Search Results : shuttle

OSC Next Generation launcher

May 252016

SpaceX’s successes with the Falcon 9 is forcing the rest of the launch industry to come up with new ideas. Orbital Sciences has released a bit of info on the Next Generation Launcher, which is based on a Space Shuttle booster first stage with a new Blue Origin third stage (which *might* indicate that the third stage is to be recoverable). And like Falcon 9, the NGL is designed with a heavy version… which has not only a pair of solid strap-on boosters, but a different first stage solid rocket.

Can’t say as that really make a whole lot of sense to me. But I guess we’ll see. First, we’ll see if OSC is truly serious about this, and they actually forge ahead.

Orbital ATK's John Steinmeyer: Proposed next-gen launcher is three stages, crowned with Blue Origin BE-3 third stage pic.twitter.com/JtQvIrJ5tL

— Stephen Clark (@StephenClark1) May 24, 2016

With luck a clearer version of this chart will be made public.

Hammerhead ET

drawings, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects 5 Responses »

May 172016

A 1977 Rockwell concept for how to expand the utility of the Shuttle system: move the payload from the Orbiter and put it in a shroud ahead of the External Tank. This would have allowed for much larger-diameter payloads to be carried. The ET would of course have had to go into orbit with the Orbiter itself. More info and diagrams of this are in US Launch Vehicle Projects issue 1.

US Bomber Projects #18, Transport Projects #6 Now Available

aircraft, drawings, history, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects, US Transport Projects No Responses »

Apr 172016

Now available: two new US Aerospace Projects titles.

US Bomber Projects #18

US Bomber Projects #18 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #18 includes:

Boeing Model 726-13: A nuclear powered bomber with the cockpit in the tail
Martin Model 164: A pre-war high altitude twin-tailed bomber
North American WS-110A: An early concept for what became the B-70, with “floating wingtips”
Convair MX-1593: An Early, large five-engined Atlas ICBM concept
Boeing Model 701-299-1: The final XB-59 supersonic bomber design
Boeing Model 464-72: A B-52 with pusher turboprops
Boeing F-15GSE Global Strike Eagle: An unmanned F-15 with a giant missile on its back General Dynamics – Light Weight Attack Configuration 29: An advanced ground attacker with vectored thrust

USBP #18 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:

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US Transport Projects #6

US Transport Projects #06 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #06 includes:

Lockheed CL-408-15: An early Mach 3 SST
Lockheed L-155-4: A very early 8-engine jetliner
Boeing Model 754-4V: A very-wide-bodied cargo hauler for Husky
Gates Learjet PD1502A: A four-seater with a turbofan
Convair Comet Seaplane: An American idea for turning a British jetliner into Flying Boat
Lockheed Twin C-5 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft: Two C-5’s mated together to carry a Shuttle between them
Boeing Model 765-096 Rev A “SUGAR Volt”: A hybrid jetliner
CRC HOT EAGLE – Super Global Troop Transport: Finally, hard data on a rocket transport for Special Forces and Marines

USTP #06 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:

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And don’t forget…

US Fighter Projects #1 and US VTOL Projects #1 are still new and still available!

Yay! The Age of Airships II may be upon us…

aircraft, awesomeness, blather, history, news 11 Responses »

Mar 222016

The airship is a paradox: an obsolete piece of technology for a century ago that has nevertheless been the face of the future for the last fifty or so years. And it looks like it’s on the cusp of a comeback:

Massive new aircraft the Airlander 10 is unveiled

The multi-lobed British craft is helium-filled and 300 feet long. It will be able to carry 48 people, and the company is hoping to make a dozen a year by 2018. The cost and upcoming end of availability of helium might be tad problematic

A decade ago DARPA and the US Army were looking at a similar, but larger, heavy-lift airship under the “Walrus” program. Sometime around 2005-2006, ATK and NASA were looking down the road towards the post-Shuttle future for the Shuttle booster rockets, including five-segment rockets for the Ares I and Ares V. Some of the redesigns for the booster segments would have weighed a bit more than standard Shuttle booster segments. The problem there was that the existing road transport system – needed to haul the segments from the Promontory facility down I-15 to a the railhead forty or so miles south – was already at the limit theDepartment of Transportation would allow on the highway. So… NASA wanted alternate ideas. I proposed the obvious: use a Walrus heavy-lifter to carry segments straight from Promontory to Cape Canaveral. It would have had more than enough lift capacity and would have been faster than the truck & train. Plus: I just wanted to see a thousand-foot-long airship floating over my house. Who wouldn’t? Obviously that didn’t happen; ATK management looked at me like I was insane. Something about “you want to fly millions of pounds of solid rocket fuel through the sky over populated areas potentially though storms” or some such whiny nonsense. I understand the final solution for dealing with the highway overloading issue was something along the lines of “la-la-la I can’t hear you.”

Shrug.

