In the 1980’s, military spaceplanes were all the rage… at least on paper. In 1985 Rockwell International considered the possibility that there would be a profitable business case for a relatively small manned spaceplane that could serve as a rapid-reaction launch system for missions such as recon. Thirty years later the X-37 finally accomplished something sorta along those lines, though without the crew and rapid reaction.
Well, here they go (hopefully):
UPDATE: the flight seemed to go entirely successfully, from launch to engine shutdown, capsule abort, trunk jettison, re-orientation, re-entry, drogue chutes, main chutes, splashdown. The videos cut off prior to the rescue boats getting to the capsule, but at this stage I image everything is hunky dory within the capsule. As expected, the booster tumbled and kerploded quite spectacualrly.
SpaceX is doing an abort test of their Dragon 2 capsule tomorrow. All goes according to schedule, the Falcon 9 will launch normally at 8 AM eastern time tomorrow and 84 seconds later the capsules abort motors will fire. The Falcon 9 first and second stages will be destroyed, but the capsule will – hopefully – be successfully recovered. With that success and a few more tests, SpaceX could be ready to send astronauts to the ISS in March.
The US hasn’t launched a human into space since 2011. A good argument can be made that the US ceased to be a superpower at the point, since it was now dependent upon another nation for vital functions. Falcon and Dragon sending crews to the ISS would be a good *start* at returning the US to superpower status, though to really deserve that title the US will need to resume the project of advancement into space. And that means doing something better than simply going in circles.
In 1985, Rockwell International contemplated the idea of the Space Station turning a profit for the company. At this point the Space Station seemed a reasonably certain program, though it would take another decade, the fall of the USSR and several complete revamps before assembly would really begin .
Next: advanced manned military spacecraft.
Recently added to the NASA Tech Report Server is NASA/TM-2019-220142, A Meteoroid Handbook for Aerospace Engineers and Managers. It covers a range of interesting topics such as effects on spacecraft, airbursts, dust in the air, etc.
At the beginning of the Space Age, spacecraft designers and mission planners were very concerned about meteoroids. They envisioned vehicles being ripped to pieces by streams of fast-moving space rocks, a notion promoted by the science fiction novels and movies of the time. The reality is, of course, different—the meteoroid streams that produce meteor showers are not dense by laypeople’s standards, having spatial densities of just a handful of particles per cubic kilometer, even during meteor outbursts. The ever-present, diffuse, sporadic background, which produces observed meteor rates of only 5 to 8 meteors per hour, makes up 90% of the meteoroid risk to spacecraft that spend at least a year in low Earth orbit (LEO), whereas the visually spectacular but short-lived meteor showers make up the other 10%. Still, meteoroids do pose a significant risk to spacecraft. At Earth, they can travel 12 to 72 km/s. These high speeds cause even small meteoroids to carry enormous kinetic energy, making them capable of doing serious damage to spacecraft. For example, a 1-mm-diameter meteoroid moving at 25 km/s can inflict the same damage as a bullet fired from a 0.357 Magnum pistol. An exterior wire can be severed by a 0.1-mm (100 mm) particle, a spacesuit can be penetrated by a 0.5-mm meteoroid, and an unshielded pressure wall (like the cabin of the Space Shuttle) can be perforated by centimeter-sized particles. Along with mechanical damage, meteoroids can also cause other types of spacecraft anomalies. Meteoroids can transfer their momentum to the spacecraft, which can destroy or damage equipment such as shunt resistors and charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors with a clear view of space. Meteoroid impacts can also generate plasma. The impact vaporizes material, producing a crater and an expanding plasma, which can in turn provide a conductive path for any charge accumulated on the spacecraft. This effect is thought to be responsible for the demise of a satellite in one case: the OLYMPUS communications satellite was sent tumbling out of control during the 1993 Perseid outburst, and a Perseid meteoroid strike has been posited as a possible cause (McDonnell et al. 1993; Caswell et al. 1995). Other researchers have suggested that very fast meteoroids could produce a small electromagnetic pulse capable of disrupting spacecraft function (Close et al. 2010).
The abstract and other data is HERE, or directly downloaded as a PDF HERE.
Continuing the report into a less interesting section, that of ground based services that in 1985 Rockwell thought might be profitable. these ideas included STS Marketing Services, Consolidated Space Operations Center, DOD “Schedule C,” Payload Certification from NASA, Commercial Payload Software Services, Commercial ASE Services, and Turn Key Launch Services.
Up next: More Interesting Stuff.
More after the break…
In 1985 Rockwell – perhaps half-heartedly – suggested the possibility of a business case for a manned station in geosynchronous orbit. The station would be used to service satellites in GEO. While an interesting notion, satellites in GEO relatively rarely require any actual servicing; the three billion dollars Rockwell expected such a system would cost (and let’s face it, the cost would doubtless balloon) would likely far outweigh the cost of simply replacing the satellites.
In 1985, Rockwell considered that there might be a market for space construction facilities for large orbital structure such as solar power satellites, large radio/radar antenna, SDI “elements” (likely references the relatively gigantic neutral particle beams, space based lasers and other “space guns” that were contemplated at the time) and other large structures. This capability was first contemplated in the mid 70’s for the SPS program, but did not really last much past the late 80’s when such vast structures were no longer really expected anytime soon.
Gentlemen: this h’yar is thinking bigly:
When you absolutely, positively have to use Kardashev Level 2 tech to move an entire solar system elsewhere.
Sources used in the video are HERE.
Around 16,000 active duty Air Force personnel will be temporarily assigned to the Space Force, but only five to six thousand of them will actually become members of the USSF. Eventually the ranks should grow to 15,000… compared to the USAF’s 300,000. The USSF budget for 2020 is a whopping $40 million.
It’s a start, I suppose. But the USSF won’t really come into its own until it starts contracting for the construction of its very own 4,000-ton Orion space battleships.