Yay, missile defense

 news, nukes, politics, rockets, spacecraft, THIS is why Trump won, weapons  No Responses »
Jan 182019
 

Yesterday the Trump Administration announced that the US is going to get back into the “Star Wars” business. Not to the scale of the original Strategic Defense Initiative days, when the goal was to put a dent in a Soviet full strike, but to knock down a strike from the likes of Iran or North Korea or Canada.

“Star Wars” Lite? We Explain Trump’s Missile Defense Strategy

A direct link to the Missile Defense Review is HERE. Ideas include F-35’s and drones armed with lasers and/or interceptor missiles to do boost phase interception… which would, of course, require that the aircraft be on-station near the launch site as it happens. This might work for the likes of North Korea or Iran, but wouldn’t be valuable against Russian or Chinese land or sea based ICBMs. For those, they also want to use space based interceptors. Yay! If the US actually goes ahead and fields a flock of Brilliant Pebbles, as was planned late in the SDI days, it will require a *lot* of low-cost launch capability.

It ain’t gonna happen, of course.

 Posted by at 2:23 am

Stratolaunch approaches

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 102019
 

Stratolaunch airplane nears first flight

On Jan 9, the giant Stratolaunch plane did a taxi test that reached a top speed of 219 kilometers per hour (137 mph), and the nosewheel rotated off the ground. Flight tests probably aren’t far off.

I remain a little baffled about the business plan for Stratolaunch, especially since the initial payload is apparently supposed to be *three* Pegasus XL launch vehicles. That eems an odd thing to do. But Stratoluanch intends to eventually build their own better-optimized expendable and reusable launch vehicles. And the more launchers, the better.

 Posted by at 3:02 pm

Space Station concept art

 art, history, nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 032019
 

Two pieces of NASA-marked (but likely not NASA-produced) concept art from the 1960’s depicted artificial-G space stations.

 

The first station (previously presented here in black and white not so long ago) depicts a substantial three-armed station witha multi-segment spine and three habitats. At one end of the spine is a nuclear reactor and its radiator; at the other end is a presumably rotationally0decoupled docking section. There is also an external “track” with two cars seemingly to provide transport from one habitat to another; it doesn’t really seem like this would provide a substantial improvement in transport over simply taking an elevator from one hab up to the spine and then down another elevator to the destination hab.

This space station, which appears from the art style to be a Grumman design, is a single-launch space station to be launched atop a Saturn V. The two arms would fold back for storage on the launch vehicle and would deploy once in orbit. An Apollo CSM is shown approaching for docking along the centerline; it’s not clear if the docking cone was rotationally decoupled. if it was not, the two Apollo-like capsules hanging off the sides of the cone are a bit of a head scratcher.

Both renderings have been uploaded in their full resolution to the 2019-01 APR Extras dropbox folder. This folder is available to APR Patreon Patrons and APR Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers at the $4 per month level and above.

 



Details below.

 Posted by at 11:03 pm

SPS Launchers: A Collection

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., models, projects, rockets, US Launch Vehicle Projects  No Responses »
Dec 272018
 

Continuing to rough out some Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle CAD models. Instead of lumping them all together I’m breaking them into “genres,” partially because my computer is starting to balk at the the size of the full collection. Below is the “Solar Power Satellite Launchers” collection. Included, from left to right, Rockwell Star Raker, Boeing TSTO, Boeing “Big Onion” SSTO, Saturn V, NASA Personnel Launch System ( a Shuttle derived design), Boeing Space Freighter, NASA-JSC HLLV. There are a few more designs that could probably be added to this collection. Suggestions?

As previously indicated, there is a good chance of a 1/288 scale model of some of the designs such as the Saturn V and the Star Raker. But *all* of them? Probably not in that scale. What seems reasonable is something akin to the old Monogram “missile collection” kits, with all of the HLLVs in something like 1/500 or 1/700 scale. A similar collection of Nova/Post-Saturn boosters is possible.

The Space Freighter would be substantially impressive in 1/288… but really rather enormous.

 Posted by at 5:04 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

Anyone recognize this Navaho model?

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., models, nukes, rockets  No Responses »
Dec 222018
 

I was sent this photo of a large scale model of the North American SM-64 “Navaho” two-stage cruise missile. The model, largely made from clear plexiglas, was some years ago on display in a Quonset hut at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. Sometime after this photo was taken the museum was shut down, reworked and re-opened, and after that the museum was no longer in evidence. The photographer wishes to know what became of this model. Anyone know?

 Posted by at 4:59 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.

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 Posted by at 6:10 pm
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