13 years ago

AARRRGH, history, Hmm..., rockets, spacecraft 12 Responses »

Feb 012016

There I was, driving through the dreary interior of California on a 200-mile trip to go out on a date, when I turned on the radio to hear that the Space Shuttle Columbia had exploded on re-entry. There followed at least an hour of the dusty nothingness that is the road to Sacramento, and then the date, which involved meeting the young ladies mother. Neither of them gave a rats ass about the Shuttle, while I was kinda desperate to see the news on the TV. Yeah, not what you’d call a great social success story. Oh well.

Anyway, there has long been debate on whether if, with enough knowledge and effort, the crew could have been saved. I’m of the opinion that the moment the foam smacked the wing, the crew was pretty much doomed. But maybe…

The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia

Thirty years ago

AARRRGH, blather, Gah., history, news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube, ಠ_ಠ 6 Responses »

Jan 282016

So there I was, sitting in a classroom, bored out of my mind, when all of a sudden the PA system woke up with a screech. Someone in the administrative offices had a TV on and was watching the Shuttle Challenger launch, saw it explode, and turned on the PA system and stuck the microphone up to the TV speaker. The classroom sorta froze for a few seconds, since nobody knew what was going on; the audio of course started up in mid sentence. When the speaker finally said something along the lines of “the space shuttle has exploded,” several students, myself included, packed up our stuff and bolted from the room, dashing towards the library. A whole lot of other kids and teachers had the same idea, with the result that hundreds tried to pack in to see the one TV in the place.

Boy, did that day *suck.*

Here’s the live CNN coverage. Note that the reporter is speaking when Challenger explodes… and, unlike current news reporting practice, he shuts up. Rather than a stream of unending blather, he lets the story speak for itself for a moment. Granted, he was likely shocked, but still…

Here’s some “behind the scenes at CNN:”

Here’s one hour of CNN coverage, from 11:00 to 12:00 (the explosion is at about 11:38):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rDg7S46ijM

And from 12:00 to 1:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmU2jC_RMYQ

It’s difficult to say that there was a bright spot in that day, but if there was, it was President Reagan. Originally scheduled to deliver the State of the Union address that night, he instead delivered a necessarily hastily-written address to the nation on Challenger… surely one of the great speeches in American political history.

Aero Art

aircraft, art, books, history, Hmm..., projects, spacecraft 11 Responses »

Jan 052016

I recently decided that I wanted to at least look at the idea of producing a printed and bound book or two of aerospace artwork. For copyright reasons selling coffeetable tomes filled with other peoples art is probably not a good idea, so this would likely be something just for myself, if it can be made affordable. But step one was gathering the artwork I have into one location so’s I can figure out what to include. So I dug through the ol’ hard drives and gathered stuff into one folder. A few conditions: the images had to be large/high-rez enough to be printed at at least 8.5X11; they had to be in color, not B&W; they had to be paintings (not CGI, not photos of models, not line drawings); they had to be “official” images, not fan art of the like; they had to be interesting.

I’ve been thinking of perhaps a few different volumes… “Saturn/Apollo,” “Shuttle Program,” “Conceptual Designs,” etc. I was looking for something on the order of 50 images per volume.

End result: the “Aero Art” folder has 982 files for a total of 7.73 gigabytes. I guess I have enough to take a stab at this…

What I’d *really* like to do is to have a larger format book… preferably 11X17 or so pages. But that’s probably a bit much.

USLP #3, Large Format USBP 10-12, 13-15 Now Available

aircraft, drawings, history, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Bomber Projects, US Launch Vehicle Projects 1 Response »

Dec 072015

USLP 03

Issue 03 of US Launch Vehicle Projects is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #03 includes:

Juno V/Titan/Nomad: A 1958 concept for a space launcher using an ICBM for upper stages
Convair ATE Nova: A 1963 idea for winged airbreathing boosters
B-70/Gemini: Using a bomber as a booster
Phase II VTOHL Orbit-On-Demand: a 1985 concept for a relatively small two stage to orbit spaceplane
NASA Lewis Saturn Ib/Centaur/Kick Stage: a high energy upper stage
NASA MSC 042B/Titan IIIL6: a straight-winged orbiter atop a large Titan derivative
Heavy Lift Titan: A large diameter Titan core with three Shuttle boosters
Escher “Unshackled”: An unconventional idea for a lunar rocket

USLP #03 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:

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Large format USBP drawings, Issues 10-12

The CAD drawings created for USBP reformatted and rescaled for 11X17 collected in a separate volume. Drawings have in some cases been corrected, improved and added to.

USBP 11X17 10-12 collects the diagrams created for issues 10, 11 and 12, including:

Boeing Model 464-34-3, Republic mach 7, Lockheed CL-1301-1, Convair WS-125A, Boeing 484-415, Martin Model 223-10, Boeing Model 814-1010 Dyna Soar, Martin Model 192-5, Boeing Model 464-40, Boeing Model 701-218, Northrop Nuclear flying wing, North American D118, Martin Model 223-11, North American Model 705-00-04, Bell/Martin 464L, Boeing B-1, Boeing Big Bird BB 6800, Boeing Model464-41, Douglas MX-2091-E, Boeing Model 701-238, Martin Model 223-12, Northrop Nuclear Flying Wing, Rockwell MRCC, Lockheed CL-820-8

USBP11x17-10-12 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $10:
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Large format USBP drawings, Issues 13-15

The CAD drawings created for USBP reformatted and rescaled for 11X17 collected in a separate volume. Drawings have in some cases been corrected, improved and added to.

