Star Raker Art

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  57 Responses »
Aug 202015
 

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.

2015-08-200353

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.

 Posted by at 6:14 pm

Your fun conspiracy theory for today

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, Crazy, dumbassery, Meh., news, politics, religion, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  8 Responses »
Aug 182015
 

Sure, why not:

BOMBSHELL: China and America already at war: Tianjin explosion carried out by Pentagon space weapon in retaliation for Yuan currency devaluation… Military helicopters now patrolling Beijing

Because a chemical plant built and operated in a nation run by communists couldn’t *possibly* catch fire without aid form American space weaponry.

Come for the “Rods from God,” stay for the “vaccines cause autism” and the transition to “Shemitah” (“Blood Moon” gibberish).

 Posted by at 6:52 am

Early Shuttle Launch Artwork: 2

 art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Aug 142015
 

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.

Old Shuttle Art - SRB Sep

 Posted by at 6:16 pm

PDF Review: History of MOL

 history, Patreon, projects, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Aug 142015
 

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:

MOL contents

 

 Posted by at 3:52 pm

PDF Review: European Space Launch projects

 art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  14 Responses »
Aug 112015
 

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.

 

European Space Transportation System Projects since 1998

hermes 1hermes 2 hermes 3 hermes 4

Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon.

patreon-200

 Posted by at 12:07 am

This should be good…

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, blather, Crazy, Gah., history, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  2 Responses »
Aug 102015
 

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.

 Posted by at 3:48 pm

The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Now Affordable

 art, awesomeness, books, history, news, science fiction, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Aug 072015
 

In May of 2014, I posted about a book that looked awesome… a brand new “Making of 2001” tome. Four volumes, 1386 pages… and with a selling price of $750. Oddly enough, I never got around to buying a copy.

However, they have now released a paperback version. Sadly, it’s reduced to a single volume of 562 pages… but at least it’s affordable. On Amazon the basic price is $69.99, but right now they are pre-selling it for $46.93. I hear tell it has a whole lot of really good illustrations.

If interested… please feel free to buy it through this link. I’ll receive a tiny pittance!

 

 

If you  don’t see the standard Amazon ad-box thing for “The Making of 2001” immediately above this… it’s probably a browser issue. So, try HERE as another link.

 Posted by at 3:58 pm
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