The SPS (Solar Power Satellite) program of the mid/late 1970’s was the last time that truly big heavy lift launch vehicles were granted any real amount of serious consideration by NASA. Below is one such design, a fully reusable two stage ballistically recovered unmanned cargo launcher from Boeing. Payload was 391,000 kg/ 860,200 pounds. Not the biggest launcher by a wide margin, but still more than three times the capacity of the Saturn V.
Hmmm. Marines pissing on Jihadis. How should I feel about this…
Some time back I picked up a copy of a Boy Scout booklet on making models. It was printed I think sometime in the 1980’s or later, but was originally printed in 1964. Contained within were a number of rather tiny black and white futuristic automobile, ship, aircraft and spacecraft artists concepts. Sadly, there were no notations as to who created the artwork. Several of the pieces I recognize as having been created for Real Projects by Real Companies or Real Government Organizations, so I assume that at least most of the ones I *don’t* recognize were also “real” projects, as opposed to, say, artwork created for Mechanix Illustrated.
That said, a few of the illustrations are odd… and this one is downright goofy. What’s shown is a small boat, looks like a patrol craft of some type, with a keel many times larger than the boat itself. The best I can figure is that either the designers were early adopters of LSD, or the idea was to have a deceptively small and non-scary looking vessel with far more offensive capability than might be suspected.
The keel has a large “box” on the very bottom, probably part of the ballast system. I’d like to think there was a nuclear powerplant in there; otherwise, that itty-bitty boat on the surface will be belching out a hell of a lot more smoke and heat than it should. About halfway down the keel is the propulsion system, consisting of Voith Schneider propellers… unusual and complex, but capable of considerable maneuverability.
Further down are a number of torpedo tubes, and below them is a set of deployable wings. I suppose the wings would be used to maintain the proper depth; there appear to perhaps be secondary propulsion units on the wings.
I cannot claim with any certainty that this was an American design… but I’d imagine that the Boy Scouts of America would probably make some effort to avoid dirty furrin designs.
Why is the keel is so gigantic? How many bays could it actually sail into, how many docks could it actually sidle up to? The keel is also pretty wide. Would it be wide enough to store Polaris missiles? Was this meant to be a stealthy sea launched ballistic missile system? Hardly stealthier than a submarine, but I can’t otherwise explain the massive size and volume of the keel.
It seems that since I changed the commenting system in December, the process on how to comment on blog posts has become less obvious (I’ve had emails to that effect, along with noticing that commenting has dropped off). If you want to comment, you can’t do it right from the main blog page (http://up-ship.com/blog/blog); you need to do it from the specific post page (such as http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=13160). Simple process: simply click on the post title (in this case, “Having difficulty commenting?”). That’ll bring up the specific post, and you should see a commenting form below it.
Sadly, it’s not *my* review (anybody care to donate a kit?), but someone has obtained a Dragon 1/72 Saturn V kit and reviewed it HERE. A number of photos are posted HERE.
It appears both impressive… and a bit plain, with some shortcuts taken in a few areas. There’s probably a market for decals and add-on kits. The F-1 engines could certainly use updating… the engines were covered with insulation in real life, and looked very different (see HERE).
The Class III designs for Nova were intended to use advanced propulsion systems, advanced materials and be fully recoverable. Shown below is a NASA briefing chart on Nova Class III designs from September 1963 showing three Class III designs. The first is an airbreathing SSTO concept… a conical vehicle with rocket engines at the rim, and a ;large duct wrapped around them. This produced an ejector effect, in theory greatly increasing thrust at low airspeed. As velocity increased, fuel could be injected directly into the duct, turning it into a ramjet. The ramjet would of course be use for only a relatively brief portion of the flight, so the duct would be dropped not long into the flight, presumably to be parachute recovered in the ocean. The other two designs are substantially more conventional, though both used plug cluster engines.
A high resolution version can be downloaded HERE.
Almost 1 In 3 U.S. Warplanes Is a Robot
The fighter jocks are, I’m sure, not pleased about the trajectory of the USAF towards an overwhelmingly unmanned fleet of fighters and bombers. The money quote:
…the military has 7,494 drones. Total number of old school, manned aircraft: 10,767 planes.
Sounds bad for the Top Gunners. However, of those roboplanes, 5,346 are US Army RQ-11 Ravens. While neato, the Raven is not as yet a direct threat to planes such as the F-16.
Iran’s Flying Saucer Downed U.S. Drone, Engineer Claims
Iranian flying saucers with force fields. Uh-oh, we’re in trouble now…
Plus side – snark from the Pentagon:
“We have no comment on this individual’s claims,” George Little, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, tells Danger Room, “but tell him the Secretary would like his lightsaber back.”
India Reports Completely Drug-Resistant TB
It won’t be too long before we’re back to a pre-1930’s world, where “antibiotics” are a science fictional concept that don’t do a damned thing. It is largely due to two problems:
1) Over-use of antibiotics, not only in treating every damned case of the sniffles, but perhaps worse, by dumping kilotons of the stuff into farm animal feed
2) Under-use of the antibiotics that are *appropriately* prescribed. TB is apparently really bad here… the symptoms go away before the disease is truly gone, so a lot of dumbasses get the disease, get the antibiotics, and quit taking them before their system is truly cleared out. As a result, the TB germs come back stronger than ever. Rinse, rather, repeat… natural selection, aided by artificial stupidty, lead to stronger and more survivable diseases.
Perhaps TB and similar deadly, drug-resistant diseases should be re-termed “The Creationist Plague.”
The basic layout of the final Space Transportation System, as envisioned by McD in ’71. There are a number of important differences… perhaps most importantly the inclusion of four high-pressure rocket engines on the orbiter rather than three. The SRMs were slightly larger in diameter at 156 inches.
Historical note: a number of rocket designs through the years have been 156 inches in diameter. This is not due to 156 inches being a magical performance enhancer, but due to trains. Specifically, 156 inches is the largest diameter for a cylindrical payload on a rail car that will fit through standard railway tunnels in the US.
