Search Results : shuttle

More old press photos on eBay

aircraft, art, blather, eBay, history, Hmm..., models, photography, rockets, spacecraft 1 Response »

Jul 052014

I thought these might interest some, even with the heavy-duty watermarks:

This one shows a Max Faget “DC-3”-type orbiter serving as the base of operations for some sort of repair or resupply using teleoperated robots. There was a lot of expectation of such devices being used with Shuttle in the early days, but they (so far) just haven’t proved to be as capable as a guy in a suit.

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This one shows a nuclear rocket-powered manned Mars vehicle. It’s called a “nuclear powered space station” in the caption…

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This image shows two “DC-3” type orbiters (they look like North American Rockwell designs to me) meeting up to build a single interplanetary probe mission. Neither shuttle was capable of lofting both the deep space booster and the payload, so two launches are required. Of course, this sort of thing never happened.

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This one shows another telerobot in action. The caption on the back says that it’s being used to check over the shuttle prior to re-entry, which doesn’t match the image… but might have been of interest for the crew of Columbia.

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This shows a Boeing/Grumman TSTO Shuttle concept. The orbiter uses external propellant tanks; in these sort of designs, the tanks were usually all hydrogen. The much smaller volume of liquid oxygen would be kept in tanks that fit within the orbiter, and would of course come back. The reusable booster was necessarily gigantic.

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This one is kinda different: a plan for how astronaut David Scott was supposed to test the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit on Gemini VIII. This test was not carried out, since the spacecraft suffered a stuck valve on a thruster, went into a rapid tumble, nearly killed the crew and the mission was promptly aborted. The same sort of test was attempted on Gemini IX, and proved nearly as disastrous. Eugene Cernans space suit was specially made for the test, with an outer layer of woven steel “pants.” This was due to the fact that the AMU used hydrogen peroxide for propellant, exhausting superheated steam and oxygen exhaust. But the woven steel made the pressurized pants almost totally rigid, making the spacewalk back to the AMU a serious chore. As a result, his faceplate fogged up and he was nearly blind. He never got into the AMU, and it was never launched again. The Manned Maneuvering Unit tested on the Shuttle used cool pressurized nitrogen, negating the need for steel pants.

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This one is, I believe, from the late 1970s and depicts a jetliner with a multitude of small turbofan engines along the trailing edge of the wing. The engines would deflect with the control surfaces, providing thrust vectoring for STOL flight.

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Finally, everyone’s favorite… a hypersonic transport. Designs like this one from 1968 tended to be powered by scramjets which, forty-plus years later we still haven’t gotten to work in any really meaningful way. Whoopee.

Some documents for Patreon

aircraft, art, awesomeness, drawings, drawings&documents, history, new products, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft No Responses »

Jun 302014

Here are photos of portions of a few documents I’m considering as Patreon rewards. These have not yet been scanned in; some will require a bit of effort to make them presentable, but all are pretty interesting in my view. If I understand the Patreon system correctly, the system debits the credit cards or PayPal accounts of those who have pledged at the “end of the month ” (any day now, I expect), and the rewards will be distributed a few days later – when I have them ready – to those who have been successfully charged. The upshot is that if you buy in the day *after* billing, you don’t get the rewards for this month, but only *next* month. So you miss out on the first batch. The $100 benchmark is safely in the past, and there seems to be a slow creep towards the $200 benchmark, which will mean two uploads as rewards for the first month is feasible. In the event that the contribution level gets there, I’ll try to have one large format drawing and one document per month, so long as that’s practical.

So if you don’t want to miss anything, sign up soon!

A NASA report from 1972 showing a *lot* of designs for Space Shuttle concepts. Includes designs that clearly foreshadowed the Shuttle as actually built, as well as some really wacky ones.

Two official aircraft recognition guides from the early 1950s to help ground observers tell friendlies from potential bandits.

A Convair report from 1948 on an assault seaplane. Includes a *lot* of excessively detailed design diagrams. This one might have to be broken up into several parts due to the size of it.

A report on the Regulus II missile which includes detailed diagrams of both the tactical missile version and the reusable test flight version. Some really snazzy large foldouts, which will require a bit of work to clean up.

EMPIRE Mars lander

art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft 2 Responses »

Jun 222014

In 1962, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center kicked off the EMPIRE (Early Manned Planetary Interplanetary Roundtrip Expeditions) studies. This was a preliminary examination of manned missions to other planets, mostly looking at Mars, with Venus flyby and orbital missions as well.

Contracts went to General Dynamics, Lockheed and the Aeroneutronic Division of Ford. Yes, Ford, the car company: at the time, rather than the American aerospace industry being so tightly contracted that there were only a handful of players, the industry was so lively and vast that *car* companies were doing good business in aerospace (Chrysler built the Redstone rocket, the first stage of the Saturn I and even proposed an SSTO for the Shuttle program).

