WS-125A, Boeing 484-415, Martin Model 223-10, Boeing Model 814-1010 Dyna Soar, Martin Model 192-5, Boeing Model 464-40, Boeing Model 701-218, Northrop Nuclear flying wing, North American D118, Martin Model 223-11, North American Model 705-00-04, Bell/Martin 464L, Boeing B-1, Boeing Big Bird BB 6800, Boeing Model464-41, Douglas MX-2091-E, Boeing Model 701-238, Martin Model 223-12, Northrop Nuclear Flying Wing, Rockwell MRCC, Lockheed CL-820-8
USBP11x17-10-12 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $10:
————–
—-
The CAD drawings created for USBP reformatted and rescaled for 11X17 collected in a separate volume. Drawings have in some cases been corrected, improved and added to.
USBP 11X17 13-15 collects the diagrams created for issues 10, 11 and 12, including:
Ryan Model 162, Boeing Orbital bomb, Northrop Atomic Wing, Consolidated Vultee High Speed Flying Boat, Martin Model 189, Boeing Model 464-046, Curtis F-87C, Boeing Model 701-247, Lockheed WS 464L Dyna Soar, McDonnell WS 464L Dyna Soar, North American WS 464L Dyna Soar, Republic WS 464L Dyna Soar, Convair WS 464L Dyna Soar I, Convair WS 464L Dyna Soar II, Douglas WS 464L Dyna Soar, Northrop N206 WS 464L Dyna Soar, Boeing Model 814-1010 Dyna Soar II, Bell/Martin WS 464L Dyna Soar, Boeing Model 2050E Dyan Soar, Boeing Dyna Soar/ Titan IIIc, Bell D2001 TS-149, Lockheed Harvey; Convair Model 35, Rockwell D661-27, Boeing Model 464-49, Boeing Model 988-123, Boeing Manned Orbital Bomber, Boeing Model 701-251
USBP11x17-13-15 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $10:
————–
—-
The Space Launch System continues to meander ahead. This surprises me; I thought sure it would’ve been cancelled by now. But forward it goes. Proof of that progress comes in the form of NASA recently signed a $1.16 billion dollar contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne (seriously, how depressing is it that this is now one company, rather than two vibrant competitors?) to restart production of the RS-25 rocket engine. Four of these engines will power the core of the SLS launcher.
Diagram showing the Saturn I, Space Shuttle, SLS and Saturn V to scale
The RS-25 was also – and better – known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine. It’s an incredibly complex, fabulously expensive engine, because it tries to squeeze every last erg of performance from the hydrogen and oxygen propellants, and because it’s a man-rated engine that *cannot* be allowed to self-disassemble, and because it’s reusable.
Except… the new RS-25s will be tossed away with each SLS flight. Every time the rocket goes up, four RS-25s will be dumped into the drink.
Seems just a little bit of a waste.
As part of the new contract, the RS-25’s will be modernized; since there’ll be no reusing them, manufacturing processes are to be streamlined and parts count will be reduced. That’s good, but unless the parts count drops a *lot,* the price per engine will remain painfully high.
Interestingly, this is kinda the same/kinda the reverse of the history of the H-1 engine used on the Saturn I. The Thor and Jupiter MRBMs used the LOX/RP-1 S-3 engine; it was the right size for the new Saturn I, but was terribly expensive. So Rocketdyne engineers took the S-3 apart, figured out what they needed and what could be simplified, reduced parts count by (IIRC) more than 90%, and produced the H-1 engine. Lighter, cheaper, more powerful and, as it turned out, reusable without even really trying.
Throwing away the RS-25s after each flight is not necessarily necessary. Many, many Shuttle-derived launch vehicles have been designed over the decades that used SSMEs but didn’t throw them away. Anywhere from one to four (and probably more) SSMEs would be mounted at the tail of the launcher, built into a “capsule” that would separate from the booster after burnout and return the engines to the Earth (generally via ocean splashdown) where they would be recovered and reused. The design below (from US Launch Vehicle Projects #2) is a Martin Marietta concept from 1984 that put three SSMEs into a lifting body module that hung off the side of the booster. This position was chosen so that the booster could be launched from an unmodified Shuttle pad. The SLS mounted the engines directly below the core, necessitating a whole new launch pad. But since the Shuttle is no more, that’s not a big deal.
I’m planning on producing some new cyanotype blueprints at some point. Some will be copies of vintage blueprints, but some will be all-new CAD diagrams. Below are some CAD diagrams at various stages of completion. All are based on a 10-inch by 40-inch format; this will make them appropriate for folding into a book, or hanging on a wall. They would go for $25 per sheet as cyanotypes; I might also do them in frosted (white) mylar for probably a bit cheaper and maybe on regular paper for a lot cheaper. However, before plowing ahead I’d be interested in feedback… which of these are of interest? Which might you actually plunk down funds for? Additionally: I’ve produced a *lot* of CAD diagrams for APR and USXP. Is there anything I’ve done you’d like to see expanded out like this?
