You will not be going to space today.

AARRRGH, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ 18 Responses »

Apr 232017

Some more of what you don’t want to see your rocket doing.

Soviet N-1:

Titan IV:

Delta II:

Soyuz:

Ariane V:

Years ago I worked for a self-important egotistical jackass who thought that the way to create progress in the field of aerospace engineering was to hide from failures, to disappear all evidence of such, to pretend they didn’t happen. When you have ten-pound chunks of twisted aluminum zipping past your head at a reasonable fraction of the speed of sound, it makes you sit up and take notice, and it makes you want to make that not happen again. And the *best* way to prevent future disasters is to learn from past disasters. And you don’t learn from them by trying to pretend they didn’t happen.

With rockets, failures are often quite spectacular. And few things make PR people more unhappy than spectacular failures. But PR people do not fix problems with the design or manufacture of rockets; that’s for the scientists, engineers and technicians. And they need to see the fails, and be reminded of the fails. And in areas of engineering that are leading edge… they kinda need to *revel* in the fails. Failure is where you learn.

Bachem Natter

aircraft, drawings, history, Hmm..., rockets, weapons 9 Responses »

Apr 222017

If there was ever a demonstration of the combination of “technical genius” with “wartime desperation,” it was the Bachem Natter from late in World War II. This German design was a point defense interceptor, from a time when B-17’s, B-24’s and Lancasters freely roamed the sky, laying waste to the German infrastructure. The Natter was a rocket-powered, vertical takeoff, partially reusable manned surface-to-air missile. It was to be armed with a multitude of unguided explosive-tipped rockets in the nose, probably to be launched as a single salvo. Reportedly, someone had the bright idea that the pilot would then aim his plane at another bomber for a ramming attack, bailing out at the last second. But since bailing out meant separating the nose from just forward of the cockpit aft bulkhead, the likelihood is vanishingly low that either the pilot would survive or that the Natter would continue forward in a predictable path. The more reasonable approach would still be for the pilot to bail out, but for both the pilot and the aircraft to pop chute and land safe enough to be recovered and reused.

The Natter was launched unmanned a few times and manned once, killing the pilot. It was *kind* of a neat idea, but the execution was not so good. The Germans would have been better advised to have worked on unmanned surface to air missiles than the Natter. But for all the claims of vaunted German efficiency, the Nazi regime was astonishingly inefficient, with many redundant and non-communicative programs.

Just as well, in retrospect.

There are many photos and illustrations of the Natter out there, but I figured these diagrams might be of interest.

Well, that’s not what you want to see your rocket doing…

AARRRGH, awesomeness, Gah., history, Hmm..., politics, rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ 29 Responses »

Apr 182017

Having heard that the latest North Korean missile failed “almost immediately,” I decided to go looking for the video of it. Haven’t found it (and may not, who knows), but I did find this video of a Russian Proton launch failure from a few years ago. It certain displays some odd behavior, and I gotta wonder just where the hell the range safety officer was on this. Not exactly Johnny-On-The-Spot. Ivan-On-The-Vodka, perhaps…

Some pretty spectacular close-up, slo-mo footage of this. BEHOLD as the TVC system over-corrects! MARVEL as the payload comes unglued! GASP IN AMAZEMENT as the external tanks tear loose!

I hear lots of folks laughing at the North Koreans and their launch failures. Folks, even for the Russians, who’ve launched a bajillion rockets into space, rockets can be hard. The Norks are trying to accomplish what the Soviets and the US did more than half a century ago, but they’re doing it without the benefit of a budget, full bellies or even a proper understanding of science and engineering. Now, imagine if the same budget and mission was given to a team of women and ethnic studies majors… do you think those geniuses would do even a *tenth* as well as the Norks?

Here’s a video of that failed Proton launch taken from the public viewing area, apparently a bunch of Europeans from Astrium who worked on the payload. Note that they take off running *after* the shock wave gets to them. Why? Well, one *really* good reason to get the hell out of Dodge is that the propellants used by the proton are impressively toxic. I would *assume* that nobody would be dumb enough to put visitors downwind of a Proton launch pad, but who knows…

Forthcoming: closer

aircraft, drawings, new products, projects, rockets, US Bomber Projects, US Fighter Projects, US Launch Vehicle Projects, US Transport Projects 7 Responses »

Apr 022017

I’m essentially done with the drafting portion of the exercise. Now to finish the writing. I had planned on releasing ll five at once, but due to external factors I’ll almost certainly have to split this up. So… which ones do people want more? The publications forthcoming are Fighters, Bombers, Transports, Launchers and Recon & Research. Comment below…

SES-10 Falcon 9 reflight tonight

awesomeness, history, news, reshaping the world, rockets, spacecraft, youtube 38 Responses »

Mar 302017

Two-plus-hour launch window opens at 4:27 PM Mountain time (6:27 PM eastern) tonight. If it is aborted due to weather, another window opens tomorrow at the same time.

