Jun 022019
 

On May 31st, APR Patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers were sent emails containing links to the May, 2019, rewards. This months set of documents and diagrams included high-rez copies of:

Document: “Manned Lunar Vehicle Design,” a General Electric paper from 1962 describing a direct-landing Apollo concept

Document: “AP-76 Project 1226,” a highly illustrated Republic Aviation report from May 1955 describing their design for the X-15

Diagram: “DNI-27C, VFX Design Study Fixed Wing/Buried Engine,” September 1968 North American Aviation fighter design

CAD Diagram: three-view of the Dandridge Cole/Martin Aircraft “Aldebaran” giant nuclear powered launch vehicle notional concept

 

If this sort of thing is of interest and you’d like to get in on it and make sure you don’t miss any of the forthcoming releases, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 

 




All prior “back issues” are available for purchase by subscribers. Recent months rewards have included:

 Posted by at 11:49 pm
Jun 022019
 

In the least shocking news of the day…

Space firm founded by billionaire Paul Allen closing operations – sources

Right now it’s not official, it’s “sources say.” But Stratolaunch never made a lick of business sense, and going belly-up has seemed inevitable. As an ego project for a bajillionaire… sure. It’s no worse than a Russian oligarch or a Saudi prince splurging on a yacht the size of a battlecruiser; but once that bajillionaire is out of the picture – in this case, dead – the driving force behind it evaporates. And without a sound business case… shrug.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:48 pm
May 302019
 

Since I moved out here in 2004, I think until today I had skipped a grand total of one test of a Shuttle booster or one of the derivatives. I “meh’ed” on the test today of the “OmegA” test… and of course this was the test where things had to get interesting.

Had this occurred in flight, it might well not have had any meaningful impact on the mission. Thrust would have been substantially cut down, and possibly thrown a little off-axis, but it occurred so late in the burn – at about 120 seconds – that the effect would have been small.

Still: that there might be something they’ll want to take a look at.

 Posted by at 10:14 pm
May 272019
 

The god of thunder tried – and failed – to take out a Soyuz rocket on May 27, 2019.

Interesting note: the lightning strikes the nose of the vehicles, as you might expect, and disappears as it travels through the conductive metal body. it then continues as a recognizable lightningbolt on its way down to the ground. However… the lightingbolt does not appear from the tail of the Soyuz, but from well aft, seeming to appear out of nowhere. This is because the superheated and chemically “tainted” exhaust is substantially more conductive than plain air; through the hot gas the electricity can travel more freely and thus does not heat up that gas as it does regular air. Once the exhaust gases have cooled and the chemical dispersed so that they are no longer so conductive, the lightning resumes its normal appearance.

 Posted by at 3:20 pm
May 212019
 

Color me meh:

NASA’s full Artemis plan revealed: 37 launches and a lunar outpost

Pros:

Manned lunar landing in 2024

Annual manned lunar landings to follow

Manned lunar base beginning 2028

No dependence upon “international co-operation”

Cons:

Requires the SLS

Requires the SLS on time

Requires the SLS on some sort of budget

Requires six SLSs in 2024-2028

Requires Congress to go along with Trump

Requires Trump to win in 2020

So… I’ll believe it when I see it happen, I guess.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:53 pm
May 132019
 

But it’s a missile with fookin’ swords.

Secret U.S. missile kills terrorists with knives instead of explosives

The R9X is a modified version of the Hellfire. The warhead is removed and replaced with six deployable sword-sized blades. It kills the target not with an explosion, but with a hundred pounds of missile moving at the speed of sound slamming into the guys head, the blades just making sure that the target is super-dead.

 

The purpose of this is to limit collateral damage so that individuals can be targeted in urban areas without too much risk to surrounding civilians. Perhaps Representative Swalwell will consider using these rather than nuclear weapons when he fantasizes about murdering American citizens who dare exercise their constitutional rights.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 10:53 am
May 102019
 

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Blue Origin and Drax Industries describes the Blue Moon lunar lander his company has been working on for three years (at a sufficient state of development that he thinks they can return humans to the moon by 2024), as well as showing  somewhat longer-term goal for space development: O’Neill colonies.

 

Dreaming of space colonies measured in kilometers when you haven’t even orbited a golf ball yet? Perhaps rather a whole lot of hubris there. And yet…

 

 Posted by at 8:01 am
May 022019
 

Almost certainly the most powerful launch vehicle ever given serious consideration and actual design work was Boeing’s Large Multipurpose Launch Vehicle from 1968. Designed under contract to NASA,the LMLV was designed to be very modular, using a core vehicle that was a perfectly serviceable single stage to orbit launcher, with the option of adding upper stages and various numbers of strap-on solid rocket boosters. it was a large vehicle, seemingly in line with the Nova/Post-Saturn vehicles designed only five years before. But the LMLV was quite different in some respects: it was entirely expendable. With no need to even try to recover the core, no mass was expended on recovery systems, or strengthening the structure to withstand splashdown, or making sure the engines could survive many firings with minimal damage. Instead, every ounce was to be shaved off. The result was a vehicle of astounding launch capability.

The basic core was capable of putting a payload of one million pounds into a 100 nautical mile circular orbit. This equaled or exceeded the capability of the majority of the Nova/Post-Saturn designs,and did so without any augmentation. But it was designed for augmentation. up to twelve 260″ diameter solid rocket boosters could be added; without an upper stage, this configuration could orbit 3.5 million pounds.This would result in a vehicle weight 66,257,000 pounds at liftoff, with a takeoff thrust of 108 million pounds. This would be LOUD. But if ten 372″ boosters were used, the payload would increase to 4.2 million pounds. This was many times the payload of the Saturn V; the payloads intended for this vehicle were generally manned interplanetary (typically Mars) spacecraft and the millions of pounds of liquid hydrogen propellant that they needed.

 

 Posted by at 11:13 am