Pax Orionis: Casaba Howitzer

 APR, history, Hmm..., My Fiction, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, projects, science fiction, spacecraft  8 Responses »
Sep 162015
 

One of the more interesting, but less known, aspect of the Orion program was code named “Casaba Howitzer.” Little is known of this, except that pulse unit technology was somehow adapted to turn the device into a single-shot nuclear directed energy weapon. The propellant was somehow collimated into a tight “beam” that would be able to destroy enemy warheads out in space at some considerable distance. Just what that distance would be, though, remains clouded by Classification.

I created a simple provisional concept for Casaba Howitzer for issue V2N2 of Aerospace Projects Review. Since then… I’ve found out no new info on CH. But I’ve put considerable thought into the thing, and have redesigned my concept. Since the design is all mine, it’s usefulness in a factual history of Orion is minimal, but it’s great for fiction. And so I’m working on a set of diagrams for CH for Pax Orionis, and will include layouts of the “deployed” Casaba Howitzer configuration with the next release. Other diagrams will show the launch configuration as well as internal layouts.

If interested, check out the Pax Orionis Patron.

becomeapatron

 Posted by at 9:51 am

Pax Orionis: back issues and such

 blather, drawings, My Fiction, news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Sep 142015
 

The first Pax Orionis yarn was posted for patrons at the PS Patreon just a few days ago. Several people signed up afterwards, which meant that they got left out of the first issue. It’s perhaps something of a flaw or shortfall in the system. But I’ve worked out a simple solution: back issues. If you sign up for the Pax Orionis Patreon campaign, you can now purchase each “back issue.” Two dollars per issue is the current goign rate on the Patreon that nets you the story, the Technical Diagram and another bonus feature; that same price will get you those things in the back issue.

Currently there is only the one back issue available. But if you sign up for the Patreon campaign, you can read everything, right from the start. The stories are available as both PDF and EPUB (you get both versions).

becomeapatron

The first story released was “The Deadliest Catch, Part One,” and the first technical diagram is of the USS Orion, the first nuclear pulse flight test article in the Pax Orionis world.

PAX-0002-Model

—————-

On other Pax Orionis matters, here is the current listing of foreseen technical diagrams:

PAX_diagrams

And here is the current list of chapter titles, in rough chronological (story timeline order:

“The Box”

“Magicians”

“Orion Rises”

“The Blast from Jackass Flats”

“Weapons Test”

“Weapons Test 2”

“Mission to Mars”

“Knock knock”

“Uranium Exploration for Fun and Profit”

“The Burning Desert”

“Down in the Weeds”

“Deadliest Catch”

“Windows over the War”

“Hyperbolic Excess”

“The Hole”

“The Blue Dot”

“Things Blow Up”

“Leviathan”

“Every Man a King, Every Cabin Steerage”

“Sailing the Rocks”

“Over the Ice”

“Into the Deep”

 

 Posted by at 2:26 pm

Pax Orionis: First story up at the Patreon

 art, books, drawings, My Fiction, new products, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Sep 112015
 

The first story is now available for Pax Orionis patrons. This is available for the low, low price of only a buck. But if you pledge $2 or more, you get not only the story – “The Deadliest Catch, Part One” – but also a Technical Diagram and description of the USS Orion test flight article, and a bonus news article, the first of a number that will tell a tale.

becomeapatron

 Posted by at 11:26 pm

Pax Orionis Patreon: Now Online

 art, blather, books, drawings, My Fiction, new products, news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Sep 082015
 

 

The Pax Orionis Patreon is now online. It’s a little bare, but it at least seems to be up and running.  The first piece of fiction and a tech diagram will be ready in a few days, so the first patrons will be kinda guinea pigs. With this system, patrons get charged when new stuff is made available, rather than on a strict monthly schedule.

So if’n you’ve got a hankering for stories about an alternate history with extra nuclear wars and spacelanes filled with atom bomb powered spacecraft, I got ya covered.

POPat

 Posted by at 6:48 pm

Pax Orionis: The Patreon underway

 art, blather, books, My Fiction, news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, Patreon, Pax Orionis, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Sep 052015
 

I’m in the process of setting up a Patreon for Pax Orionis. It’s not yet public; still scribbling on it. As previously mentioned, it’s not a “monthly” thing, but instead a “creation” thing… patrons only get charged when I actually produce a new creation.

Still a little uncertain about a few things. There are currently only two reward levels:

$1.00 per creation: “One dollar per release gets you – as you might expect – the latest piece of Pax Orionis fiction in PDF and EPUB formats.”