General Dynamics/Convair produced the best known of the resulting studies. With much of the work overseen by Krafft Ehricke, there was a distinct sense of enthusiasm to it; much of the results of the EMPIRE study crossed departments and ended up in General Atomics Project Orion work. One portion of the EMPIRE design that Orion adopted was the manned Mars Excusion Module (MEM).

In configuration the lander looked much like an Apollo Command & (shortened) Service Module with three landing legs. instead of a conventional parachute, it used a metal ring that was to serve much the same purpose. The Mercury-like “Abort Tower” was to be used at liftoff; it would drag the ascent vehicle up far enough that ignition of the main engine would not through debris around that could strike and damage the ascent vehicle.

Sadly, this design was produce before the Mariner 4 probe flew by Mars . The data sent back by Mariner 4 showed that the atmosphere of mars was more than an order of magnitude thinner than had been expected, with the result that aerodynamic braking would be far more difficult. Thus, this design simply would not have worked on Mars; it would have slammed into the ground at high speed.

Minuteman – From Design To Delivery

AARRRGH, blather, history, Hmm..., nukes, rockets, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ 3 Responses »

Jun 082014

A propainfotainment film from 1963 describing the development of the Minuteman ICBM.

[youtube WmSUoVJ1im0]

Point of note: 1963 is 51 years ago. With all the advances in the last half century, America still relies on the Minuteman. Since the Minuteman was developed, we also developed the Midgetman and Peacekeeper ICBMs… and got rid of them.

Also of historic note: when the Minuteman was developed, a lot of components that, were they to be developed today, would be digital were then analog. The safe-and-arm for the solid rocket motors was essentially a heavy chunk of clockwork. The S&A simply served the purpose of making sure than an accidental electrical or mechanical discharge somewhere, if it inadvertantly set off the ordnance lines leading to the motor igniter, would not actually get to the igniter. They are simple mechanical blocks that prevent the signal from getting through unless they are properly activated.

The Minuteman S&A’s worked well enough. So, when Thiokol was developing the solid rocket boosters for the Shuttle, they used the Minuteman S&As. And since once something is designed and fielded at NASA it almost never changes, the 1963-vintage S&As stayed with the RSRMs throughout the lifespan of the Shuttle. Last I knew, they were also in use on the five-segment boosters to be used on the “next generation” Space Launch System.” So *if* the SLS gets built (doubtful) and flies for decades (doubtful), the relatively ancient Minuteman S&As will probably fly with them throughout the SLS’s lifespan. If SLS flies in 2020 and lasts 20 years, the Minuteman S&A will have an 80 year operational life. Of course, by the time the SLS is retired, the Minuteman ICBM itself might still be in service.

Revell: vote on models

aircraft, art, Hmm..., models, new products, news, science fiction, spacecraft 6 Responses »

May 292014

The Revell plastic model kit company is soliciting ideas for new models they’ll produce. You can vote and submit new ideas here:

http://ideas.revell.de/ideas/

Some of the ideas include (remember, these are just suggestions from the peanut gallery, and Revell is under no compulsion to actually produce them… however, higher vote counts just might help):

2001 – Discovery 1

ESA Hermes shuttle

X-303 Prometheus 1 :350

1/1400 BC-304 Daedalus

Lunar Module 32^nd Scale

32^nd Scale Gemini Space Capsule

U.S.S. Grissom Oberth Class starship

2001 : Boeing Aries IB

NASA & USAF Lifting Bodies

Hubble Telescope 1 :72

1 :32 Apollo CSM Block 2 Columbia

1/144 Skylab and Salyut Space Stations

1/48 Space Shuttle Orbiter

Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne 1/72

Lockkheed AH-56 Cheyenne 1/48

Douglas XA2D-1 Skyshark

Lockheed A-12 1/144

T-4 ‘Sotka’ 1/144

1 :48 Bell YFM-1 Airacuda

1/32 A-10 C ‘Warthog’

Lockheed A-12 / M-21 & D-21 1 :48

North American AJ Savage 1/72^nd scale

Firefox

DC-1

books, history, Hmm..., nukes, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons 3 Responses »

May 022014

Because Nobody Demanded It, here is a to-scale representation of the DC-1 SSTO with the MOL, the Zenith Star laser testbed and the operational SBL.

This is, of course, in support of my proposed book on the Strategic Defense Initiative. It would include:

Launch systems: Delta Clipper; Millenium Express; Platypus; Zenith Star Launch System; Barbarian; Shuttle-C; NASP

Space-Based weapons: Zenith Star; operational Space Based Laser; Neutral Particle Beam; Saggitar Railgun; X-Ray Laser; Brilliant Pebbles; Space Cruiser

Terrestrial systems: F-15-ASAT; HEDI; ERINT; land-mobile MX; air-mobile MX; Midgetman/HML; Airborne Laser

I *know* I’ve missed a few. Feel free to fill in the blanks.

