An Important Reminder

 art, awesomeness, humor, news, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 292018
 

The most important thing to remember over the next few days is that season 2 of “The Orville” premieres Sunday night on Fox. Sadly, it does so after some sportsball game so expect it to be delayed… don’t just record “The Orville,” but also the shows after it.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on the show.  The original article is behind the WSJ paywall, but it can be read in its entirety HERE. The article is positive about the Orville, and has the most cromulent headline about this show ever: ” ‘The Orville’ and Its Vintage Vibe Fill The Void for Some ‘Star Trek’ Fans.”

 

“Th Orville” is one of the few bright spots to come out of the recently and justly decried wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Hollywood.

Season One is available now on DVD. Why the frak it’s not out on Blu Ray, I have no idea.

 Posted by at 10:46 am

NASA and the search for technosignatures

 awesomeness, Crazy, Hmm..., news, science, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 282018
 

This is interesting on its own:

NASA and the Search for Technosignatures: A Report from the NASA Technosignatures Workshop

Link to PDF file HERE.

In short: technosignatures are “stuff produced by technology.” More specifically, *alien* technology. So… starships, space probes, debris, laser beams, radio signals, Michael Jackson. This workshop is about the *search* for such things, evidence that aliens are out there, or were near here. They could be detected as close as sitting on the surface of the Earth, to detected lightyears away through optical or radio telescopes. It’s a reasonable task for NASA to look for this sort of thing, and to make plans on how to analyze them if they are found. The report summarizes a number of detection strategies, and provides a lot of interesting information about just what some of the products of advanced civilizations might looks like – everything from altered climates to Dyson spheres – from lightyears off.

It’s all perfectly reasonable.

But then…

Alien search BOMBSHELL: NASA reveals Earth may be home to extraterrestrial ‘artefacts’

Ugh.

 

 Posted by at 11:17 am

Northrop artificial-g space station art

 art, history, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 262018
 

A piece of concept art circa 1960 depicting a Northrop concept for a space station. Not much to say about it as there are no good scale references, nor do I think I have anything else depicting the station. It is, however, not dissimilar from a lot of other space station concepts of the time… replace the four “habitat” cylinders with a single torus, and this would be pretty much every space station from the Colliers series until the Manned Orbital Space Station concept from the early 60’s.

 Posted by at 11:04 pm

APR Historical Documents: December 2018

 aircraft, APR, awesomeness, drawings, history, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 242018
 

2018-12 Rewards are now available for downloading for APR Historical Documents subscribers. This month the rewards include:

1: A large document: “Sea Launch and Recovery of Very Large Rocket Vehicles,” a 1962 Aerojet report on the sea Dragon concept

2: “Ryan Aeronautical Company Plane Portraits,” information, photos and three-views of a sizable range of Ryan aircraft, manned and unmanned

3: “Nova,” a blueprint of the NASA “Saturn C-8” launch vehicle with 8 F-1 engines

4: CAD diagrams: Star Raker scrap views

If you are interested in signing up, you can do so either at Patreon or directly through PayPal. Signing up now makes you eligible for rewards starting with the *next* months rewards. The directly-through-PayPal system is new; it would probably be best to sign up after the first of the month.

 Posted by at 6:16 pm

That’s a lotta rockets

 art, history, models, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 222018
 

There are a vast number of heavy lift launch vehicles that have been designed over the years, but I think I’ve captured a pretty good selection here. Two of them, the Douglas ROOST and the Martin RENova, are depicted with their recovered configurations, but if models were made these options would likely not be included. They were done for future diagramming purposes. All of the models here are pretty basic, missing a whole lot of detail; I put these together quickly to check out scale and judge interest.

 Posted by at 1:57 am

APR Monthly Historical Documents Program

 aircraft, APR, art, drawings, history, Hmm..., new products, news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

For some years I have been operating the “Aerospace Projects Review Patreon” which provides monthly rewards in the form of high resolution scans of vintage aerospace diagrams, art and documents. This has worked pretty well, but it seems that perhaps some people might prefer to sign on more directly. Fortunately, PayPal provides the option not only for one-time purchases but also monthly subscriptions. By subscribing using the drop-down menu below, you will receive the same benefits as APR Patrons, but without going through Patreon itself.



Details below.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 6:10 pm

THIS is how season 1 of STD should have ended

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

See, CBS? It’s really not all that hard to do at least *something* right. Here’s what one fan with some free time was able to create. The original Enterprise design replacing the unnecessarily retconned Discoprise, but given a modern cinematic gloss, looks freakin’ gorgeous.

Yes, yes, the model is a little wrong: it depicts the “series” Enterprise and not the “Menagerie” Enterprise, with a few detail differences such as the bridge and the nacelle-spikes. Still… it’s so much better than the Discoprise that it’s not even close to funny.

Make sure to read the credits.

 Posted by at 1:03 pm

Making the Saturn V look small

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 172018
 

Below are some renders of a number of 3D CAD models of launch vehicles. Most are currently extremely basic… accurate to size and shape, but lacking details. The intent on most of them is to use them for diagramming purposes… but the possibility exists of using them as the basis for 1/288 scale display models. To that end they would probably be designed for simplicity and low parts count rather than complexity and the ability to display them with stages separate.

As can be seen, a lot of them make the Saturn V seem fairly puny. From left to right: the Boeing MLLV in its most capable form, fully stretched with a dozen 260-inch solid rocket boosters; Aerojet Sea Dragon; Rockwell Star Raker; Boeing “Big Onion” SPS launcher; Martin T10RR-3C Nova/Post-Saturn booster; early Nova “Saturn C-8;” Saturn V; Soviet N-1; Block 1 SLS; Block 1b SLS; New Glenn (scale estimated because the dimensions given for lengths and diameters don’t match up with renderings of the New Glenn).

Keep in mind, *all* of these were or are seriously considered by aerospace engineers based on the requirements of the launch market as they were then understood. Today, the markets to support these, with the possible exception of the New Glenn, simply don’t exist. But back when the Apollo program was still growing, the rocket designers of the time were seemingly convinced that the market for stuff being put into space was only going to grow exponentially.

If you might be interested in any of these as a model kit, let me know.

 Posted by at 3:03 am

Virgin Galactic goes to space. Sorta.

 Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 142018
 

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo launched yesterday to more than 80 kilometers altitude, which by some measures put it into space. Of course, which in *space* it was nowhere near being in *orbit,* but it’s a step towards getting the SpaceShip suborbital tourist craft into operation. It should be noted that SpaceShipOne achieved this sort of performance *fourteen* *years* *ago.*

 Posted by at 1:11 pm

Shuttle-C art

 art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects  No Responses »
Dec 122018
 

The Shuttle-C of the late 80’s/early 90’s would have carried a whole lot more to orbit than the Shuttle Orbiter, but would not have been quite as capable of precise maneuvering as the Orbiter. Consequently, it might get close to a space station, but it would be unlikely to dock with it unless it was moved into position with secondary orbital maneuvering vehicles or grabbed with manipulator arms. This artwork depicts a Shuttle-C standing off some distance from a space station, with the cargo being shuttled over with an OMV.

The Shuttle-C was described and illustrated in US Launch Vehicle Projects #4.

 

 Posted by at 11:20 pm
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