Dec 212021
 

Little known today is the Northrop MX-334 rocket powered flying wing. Originally designed (circa 1942) without a vertical tail, wind tunnel testing showed that such a tail was needed. Three aircraft were built and flown at Muroc dry lake bed (later known as Edwards Air Force Base), towed into the air behind a Cadillac and then a P-38; once in flight a liquid propellant Aerojet rocket engine would provide thrust.

The MX-334 (as it was known as a glider… when rocket powered, it was known as the MX-324) was intended as a technology testbed and proof of concept vehicle for the Northrop XP-79. This was, like the MX-324/334, a smallish flying wing with a prone pilot. As originally designed the XP-79 was to have a liquid rocket engine; it was eventually built with two turbojets. Unfortunately the single XP-79 crashed on its first flight.

The MX-324/334 was painted in high visibility colors and must have made a striking sight at the time.

 

The much larger full rez scan of this photo has been made available to $4 and up patrons/subscribers in the 2021-12 APR Extras Dropbox folder. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.




 Posted by at 7:40 pm
Dec 192021
 

A ca. 1966 promotional film for NASA, describing the events of 1965 and planned future events.

Man, I’m jealous: for a brief time in the early/mid 1960’s, the future for space exploration looked spectacular. And then

Now NASA seems wholly directionless. There’s SLS, a massively over budget, massively behind schedule rocket that has no program to support. the US can’t even make adequate quantities of plutonium to support a decent production run of RTGs for unmanned probes.

It’s not impossible that days like this could come again; SpaceX and Starship could make it happen. But while Apollo relied on a base of hundreds of thousands of employees and contractors, SpaceX relies on *one* *guy* to maintain focus. Something happens to Elon Musk, and it’s entirely possible that SpaceX will fall into the hands of suits who decide that wasting all that money on risky and seemingly unprofitable “advancement” ain’t worth doing.

 

 Posted by at 12:39 am
Dec 182021
 

SpaceX has recently released a video summary of their May, 2021, launch of the SN15 Starship test vehicle. it’s real, real pretty.

Giggitty!

UPDATE: huh, the video got yoinked. Looking at the SpaceX YouTube video library, it looks like it, might have been just a repost of this video from May:

Their live stream of the launch was buggy due to difficulties in sending the video down live:

 Posted by at 12:13 pm
Dec 162021
 

The Parker Solar Probe passed close enough to the Sun back in April to arguably be said to have “touched” the sun by zipping through the outermost layers of the solar atmosphere. It took months to get all the collected data back, and John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab  has just released the video below of the passage. The video quality is pretty potato, but it looks like it was a hell of a ride.

Once again, this moment of unutterable awesomeness has been brought to you by hard-nosed engineering rigor. STEM for the won… once again.

 Posted by at 10:40 pm
Dec 162021
 

As a followup to the large-scale Tirpitz model, if you want a 1/20 scale X-15A-2, these folks can hook you up:

North American X-15A-2

It looks nice, it’s certainly detailed (I haven’t rivet-counted to assure that it’s *accurately* detailed). It’s just… a little pricey.

If they sell out, I might reconsider my abandoned 1/24 X-20 Dyna Soar…

 Posted by at 1:30 pm
Dec 012021
 

The most recent APR rewards included a CAD diagram I created of the “Disney Bomb.” This little known weapon was created by the British in WWII, but dropped by USAAF B-17’s in the last months of the war in Europe. The reason for the unusual name: in 1942 Disney produced an animated propaganda film on the history and potential or military air power. This film included sequences of the war to come, depicting some kinda-sorta sci-fi thinking. Included here is a bomb with a rocket motor, used to penetrate the reinforced concrete roof of a submarine pen. This gave some British engineers ideas… and they made it reality. The Disney bomb was imperfect, but damned if it didn’t work. Next time someone argues that sci-fi doesn’t actually directly inspire engineers to create the future, remember the Disney bomb.

The YouTube version of “Victory” linked below is pretty awful in reproduction quality, but it’s the best I’ve seen (it was released on DVD some years ago).

 Posted by at 12:19 pm
Dec 012021
 

The rewards for November, 2021, have been sent out. Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

Document: “Galactic-Jupiter Probe Program Concept:” 1967 NASA-Goddard brochure describing a Pioneer/Voyager type of space probe

Document: “Mixed Mode Rocket Vehicles for International Space Transportation Systems,” 1973 paper describing modified Shuttles and other launch vehicles

Document: “Nuclear Physics Made Very, Very Easy,”1968 NASA NERVA test operation publication that summarizes nuclear physics

Diagram: Navalized Advanced tactical Fighter (Northrop NF-23) general arrangement

CAD Diagram ($5 and up): “Disney Bomb,” British designed and built, American dropped rocket-boosted submarine pen penetrating bomb from the end of WWII

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. *ALL* back issues, one a month since 2014, are available for subscribers at low cost.




 Posted by at 12:42 am
Nov 302021
 

Elon Musk tells SpaceX employees that Starship engine crisis is creating a ‘risk of bankruptcy’

Ummm…

“The Raptor production crisis is much worse than it seemed a few weeks ago,” Musk wrote.

UMMM…

Raptor engines power the company’s Starship rocket, with Musk adding that SpaceX faces “genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year.”

UMMM…

A flight rate of once every two weeks within a year for a rocket that hasn’t flown yet? Ahhh… ummm…

 Posted by at 12:56 pm