Mockingbird: Orbit in one *small* stage

 awesomeness, drawings, projects, reshaping the world, rockets, US Launch Vehicle Projects  20 Responses »
Aug 042011
 

Designed in the early 1990’s at Lawrence Livermore National Labs by Jordin Kare, the “Mockingbird” was a conceptual design of a single stage rocket vehicle. It was to be relatively cheap, as befits a vehicle designed officially to serve as a target. Replicating the trajectory of ballistic missiles, it was to serve as the target for ballistic missile defense systems.

But it was found that, if design properly, the simple target vehicle could do some rather more interesting things than simply get blasted. With a very lightweight aluminum rocket engine burning a combination of hydrogen peroxide and JP-5, performance in terms of thrust and Isp would be fairly high, and bulk vehicle density would also be quite high. It would, in fact, be just barely possible that this modest target vehicle would be able to attain low Earth orbit with a payload of 10 kilograms… hence the nickname “bricklifter.” Empty weight would be 75 kilograms; light enough to be picked up be two men.Gross weight would be 1500 kilograms; light enough to be carried by a largish pickup truck. And small enough that it could potentially be launche from the back of a smallish pickup truck.

Included in that 75 kilograms was re-entry shielding to allow the Mockingbird to survive re-entry, landing gear and enough rocket propellant for a soft touchdown. It was, essentially, a minimum-size Delta Clipper.

Like just about everything in aerospace, it likely would have come in over budget and over weight. But as the likes of Xcor, Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems have shown, relatively small groups on shoestring budgets (by government standards) can, with time and effort, develop just the sort of technologies needed to make vehicles like the Mockingbird work. And if one of these companies can actually build a SSTO on the scale of the Mockingbird… boy howdy, the Air Force should be *desperately* interested. Sadly, so will the regulatory agencies. But private citizens building orbital vehicles they can launch from their trucks? Awesome.

UPDATE:

An article on the Mockingbird was included in US Launch Vehicle Projects #2, available HERE.

 Posted by at 6:01 am

Weather

 awesomeness, photography, Utah  No Responses »
Aug 032011
 

Last few days have featured some actual weather near or after sundown.

 

Looking way off south towards Ogden, with lightning behind the mountains.

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Evening clouds, a few days ago.

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Lightning last evening, just over the hills to the west

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Looking south after midnight. Note the sheet of rain on the right. That was some miles away.

 Posted by at 7:32 pm

Starships are not small

 books, drawings, history, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Aug 032011
 

For those interested, work on the “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion” book continues. Below is yet another example of the diagramming that will be in it. This shows an as-yet incomplete drawing of the British Interplanetary Society’s “Daedalus” starship, second stage, in scale with a Saturn V. Note that this vehicle is not even remotely small, even though it was the second of two stages, carried no crew, and did not carry fuel to even begin to attempt  to stop at the target star. Daedalus would be essentially the interstellar version of Voyager… the minimum craft for the job, which is to just blow right on by and take some snapshots.

Nuclear Pulse Propulsion will go into Daedalus is some depth, and will have a number of illustrations of it.

FYI: The primary internet computer is in the shop to get “Win 7 Antispyware” removed. They seemed to have some knowledge of it, and claim that removal will not present a problem and that I should get the computer back tomorrow. Which will be great; even though I now have things set up and backed up in such a way that I can get online and do what I need to do, and data loss would be minimal… it’s still a pain in the ass to re-load all the lost programs. Bah.

 Posted by at 6:45 pm

Aww, sonova….

 AARRRGH, blather  2 Responses »
Aug 022011
 

I’m currently running on the backup system. My primary Internet connection, a netbook, suddenly started popping up virus and trojan and malware warnings, courtesy the program “Win 7 Antispyware 2012.” It seemed to do a dandy job of blocking up the works, so I yanked that netbook offline and fired up the backup. Lo and behold, “Win 7 Antispyware 2012” is itself malware pretending to be antispyware. So, I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow… sigh…

 Posted by at 10:44 pm

Political Rhetoric

 news, politics  1 Response »
Aug 022011
 

Remember how, just a few short months ago, Democrats were complaining that imagery in the political rhetoric was too violent? How people (right wingers, in particular) needed to tone it down?

Ah, good times.

Tea Party’s War on America

Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.

Inflicting more pain on their countrymen doesn’t much bother the Tea Party Republicans, as they’ve repeatedly proved.

Our enemies could not have designed a better plan to weaken the American economy than this debt-ceiling deal.

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough.

Tea Party Patriots Demand Apology From Biden

the Vice President of the United States referred to tea party Americans as “acting like terrorists,” during a Democratic caucus meeting yesterday. The remarks came after another democrat, Rep. Moyer said “we have negotiated with terrorists,” when referring to talks and compromise with newly elected freshmen. Today, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended the remarks, saying they were simply part of an “emotional” debate.

Sources: Joe Biden likened tea partiers to terrorists

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry [Dem Rep Mike] Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

Biden told Democratic lawmakers that the deal would take away the tea party’s “weapon of mass destruction” — the threat of a default on U.S. debt obligations.

“They have no compunction about blowing up the economy to get what they want,” Doyle told POLITICO after the meeting.

 Posted by at 6:42 pm

Skate/Sea Dart

 aircraft, history, models, projects, youtube  6 Responses »
Aug 022011
 

Another film from the San Diego Aerospace Museum archive:

[youtube Z7DcqfFpb4Y]

This one chronicles the development of the XF2Y-1 “Sea Dart,” a supersonic delta-winged jet fighter designed to operate from the water. Interestingly, this film spends a fair amount of time showing the Skate concept, a swept-wing seaplane concept. Back In The Day, analysis was by means of actual testing, rather than computer analysis, and here that meant building 1/10 scale models and catapult launching them over the water. Some of the landings were just plain *ugly.*

 Posted by at 4:53 pm

Rumorblogging: Chinese nuclear disaster?

 news, nukes  No Responses »
Aug 012011
 

From the “hell, I dunno” files, a Japanese blog is reporting that a Chinese nuclear submarine seems to have gone “d’oh” at the port of Dalian and is leaking radioactive goodness.

Dunno. Maybe, could be. Hardly unlikely that a Chinese reactor might not be the safest thing in the world. But even if it is happened, I don’t expect to see China abandon nuclear power anytime soon.

 Posted by at 3:07 pm

“From RAINBOW to GUSTO:” A-10 configuration

 aircraft, books, drawings, history, projects, RAINBOW to GUSTO  1 Response »
Aug 012011
 

Twenty-first in the series of reconstructed drawings from Paul Suhler’s book “From RAINBOW to GUSTO.” This is the Lockheed A-10 design as drawn by Ed Baldwin in January 1959. This particular drawing has a Source Grade of four:

“RAINBOW to GUSTO” is available from Amazon:

To download the high-rez version of the A-10 drawing, simply click THIS LINK. You will be prompted for a username and a password. For the A-10 drawing, use these:

Username: the FIRST word in the body of the text on page 156

Password: the LAST word in the body of the text on page 156

(Remember: Case Sensitive!)

ALSO NOTE: if all you get is a “red X,” that means the image is too large for your browser to display (I’ve not had a problem with Firefox, but have had with IE). In that event, simply hit the Back button to this page, and right click on the link above and save the image directly to your computer and view from there.

Up next: A-11 configuration

 Posted by at 11:25 am
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