A plexiglas display model of the Grumman design 619 space transportation system showing interior arrangements and details. Note the turbojet pods packed into the rear of the cargo bay and the hump atop the forward cargo bay… providing space for the remote manipulator arm.
Another Bell BAT mockup photo.
A photo of the Bell Helicopter BAT (Bell Advanced Tiltrotor) mockup built in the late 1980s. This was an early competitor in the Light Helicopter eXperimental (LHX) program, eventually won by what would become the RAH-66 Comanche. While the BAT met the early requirements of the program, it was too unconventional.
On occasion, an aircraft will survive a mid-air collision.
This is not one of those times.
[youtube zSHYpM1JDKE]
Dragon seems to have announced a re-tooled version of their 1/72 Saturn V, this time as a kit rather than a fully built-up display model. And rather than $255, it’ll be in the $170 range. Available for pre-order HERE for $135. Sadly I don’t get a piece of the action from sales there, so anyone wants to send me one of these kits, feel free…
Kits to modify the Saturn V into something else would seem called for… a Skylab shroud, or strap-on boosters, or a 10-meter Orion payload…
Another photo (via the NASA HQ History Office) of the Lockheed STAR Clipper. This was an early stage-and-a-half concept with a reusable orbiter and expendable propellant tanks. Vastly more info on this is available in APR issue V3N2.
Another photo (via the NASA HQ History Office) of the Lockheed STAR Clipper. This was an early stage-and-a-half concept with a reusable orbiter and expendable propellant tanks. Note that this version does not have an aerodynamic fairing over the noses of the the propellant tanks. Vastly more info on this is available in APR issue V3N2.
A photo (via the NASA HQ History Office) of the Lockheed STAR Clipper. This was an early stage-and-a-half concept with a reusable orbiter and expendable propellant tanks. Vastly more info on this is available in APR issue V3N2.
From sometime around 1963, a few photos of wind tunnel models at NASA-Langley. Shown are a range of Dyna Soar models, from pre-Dyna Soar “HYWARDS” concepts to the initial Boeing 844 design to the final Boeing Model 2050E configuration.
Long before the “Aurora” was flying across the pages of sensationalist magazines at Mach 6+, NASA was studying a range of hypersonic research aircraft. While the designs different, sometimes wildly, there were occasional configurations remarkably like the hypothetical “Aurora.” Some would argue that that means that the “Aurora” was derived from this earlier NASA work, but a more reasonable supposition is that those who envisioned “Aurora” were drawing upon public representations of the earlier NASA work in order to dream up what Aurora must look like.
One such design that is very representative of the iconic “Aurora” image is this Hypersonic Research Airplane configuration from 1973, shown here as a drawing and as a NASA-Langley subsonic wind tunnel test model. The aircraft was powered by liquid rocket engines in the tail and an underslung scramjet pod. It had a cockpit that would raise up at low speed so the pilot could see to land, but was otherwise a very clean configuration.
