An early 1970’s Lockheed concept for a fully reusable shuttle. Shown here is the orbiter, derived from the earlier STAR Clipper concept… but bigger and without the V-tank. The system used a reusable flyback booster for the first stage. Far more information is available on this and related concepts in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N2 and V3N2 Addendum, available HERE.
Looks like *something* survived perihelion:
To my uneducated mind, what looks like what happened is… ISON was a rock covered in snow. As it rounded the sun, the snow flashed off, leaving just the rock. The rock, however, wasn’t pure rock, but had volatiles mixed in with it; now that the insulating snow layers have been blown off, the rock itself is starting to roast and cook out the volatiles within.
So ISON might survive as a comet, but I would guess that, compared to what it was before, it’ll be a pretty sad comet. It’ll be interesting to see how the orbit might’ve changed since the snow blew off.
The further adventures of comets Encke and ISON as seen by the STEREO-A spacecraft:
An animated gif of two comets. In this case, taken by the STEREO spacecraft, of comets Encke and ISON.
The way in which Encke’s tail waves honestly surprises me. You never get that sense of motion from still photos (well… duh, I suppose).
The smallest individual spacecraft concept proposed for the Strategic Defense Initiative was the “Brilliant Pebbles” system. Instead of vast, multi-hundred-ton battle platforms like the lasers and neutral particle beams and railguns, Brilliant Pebbles were *relatively* small rocket vehicle designed to intercept enemy missiles and warheads while in space. The system was composed of a rocket-powered kill vehicle (usually fueled by dense, easily storable propellants such as nitric acid and hydrazine), and a “cocoon.” The latter was a shroud that protected the kill vehicle while it waited out the years floating in space.
The kill vehicle, in order to do its job, had to be *extremely* high performance. It was composed of a series of thrusters, lightweight composite propellant tanks, optics to spot and track the target, a computer to run it, communication systems, batteries… and not much else. The Brilliant Pebbles (so named because they were derived from the concept of “smart rocks,” which was a jovial way to describe a hit-to-kill system: instead of taking out the target with a warhead, you actually ram the target with your vehicle) vehicles were said to have the propulsive capability of boosting themselves out of Earth orbit and doing a fast flyby of Mars. This performance was needed in order to be able to launch from wherever they happened to be and race to intercept enemy missiles.
Data, such as mass and dimensions, is sadly lacking. Guesstimate that the cocoon is about the size of a Volkswagen. Where the bigger systems such as lasers would require heavy lift launchers, Brilliant Pebbles could be launched by much smaller rockets… and a whole lot of them. *Thousands* of Brilliant Pebbles would be needed in low Earth orbit to provide basic coverage. For every Brilliant Pebble that would be in place to take on a Soviet missile, many more would not be. It was the need to launch vast flocks of these that the SDI program began studying reusable, low-cost launchers, leading to the Delta Clipper program.
The complete rework of APR from the original release a decade ago is going a lot slower than I’d planned. A lot of people have asked for the original versions of the as-yet-unreleased issues of APR to be made available. I’ve been hesitant to do so, but… it’s just taking too long. So, I’ve taken the original Word files for the six issues of Volume 4 and the six issues of Volume 5, and made two PDF files from them. I’m making them temporarily available as two bulk sets. When the issues are re-released, these full-volume sets will be withdrawn. So, Volume 5 might remain available till the sun explodes, I dunno…
If you’re dying to get hold of the old-school APRs, here’s your chance. Remember, these are the *original* files from around 2002-2004, without any updates, edits or other changes. Errors, crappy formatting and all. A bunch of the individual old articles remain available as well.
APR Original Run Volume 4 downloadable PDF: $30
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APR Original Run Volume 5 downloadable PDF: $30
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Here are the contents:
Volume 4:
The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Bell Aircraft Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
First in a series of articles describing the competitors for the X-15
Lockheed Model L-153 Part 2 by Bill Slayton
Immediately post-war M-wing jet fighter designs
Cobras Of The Field by Scott Lowther
Modified helicopters for ag duty
Lockheed Model L-153 Part 3 by Bill Slayton
Immediately post-war swept-wing jet fighter designs
The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Douglas Aircraft Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The Douglas competitor for the X-15
The Martin “Spacemaster” by Scott Lowther
An unconventional design competitor for the Shuttle
Radial Engine P-51 Mustang by Scott Lowther
A little-known modification to the supreme WWII fighter
The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Republic Aviation Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The Republic competitor for the X-15
Boeing Super Clippers, then and Now by Scott Lowther
Truly grand aircraft
The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The North American Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The winning competitor for the X-15
The HFB 530 Ranger by Mike Hirschberg A German VTOL strike/recon design
Lockheed Model L-153 Part 4 by Bill Slayton
Early Post-war variable geometry fighters
Sonic Cruiser Update by Scott Lowther
New drawings of a new aircraft
LARA Craft: COIN Raiders by Scott Lowther
A long way to go for a bad pun for some tough aircraft
English MUSTARD by Scott Lowther
An early 1960’s British fully reusable Space Shuttle
The NACA’s First Jet by Scott Lowther
The last gasp for ducted fans prior to the turbojet
Addendum to Issue V4N5
Ooops.
