The Orion capsule abort test seems to have been a success. It was certainly damned impressive looking. The test vehicle looks a lot like an early Polaris.
Full Orion AA-2 test video. All major events completed within two minutes.
It really did look totally as advertised! Presser in a few hours. pic.twitter.com/M1BaQ4i7hH
— Chris B – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) July 2, 2019
For much of the time while the concept of the Space Shuttle was being developed the vehicle consisted of a manned flyback booster of relatively enormous dimensions, coupled with an orbiter that included sizable internal oxygen tanks, sometimes with external hydrogen tanks, sometimes internal. The model below, a masterpiece of late 1960’s model makers craft, illustrates one such concept. the orbiter is similar to the Grumman H-33 except larger, with completely internal hydrogen and oxygen tanks.
Had this type of Space Shuttle been built and flown successfully, there is every chance that it would have been substantially less costly to operate than the Shuttle we got: flying the booster back to a runway landing and refurbishing it would theoretically have been a lot faster and easier than fishing solid rocket motor casings out of the ocean and shipping them to Utah for refurb. But getting the design to the point of operation would have been a nightmare. The booster was unlike anything previously attempted, and would have been an aircraft roughly the size of the C-5 Galaxy, with a top speed like that of the X-15
I have uploaded the full resolution scan of the photo to the 2019-07 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to $4 and up subscribers to the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
I’ll believe it when I see it:
I suspect these are Elon-estimates, which have been notoriously optimistic in the past. Still, there’s no reason why SpaceX *can’t* pull this off. And if they can… that would be not only impressive, but world changing . Western civilization just might have a chance to survive. Not on Earth, of course… here, we’re pretty well doomed. But out in space, maybe, just maybe, there’s a possibility that people who speak English, aren’t ashamed of Washington and Jefferson and think rationally and scientifically might live on.
“The goal is to get orbital as quickly as possible, potentially even this year, with the full stack operational by the end of next year and then customers in early 2021.”
Here’s hoping.
A second – and last – batch of Eaglemoss Star Trek ships has gone up on eBay. I’m preparing a bunch of books, many of aerospace interest, that will be posted soon. I’d planned on having half a dozen or so of them ready to go tonight but… shrug.
https://www.ebay.com/usr/dynascott
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Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #139 Vaadwaur Assault Ship & magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #103 Vidiian Warship & magazine, new, bagged
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #94 Suliban Cell Ship ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #96 Orion Scout Ship & magazine, new, still bagged
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #45 Malon Export Vessel Ship & magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #134 Vulcan Survey Ship & magazine, new, bagged
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #41 Klingon Raptor ship & magazine, new, bagged
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #18 Bajoran Solar-Sailor ship & magazine, ne
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #51 Hirogen Warship & magazine, new, still bagged
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #49 ECS Fortunate ship and magazine, new
I made an attempt to add Earth-type humor to each of the listings.
NASA has announced that the next planetary mission will be a flying drone probe for Titan. This should prove interesting, thought it would b best if instead of sending one helicopter, they put the things into mass production and sent a *lot* of them to Titan. Given how much cheaper Falcon 9 Heavy is than the likes of Delta IV, to say nothing of the *possibility* of BFR/starship. Imagine sending a *fleet* of these things to Titan in one shot…
Also good news: it’s nuclear powered. So instead of slapping down into the methane mud and promptly running out of battery life, it could potentially function for *years.* Even if it’s just sitting on a hilltop motionless, if it has a decent camera angle on the surroundings it could provide years of interesting observations.
Launch window starts at 11:30 PM Eastern time, lasts for 4 hours. The boosters have previously flown and will attempt recovery back on land; the core, on a barge at sea. Two dozen satellites are on board, including a solar sail for the Planetary Society along with bits of 152 dead people. No cars this time. Though it would be funny if one of the small satellites turned out to be little more than a box filled with the Tesla Roadster & Starman Hot Wheels toys, used to send a cloud of little vehicles into the path of an enemy satellite like a shotgun blast.
UPDATE: The boosters successfully landed on their pads, but the core missed the barge and went kerblooey into the ocean. however, the mission of putting satellites into their correct orbits seems to be proceeding smoothly. This was reportedly the hardest core landing yet attempted, so it’s not too surprising that it wasn’t successful… but the mission as a whole seems to be.
