I’d pay to watch this series. note: I recently tried watching some of the Gerry Anderson marionation series. Yeeeeesh.
SpaceX Starship SN8 to Make First Ever Historical Flight Test
Scheduled for November 9 to 11, the first cosmetically-complete Starship is expected to make an attempt to reach an altitude of 15 kilometers. This isn’t very high as space launchers go – barely to the edge of the stratosphere – but it will be high enough that the Starship will attempt the “bellyflop” maneuver.
It’s probably rational to expect it to make a smoking hole in the water or the vicinity of Boca Chica. That is of course not a slam on SpaceX… they’re trying something new, and history has show that Rockets Are Hard. History has also showed that SpaceX is willing and, importantly, eager to learn from failures. So, while it is of course to be preferred that the test flight goes off without a hitch, if it doesn’t it’s just a step towards making it work.
Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers. Included:
1: “Manned Aerodynamic Reusable Spaceship (MARS) Vehicle Design” a 1962 Douglas report covering a single stage “orbital airplane” of impressive size and design.
2: “Pretest Information 3.3 Percent 624A Aerodynamic Heating Investigation, NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel.” A 1963 Martin report describing a test of the Titan IIIC/Dyna Soar configuration.
3: Official XB-70 General Arrangement Diagram
4: CAD diagram: a 1974 Lockheed concept for a subscale Space Shuttle Orbiter Mach 9 flight test model, to be dragged behind a YF-12C and booster by an “Avanti” rocket (modification of the D-21B’s booster) with an internal SRAM motor in the orbiter.
If this sort of thing is of interest to you, either because you’d like to obtain these documents or you’d like to help preserve aerospace history (or both) please consider signing on to either the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
An artists impression of the “DC-3” Space Shuttle concept. This was a two-stage system using two manned flyback vehicles with straight wings and turbofan engines. It was intended to be a low-cost approach, disdaining high performance for simple design and – theoretically – easy maintenance. The orbiter here had two jet engines in the nose for landing and flyback range extension; aerodynamic fairing would cover the inlets until after re-entry, jettisoned once the vehicles had decelerated to below Mach 1. The straight wings would be easy to build and low in weight compared to large delta wings, but of course they wouldn’t provide the same amount of lift. Consequently, the orbiter would less “glide” during the initial re-entry than “belly flop.”
I’ve uploaded the full-rez version of that to the APR Dropbox, into the 2020-10 APR Extras folder. This is available to any APR Patron or Subscriber at the $4 level and above.
The dawn of the space age is upon us🚀 pic.twitter.com/BfAVRzbwdL
— Austin Barnard🚀 (@austinbarnard45) October 23, 2020
A post yesterday linked to a paper on space warfare. Relevant to that discussion is the concept of hiding spacecraft from detection. Space is obviously dark and the background radiation is cold, about 3 Kelvin. Compared to that, any spacecraft in the inner solar system, even one with no active power sources, is going to be something of a lighthouse in infra-red. Put a nuclear reactor or any kind of meaningful active propulsion system on it, and any spacecraft would stick out like a sore thumb. Stealth should be impossible.
But it is, in fact, possible. it’s hard, it’s limited and its often temporary, but hiding a spacecraft, even one with a functional reactor and running engines, should be possible. There are simply some limits to keep in mind.
In order to hide from radar or lidar, all your spacecraft needs to be is dark and preferably angled int he way we’ve come to understand from stealthy aircraft. This is relatively easy. But the real problem is infra red. Being dark makes your spacecraft both absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation; sunlight falling on a dark spacecraft gets absorbed, stepped down, and emitted back out as infra red. In order to hide your spacecraft, you need to either look like a space rock (probably easy to do, but a space rock that suddenly appears on the charts on a suspicious orbit will likely merit further attention), or you need to be roughly as cold as the background. Actually making your spacecraft 3 Kelvin is insanely unreasonable… but you *can* make a balloon filled with helium that cold. And if you put that dark, cold balloon between your ship and the enemies sensors, you shouldn’t show up
Teledyne got a patent in 1994 for sort of that sort of thing:
Satellite signature suppression shield
The invention here is an inflatable fabric cone that a satellite could hide behind. Coated with something reflective like aluminum or gold, you might think that it would be visible; but for the most part all that shiny reflective surface has to reflect is the black of space. Point the cone at the enemy, and all they’ll see is a dark reflection and if they point lasers or radar at it, the beams will reflect off into space and not back at the receiver. The surface will, however, emit IR, so it’ll be visible that way. But if you fill the balloon with helium *and* if you have an active refrigeration system on the far side, cooling the helium to below 3 Kelvin and directing the waste heat out into space the other way… the cone will be dark *and* cold. So from a narrow cone, your spacecraft will be effectively invisible. From every other angle, though, your spacecraft will be a bright hot target. So… pick your targets. A system like this would probably work well for missiles… only need to operate for a short period, and all they really care about is hiding from the target.
I have not read this paper through yet, but it looks interesting:
The Physics of Space War: How Orbital Dynamics Constrain Space-to-Space Engagements
A writeup about it:
What Would a Realistic Space Battle Look Like?
In short: less Star Wars, more The Expanse.
Blue Origin lobbed their vehicle to above 351,000 feet altitude and successfully recovered both the booster and capsule. It’s an impressive bit of video… but, man, it’s strange how mundane it seems compared to a Falcon 9 flight and landing. If SpaceX gets starship up and flying soon, Blue Origin is going to start seeming *really* far behind.
As an update to THIS POST, I have added a 200 dpi scan of the Apollo CSM cutaway artwork I scored off eBay to the 2020-10 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers.
If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. If you know of someone who might be interested, be sure to nudge them this way… I could do with an infusion of new patrons/subscribers and as is blisteringly obvious I stink at marketing.