A painting from an old issue of “Lockheed horizons” depicts a STAR Clipper 1.5-stage-to-orbit early Space Shuttle design lifting off from a desert launch facility (probably White Sands or Vandenberg).
Much, much more on the STAR Clipper can be found in issue V3N2 of Aerospace Projects Review.
Here’s an Excel spreadsheet with all the design bits I gleaned from “Footfall,” covering the Message Bearer, the digit ships, the Michael, stovepipes and Shuttles. Not a lot of specifics, and a fair number of contradictions. The genius of it, though, is that basically every description of a ship comes through the eyes or words of a character… which means that they could be wrong, and certainly cannot be assumed to be accurate.
One contradiction: on page 44 (of my first-edition hardback, your mileage may vary), the President says that the Message Bearer is “well over a mile in length,” but on page 46, the exact same speech quotes “perhaps a mile in length.”
One might question why I’m bothering with all this. After all, “Footfall” will be only a fraction of the chapter on “Nuclear Pulse in Popular Culture,” which will be one of the shorter chapters. And the Michael suffers from not having any mathematical basis, nor a good idea of just what it looks like (while the Messiah from “Deep Impact” is shown in detail, and the Orion from “Orion Shall Rise” was sketched for me by the author, Poul Anderson). But here’s the thing: I am, at the core, a design engineer. Sadly, I don’t get paid to do design engineering these days – even what I *was* paid to be a design engineer, I rarely got to actually do it. Paperwork. Accounting. Corporate rubbish. Feh. So… here we have something of a design challenge: a nuclear pulse propelled space battleship of extraordinary size and power. There’s no such thing as an aerospace design engineer who wouldn’t give his left arm for the chance to design a space battleship. The vague description of the Michael simply forms the design limits.
Of course, if Niven and/or Pournelle were to pop up with some more detailed specs or sketches, that would be great. Barring that, I’ll do the best I can with what I’ve got, and will post progress from time to time.
3AM Friday morning I finished re-reading “Footfall.” Every reference relevant to working out the alien mother ship, the secondary vessels, the Michael and its secondary vessels has been located and marked. I will type them all up and post ’em shortly, preferably when it’s a less insane hour.
Pretty much as I expected and vaguely recalled from memory, things are described almost not at all. The Michael has gun turrets, plural… but it doesn’t say how many. A reference to “turret five.” It has the “big guns” from the USS New Jersey… but it *doesn’t” say that it has the *turrets* from the New Jersey.
According to the aliens, it’s twice as long as it is wide. Twice it’s referred to as being approximately “twice eight-cubed time (5.8 feet)” in size, which is an insanely and unrealistically large 5,939 feet. If we can assume that this is a mis-statement of “twice 8-squared times (5.8 feet), then that’s 742 feet… gigantic, but actually about the size implied. “Massive as any freighter.” I hate assuming that the author had a character mis-speak a fact, though, especially when they do it twice. But I really got nuthin’ else here.
The “Stovepipes” are gunships made from naval guns fitted with autoloaders, cockpits, nuclear shells and propulsion systems. I’ve long assumed they were 16-inch guns, but nothing supports that. Probably 5-inch naval guns. Reference to “Stovepipe 8,” so at least that many. Length given as five times (5.8 feet), so 29 feet. Not much room if these are 16-inchers, but they have to have a substantial propulsion system to perform as described (at least 5 km/sec delta V, plus buckets of acceleration). Other than four Shuttles, no other type of secondary manned craft was described. Missile launchers are mentioned, and described as fitted by Army, not Navy. Modified MLRS? Not sure what else the Army would have here.
Some books… selling them for $5.00 (plus postage) each. First come, first served… and by this I mean “first to comment, first to get ‘em.” To comment, click on the post title above (“Buy It Now: Pulp!”) and let me know which set(s) you want. US orders will ship via media mail unless other arrangements are made. Paypal prefered.
1) Ira Levin, “The Stepford Wives.” 1972, first edition with dust jacket. In really good condition.
