Another artists impression of the outpost, showing assembly of the laboratory from multiple vehicles and payloads.
Jul 272018
Jul 262018
Illustrations from a childrens book about space stations from 1960. This was when Men were Men, Women were Women, it was okay to be white and everyone wore their best business suits to board a rocket into space.
Sigh. The optimism of that era is just plain unrecognizable. The past is like a whole different country.
Jul 252018
Very late 1950’s Convair promo art of their “Outpost” space-base built from an Atlas launch vehicle. This was publicized enthusiastically by the likes of Krafft Ehricke; it preceded the MOL program, and would have resulted in a manned facility somewhat similar in size, thought dissimilar in capability. The MOL was a pre-finished, single-launch space lab, while the “Outpost” as a “wet lab” would have required considerable effort by workers in space suits to finish. To service the Outpost, an Atlas with a Centaur-like upper stage would orbit two wedge-like lifting bodies.
Jul 242018
This video tackles the question “why don’t we just make more F-1 rocket engines?” A similar question, “Why don’t we just restart production of the Saturn V” has been common among space fans for *decades.* And the fact is… we can’t.
The video points to the loss of skills and direct knowledge of those who worked the F-1 fifty years ago. When the F-1s were built, it took more than the blueprints; it also took manufacturing instructions. It’s more than juat “weld these parts together,” it’s *how* to weld. And while the blueprints still exist, the notes – and the knowledge stored only in the technicians heads – are long gone. This is a problem I saw directly back in my days working at United Tech and ATK. A story I’ve related before is how through virtually sheer random chance, while working at ATK I was called up by one of the techs hoping that I could direct them to a former co-worker from United Tech, because that co-worker was responsible for the manufacturing instructions on a motor that had been transferred from the one company to the other (because United Tech collapsed and all their programs were transferred to other companies). I got them to explain just what the issue they were having was… and then I burst out laughing because *I* was the guy at United Tech who had figured out how to solve the manufacturing issue. My co-worker had apparently never gotten around to re-writing the instructions, so an important detail had been lost and only rediscovered through an unlikely circumstance. Now, the ATK techs certainly could have figured out a solution, quite possibly the exact same solution, or maybe even a better solution… but they’d never have known if their solution was the “right” one, and Odin only knows how long it would have taken them to work the problem. And in government rocketry, “well, we’re unsure how it was supposed to be done, so we’re doing it this way” is almost never the right answer. Management will Freak The Hell Out.
And along with the loss of knowledge and skills is the loss of *stuff.* If you try to rebuild the Saturn V based on a complete and pristine set of fifty-year-old blueprints, one of many problems you’ll discover is that a lot of the off-the-shelf stuff meant to go in it… doesn’t exist anymore. “Install a MomNPopCo Brand temperature sensor model 14B HERE.” Ooops, they went out of business in 1971. “Wrap with Bleedin’ Lungs Brand six-inch-wide asbestos tape.” Ooops. “Install a HAL 90 computer here.” Ooops, especially because the mass of the thing is require for balance, but that’s not called out in the blueprint because why would it be. “Insulate with bakelite.” Ooops. “Machine from thorium-alloy component 128047h-8 from Bomarc program.” Ooops.
In aerospace, once it’s lost, it’s *very* hard to get back. No more Saturns. No more F-1s. No more SR-71s. No more Avro Arrows or Peacekeeper missiles or F-22s.
See also “FOGBANK.” Never let your nuclear weapons manufacturing programs sit idle.
Jul 182018
Modeling of all the parts is done. Some refinement is probable, as some of the bits shown here – the plumbing lines in particular – are pretty small. The plan is to include the walkway to connect the two vessels. In all likelihood the walkway will be a single solid-cast part.
Both vessels are modeled at a higher resolution than is necessary for 1/144. They’re be great at 1/72, perhaps even 1/48. but there are currently no plans for larger-scale (and much more expensive) kits.
Jul 142018
In lieu of anything resembling a social life, I’ve been working on this…
… along with a few other projects. At one point late Friday night I looked out the window and thought, hey, what’s that, and realized that it wasn’t Friday night anymore:
That’s a hell of a thing to see when you’re expecting pitch black.
Jul 092018
China reveals details for super-heavy-lift Long March 9 and reusable Long March 8 rockets
Long March 8: meant to emulate the Falcon 9 with a vertically-recovered core, but also use vertically-recovered solid rocket boosters (likely via parachute, though art seems to indicate that they too will have landing legs).
Long March 9: intended to be Saturn V class for manned missions to the Moon and beyond.
No indication that the Long March 9 is aiming for reusability, so it seems likely that the Chinese are emulating not the BFR but the SLS. It is too much to hope that China will emulate the spectacular economics of the SLS as well.
Jul 092018
here was a time when rocket engineers and launch vehicle/spacecraft designers felts reasonably comfortable proposing the use of propellants that today would be considered *insane.* One of these was fluorine, an oxidizer so powerful that it will oxidize *oxygen.* Liquified it is denser than LOX and provides a higher specific impulse than LOX when burned with the same fuels. On paper, liquid fluorine is spectacular. In reality, fluorine is toxic and just about all of the combustion compounds are toxic (burn it with hydrogen and you get hydrofluoric acid, which will eat your bones). Fluorine has the added bonus that it will merrily combust with a whole lot of structural materials, so you have to be careful in your design and preparation for tanks, pumps, lines, etc.
Consequently, it was important to know your stuff. To that end, Douglas Missile & Space Systems Division produced a Fluorine Systems Handbook.
This Handbook contains criteria for the design of airborne fluorine feed
systems and associated components. Two types of information are presented:
1) philosophical information defining general methods, and 2) detailed specifications
and procedures. Although the major emphasis has been upon
criteria for components exposed to elemental fluorine, the information is
general applicable to systems utilizing other cryogenic oxidizers which contain
fluorine as a constituent.
So if you are planning on fueling your rocketship with liquid fluorine… here ya go. You’re welcome.
Fluorine Systems Handbook
Jul 012018
This isn’t a particularly new video (dates back to 2014, at least), but it’s still entertaining. There is apparently a tradition in Thailand to celebrate festivals not just with rockets, but with complex and clever spinning rocket-powered vehicles made from bamboo. The one in this video is particularly large and equipped with a recovery system.
This is not only impressive on its own. But compare it to the celebratory pyrotechnics of other cultures: waving crappy AK-47s around and spraying the sky with bullets, or just simply blowing stuff up, or setting people on fire. This is instead the product of intelligence, workmanship, planning and teamwork… and it worked.
Jul 012018
If you want to know what it will look like when Putin launches World War V (WWIII having been the Cold War, WWIV the Surt worshippers vs. civilization), it’ll look kinda like this, just more so (things get sporty around 2:06):
I look forward to the day when the US fields new boomers, SLBMs, nukes and RVs. They are desperately needed.