Jan 102015
This is one of the more unlikely-looking launch vehicle designs I’ve seen… a 1961 Saturn I first stage with an S-IV second stage and a nuclear upper stage. In and of itself that’s not that unusual… but the upper stage is *really* long and thin and appears to be devoid of a recognizable payload. The result, if it managed to survive launch and bending forces, is that at burnout it would be accelerating *really* hard.
However, the great probability here is that this was not an actual serious engineering study for a launch vehicle, but instead a notional concept, useful for studying the whichness of the why regarding the use of automated systems for nuclear rocket preparation an launch.
