The Aerospace Projects Review Discord server

 aircraft, APR, blather, Book X, books, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 092020
 

Several recommendations have come in over the years to set up an APR Discord server… which has now been done. I’m still in the process of configuring it and figuring it all out, but once it’s up and running it will serve as sort of a backup to the APR blog. It is something that seems to be available solely via invitation, so there will be some other little features it’ll have… such as, probably, even more restricted discussion forums specifically about Book 1 and Book 2 (“Book X” and “Book XX,” whatever) where I will describe them and post preview images such as representative diagrams, lists of vehicles to be illustrated, possibly early stabs at cover art, etc.

Subscribers to the APR Patreon and the Monthly Historical Documentation Program will all get invites when the time comes. I’m thinking of inviting the higher-level patrons/subscribers into the Book1 & 2 subforums. At the moment it’s pretty bare… there are channels for “Aircraft projects,” “spacecraft projects,” “aerospace news,” “aircraft – built” (as opposed to “projects), “general” (which is just for discussion of the APR Discord server itself) and “US Aerospace Projects,” which will go into further detail about the USxP issues I’ve released and plan to release.

If anyone has experience with such things, feel free to leave recommendations and suggestions in the comments.

 

 Posted by at 3:09 pm

DC-3 orbiter

 aircraft, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 012020
 

The orbiter for the “DC-3” referenced previously. This vehicle had relatively small wings, leading to quite low crossrange. The wings were also simple straight wings, not highly swept deltas; the vehicle could get away with this because it did not “glide” during re-entry, but “belly flopped.” To aid in crossrange and landing, each wing would have a single turbofan in a sealed pod. The payload bay is not shown here, but would be quite small and right behind the cockpit.

 Posted by at 11:47 pm

MX-2276 BoMi

 aircraft, awesomeness, history, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 262020
 

Before the Convair Atlas ICBM proved that it was possible for a rocket to reach out across the world and deposit some canned sunlight reliably close to commie targets, it was understood that the only way to accomplish the task was with pilots and bombardiers. But by the mid 1950’s the idea of subsonic manned bombers sneaking into the heart of the Soviet Union without getting swatted was starting to seem nonsensical. So Bell Aircraft, under the direction of former V-2 program director Walter Dornberger, dreamed up the MX-2276: a three-stage manned rocket bomber. Looking akin to an evolved Sanger Antipodal Bomber, the MX-2276 used two manned and winged stages, with an unmanned expendable stage in between. The final stage would carry a single gliding nuclear warhead deep into the USSR, using the human crew to attain some measure of accuracy.

But then the Atlas came along and ruined all that.

The idea persisted, however, turning first into the Bomber Missile (BoMi) then the Rocket Bomber (RoBo) then Dyna Soar. With each step it became less fantastical, and also less of a dedicated weapon system; by the end of the Dyna Soar, it was a one-man experimental re-entry vehicle launched by a fully expendable Titan IIIC. Since then the idea of a “rocket bomber” has popped up from time to time, but never with the level of seriousness displayed in the mid/late 1950’s. For more on the whole BoMi program, see Aerospace projects Review issues V2N2, V2N3 and V2N4. APR issue V3N4 gives a pretty complete rundown of the final Model 2050E Dyna Soar.

 Posted by at 12:14 am

Apollo Command & Service Module cutaway artwork

 art, awesomeness, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 122020
 

Just in from ebay, a vintage black & white cutaway illustration of the Apollo CSM. The original has been scanned at 600 dpi (it’s clear enough for that high of a resolution) and made available to subscribers of the APR Patreon and the Monthly Historical Documents Program at above $10/month as an “extra.”

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 



 Posted by at 2:16 pm

DC-3 launch stack

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 112020
 

In 1969, Maxime Faget of NASA-Manned Spacecraft Center (later renamed Johnson Space Center) produced a concept for a simplified version of the Space Shuttles then being designed. The idea at the time was that the Shuttle would be a two-stage vehicle, both being fully reusable manned flyback vehicles. The Orbiter would be much larger than the Orbiter that actually got built because it included substantial hydrogen/oxygen tankage. The boosters were generally *vast* vehicles larger than the C-5 Galaxy meant to fly higher and faster than the X-15. Optimistic to be sure. Faget’s “DC-3” design had the same basic architecture but attempted to produce a smaller, cheaper, less complex and more realistic design. The design, produced in-house at NASA, was picked up by both North American and McDonnell Douglas, who designed their own variations on the theme.