$2.00 per creation: “Two dollars per release gets you not only the latest piece of the story but also  a Technical Data Sheet… a diagram of some piece of technology (a spacecraft,a  weapons system, a launch vehicle, a military aircraft, etc.) relevant to the world of Pax Orionis.”

Sound fair? Comments? Critiques? Ideas for further reward levels?

One idea that was floated was for a patron to pay something extra to include the patrons name in the story somewhere as a character. While I’m not opposed to the idea, I’m not sure how to do it in the context of Patreon, which is a continual subscription system.

 Posted by at 8:04 pm

Pax Orionis: The Patreon?

 art, blather, books, Hmm..., My Fiction, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, Patreon, Pax Orionis, science fiction, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Sep 022015
 

Patreon works two different ways. The first way, the way used on the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon campaign, is that patron are charged once a month, and they get rewards once a month. The other way Patreon can work is to only charge patrons when the content-creator actually has new content. This seems to be used a lot for web-comic creators… when they produce a new comic, the patrons get charged and get the comic. Whether that happens once a week, once a month or with a gap of three months, the patrons only get charged when there’s new stuff.

I’ve been contemplating using that second model as a way to help get Pax Orionis going.  Use Patronage to write the book a bit at a time. But there are a few questions:

  1. The book will be composed of many different bits of wildly different lengths. A one-page memo here, a thirty-page narrative there. Charge the same for the release of a self-contained section, regardless of page count? Or charge for the release of sections of particular page counts (which might mean that it’ll take several releases to get a complete section out)?
  2. And then, how much to charge? Obviously not very much… fifty cents, seventy five, a buck at most. Given fees and such, i don’t think it can go below fifty cents.
  3. What to do for “premium” patrons? One the APR Patreon, patrons who pledge more per month get higher-rez versions of the rewards and additional CAD diagrams and other bits and pieces. For the Pax Orionis Patreon, I’m thinking that higher-level patrons would get a bonus technical illustration… anything from a CAD diagram of an Orion vehicle, to a weapons system, launch vehicle, spacecraft, aircraft, a map, etc. I don’t think I’d do more than two, maybe three levels of patronage.

So… what do y’all think? Suggestions? Worth doing? Anyone know of a similar sort of thing with someone successfully creating a novel a bit at a time via Patreon?

A good case can be made that I’d be better off simply making P.O. available for free bits at a time, available to all. So perhaps… the P.O. Patrons get these releases, say, three months before the world as a whole? Get to see ’em in the first draft, and get to critique and perhaps see their suggestions incorporated?

 Posted by at 8:54 am

Construction Base in Space

 art, awesomeness, blather, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  3 Responses »
Aug 312015
 

Boeing art from the late 1970s depicting the construction of a base in low Earth orbit, which in turn would be used to construct components of solar power satellites, which would then be slowly boosted to geosynchronous using electric propulsion. Even though the base would be dwarfed by the SPS itself, the base was monumental in scale compared to any other manned space facility proposed before or since.

SPS construction

The artwork (scanned from a brochure that was folded down the middle, thus there’s a half-repaired fold line) depicts not only a Space Shuttle orbiter, but also the second stage of a ballistically recoverable Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle.

I have posted the full-rez version at the APR Patreon Extras Dropbox folder for 2015-08 (while it’s 2015-09 now, the file began the process of uploading at 11:59 PM by my watch, so…). If interested, please check out the APR Patreon and consider joining. Lots of benefits!

patreon-200

 Posted by at 11:19 pm

Some large-format scans

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, blather, drawings, history, models, nukes, Patreon, rockets  1 Response »
Aug 272015
 

Today I picked up four large format scans from a local print shop. All were scanned in full color at 300 DPI; the B-52 diagram was so large that I had to reduce it in size a bit – from 300 to 250 DPI – to make it work in most of my image processing programs. Still… with an original 110 inches long, scaling down a bit really isn’t much of a loss.

First: a Boeing model shop diagram of a B-52B display model at 1/40 scale. Model shop diagrams are often the best bets for clear, accurate aircraft diagrams.

1-40 scale B-52 BW 1-40 scale B-52

Second, an old Boeing diagram of the Model 80 trimotor:

Boeing Model 80

Then the USAF “supersonic escape capsule” which sure looks a lot like Fat Man:

supersonic escape capsule

And then a Rocketdyne diagram of the Atlas booster rocket engine:

Atlas booster engine

These will likely be offered up to APR Patreon Patrons. If you want in on that, and to help out on the effort to procure these things (trust me, they’re *not* cheap!), please consider signing up for the APR Patreon.

patreon-200

 Posted by at 7:17 pm
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