1: USAF 10-meter Orion, two sheets, 1/96 scale
2: Have Sting orbital railgun, one sheet, 1/200 scale
3: X-15A-3, 1 sheet, 1/35 scale
4: Rockwell MRCC, 1 sheet, 1/60 scale
5: Rockwell D645-3, one sheet, 1/144 scale
6: X-20/Titan IIIc, two sheets, 1/72 scale
7: XB-70, one sheet, 1/144 scale
8: ITHACUS troop transport, two sheets, 1/200 scale
Using the ten hundred most used words.
This is derived from Randall Munroe’s new book, “Thing Explainer.”
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words
“Thing Explainer” is derived from Munroe’s cartoon “Up-Goer Five,” which describes the Saturn V using the thousand most common words in English. And the Up-Goer Five schematic was derived from the Saturn V diagram that you can get for your own self from yours truly, in three formats:
Saturn V electronic format blueprints are available HERE
Saturn V cyanotype (old-school hand-made) blueprints are available HERE
Saturn V digitally printed blueprints are available HERE
Update: I saw a copy of “Thing Explainer” today. Looks like a great book. A sad note, though: the original illustration of the Up-Goer Five had a small reference to up-ship.com on it; the book version does not. Well, poop. I was hoping for a flood of new customers…
ALASA (Airborne Launch Assist Space Access) was a program to develop a launch vehicle that could be carried aloft by an F-15, with an orbital payload of around 45 kilograms. The design detail that was supposed to make ALASA work was what killed it: the propellant.
ALASA was to use liquid rocket engines. Nothing new there. The propellant combination was acetylene and nitrous oxide; that’s kinda new. But the Really New part of the design was that the two propellants were to be pre-mixed, meaning that the vehicle required only a single tank and simpler plumbing. Pre-mixing fuel and oxidizer is always a tricky proposition, but it has been successfully demonstrated from time to time. But here, in several tests the propellant simply exploded. This should not be overly surprising… acetylene is one of those unstable chemicals that will on occasion blow itself to bits just because it’s cranky. Mixing it with an oxidizer is just asking for trouble.
DARPA seems to have bailed on the launcher program, but is continuing to try to develop the propellant (called NA-7). Tricky though it may be, if it can be reliably stabilized there are undoubtedly vehicle designs that could effectively utilize it.
The ALASA vehicle made another unusual design choice: the rocket engines were near the front, not at the back. The reason for this: the trailing propellant tank could be dropped as a stage, but leave the engines in place. This would theoretically make the vehicle lighter, at the risk of having hot rocket exhaust scraping down the sides of the tank.
A drawing from a Titan/Centaur report.
This would appear to be a rare bit of good news:
U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act does a number of things, including limiting US Government regulations meddling and recognizing that materials mined from asteroids and comets are the property of the companies that mined them (although not going to far as recognizing the private ownership of said comets or asteroids).
So I’m considering how to game the system. You can’t own the rock, but you can own the stuff you dig out of the rock. So, how to use this to own the rock? Well, presumably “stuff mined from the rock” means anything that’s a minority of the rock that you remove from the rock. So… break the rock into two halves of about 49%, and a handful of gravel. Now, the entire mass of the rock is somethign you’ve mined from the rock.
For a rock a few meters in diameter, this would be easy enough. But how about something like Vesta? Breaking apart a rock miles wide is impractical. But there’s this: grind up a portion of the rock into dust. Scatter the dust across the entire surface of the rock, anything from a light dusting to a few cm thick, blanketing the entire surface. Now… you don’t own the rock, but you own a shell that entirely encompasses the rock. For someone else to attempt to access the rock, they would have to breach your property.
A lot of this won’t matter for a good long while, of course. For this to be relevant, you’ll need to have both Space Cops *and* Space Robbers. If next year Disney-SpaceX announced that they had taken possession of Eros and were busy turning it into ErosWorld, The Happiest Place In Heliocentric Space, it’s not like there’s a whole lot that the Russians or the UN could do to stop it except to complain and push for economic sanctions. At some point, the Russians or Chinese or somebody might be able to mount an armed expedition to go take Eros fro Disney-SpaceX; and at *that* point some definition of private property rights in space would be handy to have.
Just under the wire, rewards for November have been made available to APR patrons. Three documents and one large-format diagram, and one all-new CAD diagram, have been posted:
If you’d like to help out and gain access to these and past and future rewards, please check out the APR Patreon.
The first episode of The Expanse is now available for viewing on YouTube. It’ll premiere on the Syfy channel on December 14. I haven’t watched it yet… I just downloaded it (half a gigabyte) but I’ve got to get back to work now.
UPDATE: I watched it, and was glad I did. It’s a beautiful effort; it starts with a woman floating in zero-g, with her hair floating around her. The hair was likely CGI, but it seemed pretty effectively done. People moving around in zero-g was mostly accomplished with the traditional “magnetic boots;” this was likely done for budgetary reasons, but it was still done well… the walking was done to look somewhat difficult and slow, as it really would be. The story seemed to be pretty close to the book. The visuals were generally spectacular.