Today (Sunday) had two things of note:
CNN ran their “Apollo 11” documentary. This originally showed in Imax theaters, and as I reported back in March, on Imax it’s freakin’ spectacular. On my TV, which is probably pretty unimpressive by current average standards, the imagery is just ok. And yet… I still lost my composure at about T Minus One Minute, and became This Guy right about T Minus Zero. The launch of Apolo 11 ranks up there with Old Yeller and Jurassic Bark and Sleeping In Light as one of those moments when it is perfectly cromulent for even the toughest and most stoic of men to shed a tear.
Also, as I mentioned back in May, “Apollo 11” has been released on DVD and Blu Ray, but bizarrely *not* in 4K. This was a confounding decision in my view; even though I don’t have a 4K player or TV, I woulda bought one in a heartbeat and put it right on my 4K shelf alongside my other 4K disks (currently: “2001” and “Fifth Element” and nothing else). But… in the first commercial break, I noticed the first ad was for Samsung *8K.* This makes me wonder if they’re planning on just skipping right past 4K and only releasing it on 8K (not releasing it on 4K means people who want it in ultra high def will *have* to get it in 8K). Now, I have no doubt that Apollo 11 in 8K on a 100 inch 8K screen would be utterly fantastic…but, dayum, I ain’t never gonna be able to afford me one of them.
Secondly: Today was the thirtieth anniversary of Tm Burton’s “Batman.” Holy Crap, Batman, I’m old.
I suppose “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” are technically superior movies in pretty much every way… but in 1989, Burton made a movie that was just plain astounding. It made more than a quarter billion dollars domestically, which, adjusting for inflation, is more than a half billion in 2019 dollars. That would put it only slightly behind “The Dark Knight” in terms of gross. And it did that *without* being a sequel, or existing in a world where superhero movies regularly made money hand over fist. It was a comic book movie that wasn’t a joke, that took its source material seriously, that adults could watch with interest and without shame. I don’t recall if I saw it on opening day, but if not I saw it within a few days of opening; I recall being impressed right off the bat with the opening sequence with Danny Elfman’s score. And the Batmobile: sure, the “Tumbler” might have been a more realistic vehicles… but, man, I still want me that ’89 Batmobile to go tearing up and down the streets in.
Most stuff sold. I will, hopefully, regularly sell more stuff.
I’ve been meaning to sell a bunch of stuff for a good long while now, and I’m finally getting around to doing it.
https://www.ebay.com/usr/dynascott
This first batch is all sci-fi stuff, mostly Eaglemoss Star Trek ships (very nice little officially licensed models that come with glossy magazines that describe the vehicle and how it was designed). Also in this batch is the very last of the preliminary drafts of the Space Station V “booklet of general plans.” Everything has a pretty low starting price, so chances are good you can get them for cheap. Shipping gets a lot better the more of them you get…
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #128 OV-165 ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #49 ECS Fortunate ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #109 Borg Queen’s ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #35 Klingon Bird Of Prey ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #70 Voth City Ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #62 Voth Research Vessel ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #3 Klingon Bird Of Prey ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #129 Tholian Starship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #106 Kazon Raider ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #53 Klingon Augments ship and magazine, new
Eaglemoss Star Trek Starship #138 USS Lantree NCC-1837 ship and magazine, new
Reportedly Richard Branson is interested. Given his stakes in SpaceShip Two, a roughly similar aircraft in design and concept, that’s not too surprising. Whether Branson will actually pay for it… shrug.
One of the documents lost from the NASA Technical Report Server when NASA gutted it in 2013 was a Chance Vought corporation report on a simulator for their lunar lander. The “Apollo Rendezvous Simulator Study” from July 1962 focuses of course on a ground-based simulator, not on a detailed design of their lunar lander… but fortunately the documents do show art and diagrams of the lander. It is an odd looking little bug, with giant windows and a configuration similar to the Soviet LK in that there were no distinct descent and ascent stages, but a single manned vehicle that would leave the landing legs and some tanks behind when it lifted off.
Fortunately, even though it was scraped from the NTRS it can still be found on the Internet Archice/Wayback Machine. Huzzah!
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