The rewards for APR Patrons have been issued. This month:
CAD Diagram: Marquardt hypersonic burning ramjet booster
Diagram: Convair Class VP Airplane High Performance Flying Boat
Document 1: Apollo Exploration Shelter System
Document 2: Chrysler Work Station Capsule (“work pod” for astronauts)
Document 3: Sikorsky S-97 “Raider” brochure
If you are interested in helping to preserve (and get copies of) this sort of thing, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
This piece of art depicts the McDonnell-Douglas “Drawbridge” orbiter staging off the manned flyback booster, showing the wings still folded against the sides of the fuselage. The wings served no purpose during ascent; they would only be used after-re-entry. Of course, in the event of a mission abort shortly after launch, the wings would need to deploy fairly quickly. There are no doubt numerous abort scenarios where the orbiter would be left intact after separation from a presumably stricken booster (or after a main engine failure on the orbiter stage), but would nevertheless still be doomed due to inability to get the wings deployed in time.
I’ve uploaded the high-rez version of this artwork (5 megabyte 3951×2121 pixel JPG) to the APR Extras Dropbox folder for 2017-12, available to all APR Patrons at the $4 level and above. If you are interested in accessing this and other aerospace historical goodies, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
The early development of the Space Shuttle was filled with bizarre designs, attempts to jam capabilities into existing technologies. One such unconventional concept came from McDonnell-Douglas: a low-cross-range orbiter atop a flyback booster. The orbiter, unlike the Shuttle Orbiter actually built, contained considerable internal propellant; the booster would get it up to high altitude and velocity, but the bulk of the actual delta V would come from the Orbiters own propulsion. The vehicle had small, straight wings that would fold up against the side of the fuselage for launch and for re-entry… but they would have to deploy on-orbit to allow the payload bay doors to open, and they’d deploy again once the craft had entered the atmosphere.
I’ve uploaded the high-rez version of this artwork (8 megabyte 5598×4529 pixel JPG) to the APR Extras Dropbox folder for 2017-12, available to all APR Patrons at the $4 level and above. If you are interested in accessing this and other aerospace historical goodies, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
Description:
Declassified 28 Aug 1973. Various methods of producing and using nuclear power for military land vehicles and other military equipment were investigated and evaluated. A nuclear-powered mobile energy depot (MED) would move with advancing armies and produce vehicle fuels from materials readily available in the field. This would make mechanized units independent of external fuel supplies for extended periods, and permit them to move quickly and easily to areas impossible for units that depend on the customary fuel supply lines. Many possible MED systems were evaluated on the basis of energy sources, fuel manufacturing (by both conventional and chemonuclear processes), fuel storage and transportation, and fuel utilization in both present-day internal-combustion engines and power units of the future (i.e., fuel cells). The applications of more than a dozen MED systems to vehicular propulsion were studied.
The report can be downloaded directly from HERE.
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A few days ago I uploaded in the 2017-12 APR Patron Extras Dropbox folder a scan of an old magazine article on the X-24 lifting body which including this interesting piece of art depicting an X-24 atop a Titan IIIc launch vehicle. There were indeed proposals to launch X-24 derivatives into orbit with Titan IIIs, but they wouldn’t be *exactly* X-24’s. The X-24 was not built as a spacecraft or a re-entry vehicle; it would be uncontrollable outside the atmosphere and would be a molten collection of rubbish on re-entry. Still, the proposed vehicles did look a *lot* like the X-24.
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A bit of Martin Marietta artwork depicting the Titan IVA, rescued from ebay. I’ve put the full-rez scan (600 dpi, so it’s pretty big) in the 2017-11 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above.
If you are interested in helping to preserve this sort of thing, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
A recent acquisition from ebay was a pretty good B&W glossy showing a Martin Company illustration of the Titan IIIC launch vehicle, circa August, 1964. One of the better Titan IIIC illustrations I’ve seen, showing the innards to good effect.
I have uploaded the full 600-dpi scan to the 2017-11 APR Extras Dropbox available to all $4 and up APR Patreon patrons. It’s in two formats… the raw scan, and a cleaned-up version that looks better. Also included is the press release printed on the back of the glossy. If you are interested, take a look at the APR Patreon and consider signing up.
Got them done a little early this time, so here’s a review of what the APR Patrons will be receiving:
Patrons will receive:
A proposal brochure on the C-135A cargo transport
A brochure about the Shuttle-C
A well illustrated NASA-produced booklet from the mid 1980’s describing the space station as them conceived
A large format diagram showing a wind tunnel model of the Titan III/Dyna Soar
A CAD diagram of the ca. 2001 Russian TsAGI Integrated Wing Body large passenger transport jetliner
If these are of interest, please consider signing on to the APR Patreon.
Thanks to some APR Patreon crowdfunders, I was able to procure a *giant* blueprint of the Grumman F7F Tigercat from ebay. Today I got it back from the print shop where it was scanned at 300 dpi, resulting in an image more than 29,000 pixels wide. The image was processed a little bit to reduce the file size from 900+ megabytes down to 100, and a half-size version and a B&W version. These files have been provided to the funders. The blueprint itself will now be sent on to a relevant and worthy museum or archive.
If you are interested in getting in on and helping with this sort of thing, consider signing up for the APR Patreon.
As a followup to the photos of the H-33 display model, here’s a Grumman report from July, 1971, giving a pretty good and well illustrated description of the H-33 orbiter.
The abstract on NTRS can be seen HERE.
The PDF file can be directly downloaded here:
Alternate space shuttle concepts study. Part 2: Technical summary. Volume 2: Orbiter definition
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