USBP 11X17 13-15 collects the diagrams created for issues 10, 11 and 12, including:

Ryan Model 162, Boeing Orbital bomb, Northrop Atomic Wing, Consolidated Vultee High Speed Flying Boat, Martin Model 189, Boeing Model 464-046, Curtis F-87C, Boeing Model 701-247, Lockheed WS 464L Dyna Soar, McDonnell WS 464L Dyna Soar, North American WS 464L Dyna Soar, Republic WS 464L Dyna Soar, Convair WS 464L Dyna Soar I, Convair WS 464L Dyna Soar II, Douglas WS 464L Dyna Soar, Northrop N206 WS 464L Dyna Soar, Boeing Model 814-1010 Dyna Soar II, Bell/Martin WS 464L Dyna Soar, Boeing Model 2050E Dyan Soar, Boeing Dyna Soar/ Titan IIIc, Bell D2001 TS-149, Lockheed Harvey; Convair Model 35, Rockwell D661-27, Boeing Model 464-49, Boeing Model 988-123, Boeing Manned Orbital Bomber, Boeing Model 701-251

USBP11x17-13-15 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $10:
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Sure, that makes sense

blather, drawings, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, spacecraft, US Launch Vehicle Projects 19 Responses »

Dec 042015

The Space Launch System continues to meander ahead. This surprises me; I thought sure it would’ve been cancelled by now. But forward it goes. Proof of that progress comes in the form of NASA recently signed a $1.16 billion dollar contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne (seriously, how depressing is it that this is now one company, rather than two vibrant competitors?) to restart production of the RS-25 rocket engine. Four of these engines will power the core of the SLS launcher.

Diagram showing the Saturn I, Space Shuttle, SLS and Saturn V to scale

The RS-25 was also – and better – known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine. It’s an incredibly complex, fabulously expensive engine, because it tries to squeeze every last erg of performance from the hydrogen and oxygen propellants, and because it’s a man-rated engine that *cannot* be allowed to self-disassemble, and because it’s reusable.

Except… the new RS-25s will be tossed away with each SLS flight. Every time the rocket goes up, four RS-25s will be dumped into the drink.

Seems just a little bit of a waste.

As part of the new contract, the RS-25’s will be modernized; since there’ll be no reusing them, manufacturing processes are to be streamlined and parts count will be reduced. That’s good, but unless the parts count drops a *lot,* the price per engine will remain painfully high.

Interestingly, this is kinda the same/kinda the reverse of the history of the H-1 engine used on the Saturn I. The Thor and Jupiter MRBMs used the LOX/RP-1 S-3 engine; it was the right size for the new Saturn I, but was terribly expensive. So Rocketdyne engineers took the S-3 apart, figured out what they needed and what could be simplified, reduced parts count by (IIRC) more than 90%, and produced the H-1 engine. Lighter, cheaper, more powerful and, as it turned out, reusable without even really trying.

Throwing away the RS-25s after each flight is not necessarily necessary. Many, many Shuttle-derived launch vehicles have been designed over the decades that used SSMEs but didn’t throw them away. Anywhere from one to four (and probably more) SSMEs would be mounted at the tail of the launcher, built into a “capsule” that would separate from the booster after burnout and return the engines to the Earth (generally via ocean splashdown) where they would be recovered and reused. The design below (from US Launch Vehicle Projects #2) is a Martin Marietta concept from 1984 that put three SSMEs into a lifting body module that hung off the side of the booster. This position was chosen so that the booster could be launched from an unmodified Shuttle pad. The SLS mounted the engines directly below the core, necessitating a whole new launch pad. But since the Shuttle is no more, that’s not a big deal.

Logistics capsules in black and white

art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft 6 Responses »

Oct 262015

All through the 1960’s – or at least up until the last few years, when “Great Society” spending ate into NASA’s budget – the assumption was that NASA would soon have numerous space stations in orbit and some preliminary lunar bases, with Mars missions soon to follow. In order to support those, NASA would have to have a cost effective means to launch sizable crews into orbit. A number of approaches were proposed, including Big Gemini and, in the end, the Space Shuttle. One approach that probably would have been quite workable was to simply scale up the Apollo capsule into something capable of holding more than three; a slight scaleup seats six, a further scaleup seats twelve. These would have been launched atop the Saturn Ib and/or Saturn V boosters, and would come with their own basic orbital maneuvering systems, and could carry up some amount of cargo in the conical transition/propulsion sections. At the end of the mission, the capsule would return to Earth for recovery, refurbishment and reuse; the propulsion module would be allowed to burn up.

Of course, none of these were ever built.

The full resolution versions of these artworks have been posted into the 2015-10 folder in the APR Extras Dropbox. Please check out the APR Patreon!

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