Europa Clipper to fly commercial

 Hmm..., news, politics, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 122021
 

And not on the bloated, far behind schedule and vastly over budget SLS:

NASA to use commercial launch vehicle for Europa Clipper

EC will instead fly on a commercial launch vehicle, as yet undetermined but very likely to be a Falcon 9 Heavy. The F9H is indeed a capable vehicle, but it does not have the throw weight that SLS is supposed to have, so instead of a three-year direct flight to Jupiter the spacecraft will take a more circuitous six-year flight that does gravity assists past Earth and Mars. An advantage of that is that after an October 2024 launch, the probe will do a  flyby of Earth in December of 2026; it should be interesting to compare views of Earth of “before and after,” what with the new radioactive pock marks, ash clouds, scorched regions that the next some years are looking likely to feature.

And from another direction, the loss of the Europa Clipper mission is just one more “why the hell are we spending money on this monstrosity” nail in SLS’s ginormous coffin.

 Posted by at 6:09 pm

Another project: early Convair lunar lander

 art, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

Recently finished, the CAD model for a 1/144 scale kit for Fantastic Plastic. This Convair idea utilized the same “landing boat” that Fantastic Plastic recently released in 1/48 scale. It’ll be a fairly simple kit. The design was illustrated in a number of renderings from the very late 1950’s/early 60’s, used often by or in conjunction with Krafft Ehricke as he tried to sell Americans on the future in space that they would soon have.

The vehicle had a landing boat at the top and a habitat module below it; below that is the stage with three RL-10 rocket engines, with six drop tanks around it. *Presumably,* the tanks, along with the landing gear, would be dropped shortly after launch from the Moon, with fuel in the main core providing not only the boost back to Earth but also a braking thrust to at least slow the ship, because I have *serious* doubts about that boat surviving a lunar re-entry.

 

 Posted by at 7:58 pm

Warp update

 art, models, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

It has been officially decided to go with 1/288 scale for the IXS Enterprise, making the model somewhat larger. Progress continues; the pylons have some more detail, the warp rings have been split into three inner segments, four outer segments, with a wall thickness of about an eighth inch and a hollow within, allowing lighting for those so ambitious.

 Posted by at 12:56 am

Going to Warp

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., models, news, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 102021
 

My first book contract had the due date for the manuscript in July, 2020. But guess what, a pandemic came along and shoved that back a full year. So I got a *second* contract, with a due date in January 2021. But guess what… pandemic pushed it to March. That book is *almost*  done, but I’ve taken a bit of a break from it to work feverishly on a completely different project: a CAD model of the “IXS Enterprise.” This is a notional spacecraft designed by artist Mark Rademaker to illustrate what a spacecraft based on an Alcubierre Warp Drive might look like; NASA has used various renderings of this vehicle quite often for that purpose.

The CAD model, which is being produced with the assistance and approval of Mr. Rademaker and Dr. Harold White of NASA, will be used to 3D print master parts for a 1/350 scale resin model kit to be released by Fantastic Plastic. As originally designed the IXS Enterprise had a length of 62.3 meters (which is being changed due to recent updates in the design) and the overall diameter is 41.3 meters. The model will thus be 17.8 cm/7 inches long by 11.8 cm/4.64 inches in diameter. This will put it in scale with the Polar Lights NCC-1701 Enterprise kit and the Moebius XD-1 USS Discovery kit, along with a whole bunch of ships.

UPDATE: there has been discussion about the scale of the model… chances are fair that it will get bumped up to 1/288 scale from 1/350. That would make it 8.5 inches long by 5.6 inches diameter.

The project to convert the  original CAD model into a printable kit is proceeding at a good pace.

 Posted by at 2:18 am

More on SN9

 AARRRGH, aircraft, art, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 032021
 

Scott Manley analyses the crash of SN9:

Problem, crudely, was that one of the two Raptor engines meant to  ignite for the landing maneuver doesn’t ignite. *Why* that happened is as yet unclear, but it looks like the engine (specifically the turbopump) was falling apart. The end result is that it seemed it hit the ground at about 120 mph, resulting in RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly). Ouch.

 

This remarkable slo-mo footage of the thing coming down is not to be missed:

It’s beautiful in a way. The fact that nobody was on board, and the fact that it wasn’t an example of taxpayer funded blaot, makes the loss non-tragic. Of course, if you work at SpaceX, your mileage may vary.

 Posted by at 7:51 am

SN9: Aw, dangit

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 022021
 

So SpaceX launched Starship #9 today. Grat launch. Great flight. Great descent. A bit of an overcorrection from bellyflop to tail-first. End result; Well, poop.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:10 pm

Mercury Capsule Art

 art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 312021
 

Two pieces of (presumably McDonnell Aircraft) artwork depicting the Mercury capsule:

These were procured from eBay thanks to the contributions of Patrons and subscribers. They have been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-02 APR Extras folder at Dropbox, and at 600 dpi directly to all patrons/subscribers at more than $10/month. 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 10:12 pm

A hell of a sight to see

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 292021
 

SpaceX has been trying to launch Starship serial number 9 for a few days now, with the efforts being held up by FAA regulatory approval. This is of course bad… the only thing worse for a world-changing advance in technology than getting the engineering wrong is to have either incompetent or malignant government bureaucrats involved.

Still… while SN9 is awaiting launch, SN10 has been moved to the pad. Behold:

Someday – probably not during this Presidential Administration, but perhaps during the administration of President Cruz, with NASA overseen by VP Shapiro – we might see whole rows of these things lined up ready to go, some sitting on Superheavies to lob large payloads into orbit, some sitting by themselves for long range suborbital flights or even, just barely, SSTO quick reaction flights. Some will be in NASA colors, some in USSF markings; there will be FedEx and UPS vehicles for intercontinental package transport and for transport to LEO, GEO and the Lunar bases. Maybe even one in Space Force One colors to take the President to visit American bases, cities and industrial exploitation facilities on the Moon and Lagrange points.

Sigh…

 

 

 Posted by at 4:58 pm
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