The Hopeless Diamond by Scott Lowther
The first cut of the stealth fighter
Sea Dragon by Scott Lowther
A giant, dirt-cheap launch vehicle
North American NA-116 by Scott Lowther
A long-range bomber
Multibody Designs From Lockheed by Scott Lowther
Unconventional yet fuel efficient designs
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Volume 5:
Editor’s Gratuitous Additions: Republic XF-103
A little bit of extra info.
Republic XF-103 by Dennis R. Jenkins
About as sleek as an aircraft can get.
Boeing’s Advanced Multipurpose Large Launch Vehicle by Scott Lowther
Perhaps the most powerful space launcher ever seriously conceived.
McDonnell Douglas GRM-29A by Scott Lowther
Just about the coolest spaceplane ever… but would it have worked???
The Rockwell XFV-12A V/STOL Prototype by Dana E. Lubich
It came close…
XFV-12A Followons by Scott Lowther
The end of the program wasn’t the end of the concept
Hawker Siddeley HS 141 by Scott Lowther
VTOL jetliner concept
Bell/Boeing Armed XV-15 by Scott Lowther
A tilt rotor with a mission
Lockheed Sea Sitter by Scott Lowther
A seaplane to conquer the oceans
Early Atlas Missile Designs by Scott Lowther
Evolution of America’s first ICBM
Boeing’s Air-Launched Micro-Fighters by Scott Lowther
The fighter needed for a flying aircraft carrier
Chrysler SERV by Scott Lowther
An SSTO Space Shuttle design
Soviet Seaplane Jet Bombers by Thomas Mueller and Jens Baganz
A counterpoint to American efforts
4,000 Ton Orion by Scott Lowther
Recently declassified data on a large nuclear pulse propulsion craft
Mart Model 262 by Scott Lowther
A mysteriously delayed article on VTOL fighters…
NASA Langley High Speed Civil Transport by Scott Lowther
Mach 3 and Mach 4 transports from the late 1980’s
Convair/Canadair Tilt-Wing Close Support Aircraft by Scott Lowther
VTOL gunship
Spacejet by Scott Lowther
Spaceplanes with dropable jet engines
Handley Page All-Wing Airbus by Scott Lowther
A British flying-wing transport from the 1960’s
Convair NX-2 Nuclear Powered Bomber by Scott Lowther
A well known but – until now – poorly documented nuclear powered aircraft project
Technology Needs for High Speed Rotorcraft Part 1 Sikorsky and Bell by Scott Lowther
Tiltrotos, tiltwings, fan-in-body designs
Lockheed-Martin ICE by Scott Lowther
An experimental tailless stealth fighter design
Raumwaffe, 1946
Boeing WS-110A
X-Wings
Dash-On-Warning
A White House petition:
NASA is the crown jewel of governmental agencies and a central player in the betterment of mankind.
The importance of NASA in the advancement of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, geography, and oceanography cannot be overstated.
I urge President Obama to lobby Congress to provide the American people a method to allocate a portion of their tax dollars to the direct funding of NASA. A simple checkbox, similar to how individuals can fund the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, should be added to all IRS tax forms.
Yeah, well. There are a couple issues here:
1) I don’t know if it’s within the Presidents power to do such a thing
2) Let’s say it happens, and somehow NASA manages to get a billion dollars in direct taxpayer funding. What will Congress do? “Oh, look, NASA has an extra billion. Great! We can cut their funding by a billion, and NASA will maintain the same level, and we can give that billion we’ve saved to (insert horrible government program HERE)!”
The worst part of the petition is an included quote, meant to be inspiring:
“The most power agency on the dreams of a nation is currently underfunded to do what it needs to be doing. And that is making dreams come true.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
Ummm… huh? Was NdGT drunk off his gourd when he said that… or is that a really bad transcription? Seems to be the latter.
The X-20 and MOL CAD drawings shown together at the same scale. Neither is done yet, but I thought they look pretty spiffy together.
… that drive up processing time. All the little ridges, bumps and corrugations on the MOL model have turned this from a simple construction to something the computer has a fit trying to deal with.
