UTC’s hybrid lunar lander

Another bit of early ’60’s art showing a United Tech concept (though most likely just pure promo art, with no actual design effort behind it) for a lunar lander using hybrid rocket engines. Note the rather nonchalant bystander.

I’ve also found a photo of a demonstration unit  that used a hybrid rocket to lift a small model of the lander. In the early ’60’s United Tech built a number of small subscale demo motors; everything from a small “briefcase” test article to a few small “landers” to a fairly large “flying saucer” with multiple independtantly movable motors (photos of that item are coming). When I worked at UTC from 2000-2004, some of these items could still be found…. one of the original briefcase hybrids, using plexiglass as fuel, was still in use for in-room demonstrations. Louder’n hell, but pretty spiffy. But the sort of public demonstrations you see here would almost certainly not be allowed today.  Risk, you see, is something that cannot be tolerated.

Not sure when and where this photo was taken… early 60’s, to be sure, and I think in France (due to the “fusees hybrides” label). Possibly the Paris air show?

In UTC’s last days, the contents of the “museum” (a rickety leaking trailer which people had simply dumped boxes of stuff in… really rather tragic) were poured out onto tables in the cafeteria for employees to pick through and take. I got a few good piles of photos. But one photo I know I’ve seen but now cannot find – I might not actually have a copy, perhaps just saw it at UTC somewhere –  shows Strategic Air Command head General Curtis E. LeMay using one of the small hybrid rocket demo units to light a cigar.