This will be a success if it puts the payload into the correct orbit, regardless of whether or not the booster is recovered. But if the booster is successfully recovered, especially in good enough condition to be used *again…* safe to say, we’re in a new era.

UPDATE:

SHAZAM!

Technical webcast:

And then there’s this from a prior landing. NSFW audio:

Your SLS tax dollars at… ummm… work, I guess…

AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ 35 Responses »

Mar 292017

NASA Spends 72 Cents of Every SLS Dollar On Overhead Costs, Says Report

Yikes. Assuming the SLS flies on schedule, $43 billion will have been spent on it, the Ares I and the Orion capsule. Of course, if it *doesn’t* fly on schedule, or gets cancelled, $43 billion will have still been spent on it. That’s about half the cost of the *entire* Apollo program, without having actually landed a man on the moon… or even funded the development of an actual lunar lander.

Of the $19 billion so far spent directly on SLS, only $7 billion (“only,” he said, chuckling sadly, imagining what he could do with a tenth of that) has gone to the companies that are actually making stuff.

Whether you like the idea of HLLVs in general, or like the SLS in particular, the costs and inefficiencies involved are really kinda obscene. And in the age of SpaceX and Falcon 9… kinda indefensible.

Coming soon: reflown rockets

awesomeness, history, news, reshaping the world, rockets 11 Responses »

Mar 282017

So, on Monday SpaceX did a static test fire of their next Falcon 9. This one will, hopefully, launch a payload to orbit next week. But the spiffy thing is that it *already* launched a payload to orbit, a Dragon ISS resupply mission in April 2016.

SpaceX has a pretty good record of recovering their boosters. That’s handy on its own… by recovering a booster, SpaceX can examine it for wear and tear and whatnot to make future boosters better. But the real goal is of course to make them as reusable as a jetliner. Successfully pulling off this next launch and recovery will go a long way towards making that goal happen.

Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013

awesomeness, books, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft 5 Responses »

Mar 102017

So here I was, minding my own business when several of my cats started acting glitchy. This is not unknown… where some dogs will bark their damnfool heads off if they hear a stranger on their turf, my cats warn me of visitors or trespassers in their own quieter way. In this case it was a UPS truck and the driver bringing a box to my door. As I hadn’t ordered anything recently, this was a puzzlement.

As it turns out, it was a copy of Dennis Jenkins three-volume book “Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013.” This is the latest, and presumably last, edition of the premiere tome on the history of the Space Shuttle. It is vastly expanded from the previous editions, now over 1,500 pages.

In short… if’n you’re at all interested in the Space Shuttle, procure yourself a copy of this book. It’s a billet of hardback paper massive enough to brain an ape, filled with full-color art & photos, diagrams and data galore. The first volume describes the early history of the Shuttle from World War II up through the 70’s; the second volume is a detailed technical description of the Space Transportation System. The third volume describes the operational history of the Shuttle program.

If you like projects/unbuilt designs, the first volume in particular provides an embarrassment of riches.

In short, I wholeheartedly endorse this book. It’s friggen’ awesome.

With every purchase of “Space Shuttle,” you’ll receive one free Raedthinn-approved Fort Of Imagination.

Note: seems my copy came to me due to my having contributed very, very slightly to it, another concept I wholeheartedly approve of. Thus, thanks to Dennis Jenkins for providing me with this!

Forthcoming

aircraft, drawings, history, new products, news, projects, rockets, US Bomber Projects, US Fighter Projects, US Launch Vehicle Projects, US Transport Projects 3 Responses »

Mar 102017

Coming soonish: the return of USXP publications. Five are under current development and are mostly done. There is a new title in the bunch… USRP. Strictly speaking it should probably be USR&RP… United States Research and Recon Projects. Perhaps Recon and Research aren’t necessarily the most obvious categories to link together into a single title, but apart from the vitally important alliteration, there is this important fact: compared to, say, Bombers, there aren’t that many Recon and Research projects out there.

If there are specific proposals, or general categories you’d like to see in future publications, feel free to comment below.

Some aerospace art & photos for Patrons

aircraft, art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft 2 Responses »

Mar 042017

I have posted in the 2017-03 APR Extras Dropbox folder for APR Patrons a small pile of aerospace history images yoinked out of a few reports. Included is a 1944 NACA reconstruction of the German V-1 buzz bomb (generally correct, but off in detail), three photos of a wind tunnel model of the Bell X-1 modified to have variable sweep wings, three pieces of NASA art depicting some then-future applications of space propulsion systems including a one-man lunar flyer, an early concept for what became Skylab, and a more advanced modular space station. The full-rez verions are available to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above. If interested, please consider signing up. There are a whole bunch of other goodies available in past months folders, more stuff coming.

Much more aerospace stuff is available via the APR Patreon. If this sort of thing interests you, please consider signing up… not only will you help fund the search for obscure aerospace history, you’ll gain access to a lot of interesting stuff, not available elsewhere.

Older Entries Newer Entries