Here is the basic configuration of the NASA-MSC “DC-3:”

 Posted by at 1:31 am

Dyna Soar launcher options

 aircraft, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 092020
 

A photo montage of Boeing display models showing a range of launch vehicles intended to put the early (1959) Dyna Soar into orbit. The three at left are clusters of Minuteman ICBM boosters; the next two are larger solid rocket motor clusters. The next is a Saturn I booster, followed by an all-new recoverable liquid rocket booster, the Titan II and the Atlas/Centaur. The Titan II design was chosen, though it could not actually get the Dyna Soar into a true orbit. To do that, solid rocket boosters needed to be strapped to the sides of the Titan II… leading to the creation of the Titan III.

 Posted by at 6:51 am

The coming golden age of toy spaceships that shoulda been made 40 years ago

 art, awesomeness, models, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Jun 082020
 

So here’s some good news for those oldster sci-fi nerds who were/are fans of the original Battlestar Galactica, who wanted spaceships to go along with their toy figures, and who currently have buckets of money:

That’s cool and all, but I have two current concerns, apart from the cost:

1: The 3D printed nature of the things is still really obvious. Of course as printing tech improves, the surfaces will also improve. Eventually these sort of prints will be indistinguishable from injection molded parts. Not there yet, though.

2: Some corporate suit will doubtless fire up the Legion Of Doom Lawyers to drop a ban hammer. “Someone is making a nickel selling something we couldn’t be bothered to sell even though there’s clearly been a market for close to half a century? OUTRAGE!”

So, a bit of games theorizing needed here. Do you shell out big bucks now for things that are – to the right person – pretty cool, yet still rather imperfect… or do you wait for quality to improve and cost to decrease, while risking a Cease and Decist making them vanish altogether?

 Posted by at 2:43 pm

Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) documents

 history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 062020
 

I thought sure I’d posted this before but… shrug. If’n yer interested in the manned Orbiting Laboratory program of the mid-1960’s, you’ll want to take a gander at the website for the National Reconnaissance Office, which has 825 documents with a total of 20,861 pages on the MOL project:

Index, Declassified Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Records

 Posted by at 5:09 pm

Live from space

 art, awesomeness, news, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
May 302020
 

Remember when Apollo astronauts used to shoot live TV from inside their capsules out in space? Cuz I sure don’t. I ain’t quite *that* old. But Bob & Doug carry on the tradition with a “tour” of their Dragon capsule. This shows just how relatively spacious the capsule is… and just what a terrible view out the window the camera gets. Really, that’s the lest effective “this is the view out the window” shot I’ve ever seen. Oh well…

 

 Posted by at 8:55 pm

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnd… we’re back, baby!

 awesomeness, cats, history, news, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
May 302020
 

SpaceX has successfully not only launched Americans into orbit from American soil with an American rocket topped with an American capsule, they have also successfully recovered the first stage booster. Woo!

Now if they could lob those rioters to the Moon, that would be great.

Also: they included a zero-g indicator in the capsule:

That’s cool and all, but something more active would seem to be called for. And now that capsules are spacious and need not be nightmarishly cramped, it might be time to consider launching a kitten:

This could be the crowning achievement in the history of human spaceflight, or it could be a blood-soaked disaster. Either’s good, so long as it’s adequately live streamed. But I expect that a cat will be able to accept freefall… maybe not instantly, but eventually. Cover the inside of the capsule with something like burlap and the cat will be able to hang on and move around. I’ve designed, over the years, a couple different “zero g litterboxes” that cats  would *hopefully* be able to accept and use. Thing is, we won’t know any of this for certain until someone actually tries. Now that Dragon is up and running, the cost of spaceflight just might drop enough that we can finally, at overly long last, try this necessary step on the road to conquering space.

 

 

 Posted by at 2:22 pm
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