Book ideas

blather, books, drawings, history, Hmm..., My Fiction, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, weapons 3 Responses »

Apr 162014

A while back I sold limited editions of some 11X17 drawing-package booklets (of the BoMi, BWB, X-20 Dyna Soar and nuclear pulse propelled starship concepts). Based on comments that have come in from a few of the buyers (see: http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=23871), they seem to have been well received. While these particular books are now done, it got me thinking about a few possible future works:

1) “A Guide To American Nuclear Explosive Devices.” Finally, an idea for what to do with the diagrams of the nuclear bombs I’ve created (see HERE). The book would feature full-page scale diagrams of every American nuclear bomb (including RV’s) that I can reliably create. The following page would contain all the particulars know for the bomb… weight, yield, dates in service, that sort of thing. Plus, a standard illustration/graph/chart showing the damage effects for ground bursts and air bursts, probably at a common altitude.

2) “A Guide to the Strategic Defense Initiative.” This would would be more like sci-fi. By assuming the trope of an alternate history, I can present diagrams of things that I cannot, in reality, present *reliably* *accurate* diagrams of. Things such as the Brilliant Pebbles, the Saggitar orbital railgun, the Zenith Star test laser, the larger planned operational space-based laser, the larger still “Phaser” phased array laser, neutral particle beam weapons, etc. have the problem of only being known from concept art and diagrams of disappointing quality, so my own diagrams would be highly speculative. But in a fictional setting… shrug. Also included would be SDI launch systems such as the ZSLS, the McD “Barbarian,” Shuttle-C and the General Dynamics (“Millenium Express”), McDonnell Douglas (“Delta Clipper”) and Rockwell (“Platypus”) SSTO concepts from 1991. These last three I can at least present quite reliable diagrams of.

These would each be some ways down the line. I *really* need to finish up the Space Station V book first; the nukes books needs one to two research trips, and the SDI book needs a whole lot of drafting, including 3D modeling.

Martin SSTO Art

art, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft 2 Responses »

Apr 102014

Around the time NASA was studying the likes of space colonies and solar power satellites in the 1970’s, it was also commissioning studies of advanced launch vehicles which would be cheaper than the Shuttle (which as yet had not launched nor proven to be as massively expensive as it would turn out to be). One such design was a single stage to orbit vehicle designed by Martin Marietta. Similar to the Shuttle Orbiter in configuration, it was comparatively very fat due to being stuffed full of liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen. Diagrams have been floating around of this thing and are readily accessed; less rarely seen is color artwork of it.

Shazam:

Microgravity: Stop doing that or you’ll go blind

AARRRGH, blather, Hmm..., news, spacecraft 16 Responses »

Apr 082014

Possible Mars Mission ‘Showstopper’: Vision Risks for Astronauts

Postflight examinations performed on about 300 American astronauts since 1989 showed that 29 percent of space shuttle crewmembers (who flew two-week missions) and 60 percent of International Space Station astronauts (who typically spend five or six months in orbit) experienced a degradation of visual acuity, according to a report published this year by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

The cause of this, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t radiation, but an increase in pressure in the skull. Because rather than being pulled downward out of the skull, blood tends to flow upwards in microgravity. This would increase pressure on the brain, the eyes and the optic nerves.

Thus: a *proper* space station should have artificial gravity, not enforced 24/7 microgravity for months on end. A 29% chance of having your eyesight degraded might well be more of a turnoff for bajillionaires wanting to visit a space hotel than, say, a 0.5% chance of being blown up by the launch vehicle; therefore a space hotel with various levels (achievable by simply stacking Transhab modules into a long cylinder and “tumbling” it) would be an obvious way to go. Such a facility would allow *direct* measurements and comparisons of effects of various gravity levels. Does this eyesight degradation issue rise linearly as G’s drop? Does it suddenly pop up at 1/10 G? Does it get better or worse if someone is regularly transitioned from 0 G to 1/6 G and back? These are the sort of things that could be quickly and relatively cheaply tested for.

Syfy to return to actual Sci Fi??

art, blather, Hmm..., news, science fiction, spacecraft 15 Responses »

Mar 132014

Syfy’s Plan: More Space Operas, Less ‘Sharknado’

New Series coming along that promises… spaceships! It seems there has been a re-ordering of the brass at Syfy, with some new people that understand that the audience actually might *want* some quality space opera. Syfy is cutting back on the vast steaming pile of low budget “Megashark vs. UberTedKennedy” movies, and has signed off on the new miniseries “Ascension:”

Ascension takes place on a century-long space shuttle journey, where hundreds of men, women and children left Earth behind at the start of the Cold War. Nearly 50 years after their covert 1963 mission launched with the intention of colonizing a new world…

That’ll take some ‘splainin’. An Orion vessel, perhaps?

It’ll be nice to see some actual science fiction on Syfy again. All they have on now are fantasy crap, supernatural crap, Helix (which I’ve grown bored with) and… I dunno. Some other crap. Defiance was good, but it’s one 0f those series that lets whole geological epochs pass between seasons… it’s months before the next season starts and I’ve long since forgotten the first season.

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