2) Arthur Hailey, “Airport.” 1968, first edition with dust jacket. The jacket is a little rough, but the rest of the book is in really good condition.
3) E. M. Nathanson, “The Dirty Dozen.” 1965, first edition. No dust jacket. Book is in fairly good condition.
4) Payne Harrison, “Storming Intrepid.” 1989, first edition with dust jacket and plastic cover. Former Dugway Proving Ground Library book. Some library stamps and such, but otherwise virtually mint… looks like it was never checked out. I read this about two decades ago, and I recall it being substantially awesome. The Soviets steal a space shuttle; spies, armed spaceplanes and B-2 bombers laying waste. Woo!
5) A. Meritt, “The Metal Monster.” Hyperion press, 1974 paperback.
6) Garrett P. Serviss, “A Columbus of Space.” Hyperion press, 1974 paperback.
7) Harold Lamb, “Marching Sands.” Hyperion press, 1974.
The last three are quality reprints of early (1890s to 1940s) sci-fi yarns.
From a NASA presentation from November of 2011, some simple concept art of a number of the launch vehicles pondered for the SLS. I’m a bit out of the loop these days, but I’ve heard from several people working at NASA that there is very little faith there that the SLS will actually be built. Not that it’s technically very difficult, but that there’s simply no political will for such a vehicle. There is no current (or foreseen) program that would require this kind of lift capability… no manned moon, Mars, asteroid or new space station programs, so there’d be no political drive to build the launcher. And since there’s no launcher of this size… there’s no political will to have a manned moon, Mars, asteroid or space station program. Neat, huh?
I’m informed that those at NASA who are working on SLS are basically working under bureaucratic inertia. Congress mandated that NASA build the SLS, so NASA started studies; but Congress is flaky.
Another chart shows the baseline SLS compared to other launchers. Interestingly for a NASA chart, shown alongside such staples as the Shuttle and the Saturn V are things like the SpaceX Falcon series, the XCOR Lynx and the Masten XA-1.0.
And because why the hell not, it’s relevant…
In my own experience, stress calculations would have been a whopping improvement over *accounting,* which I got stuck doing for over a year. Gaaaaagggggghhhhh.
A NASA illustration of the NERVA nuclear rocket, dated December 1963. Near the top of the engine are two vernier rocket nozzles for thrust vector control.
If NERVA is a subject of interest to you, I have scheduled a trip to Washington D.C the last week of March for the express purpose of spending an entire business week in a NASA archive doing scanning and photocopying and photoing of as much as I can, starting with NERVA, moving to SPS and then to early shuttle concepts. I’ve visited this archive before, always for no more than a day, and that was only enough to show me that they had a lot, not enough to let me actually copy what they had. This time will be different. To help me pay for the trip (travel is *not* cheap these days), I am taking subscriptions or investors or whatever you want to call it. If you give me $100, when I return I will send you DVDs that will include all scans, and scans of all photocopies, and all photos taken at the archive. This offer is good up to the time I leave; once the trip is underway, it will be closed. If interested, either comment here or send me an email: scottlowtherAT up-ship.com/blog
A high-rez of this image can be downloaded HERE.
Another CAD model I’ve been tinkering with is a Convair “Triamese” space shuttle concept. If it were to be turned into a kit, the parts would include the wings either retracted or deployed… due to the difficulty in making the numerous little hinged doors actually work in practice, making a truly VG model would be impractical.
Aerospace Projects Review has been re-working and re-releasing the original run of issues in order… until now. Just finished and uploaded is an issue that might not be expected… issue V0N0. Prior to publishing the first issue of Aerospace Projects Review, I put together issue V0N0, a short prototype issue that I released for free to see if people liked it and if it would be worth continuing with. There was much that could have been improved about that issue… and it has been improved. Issue eV0N0 is now greatly expanded to 56 pages… small by modern APR standards, but a massive increase compared to the original. The original articles have been greatly expanded, and all-new articles have been added.
Preview the issue here:
The table of contents for eV0N0:
The Drawbridge and the Pancake: One of the more unusual Space Shuttle configurations
Northrop N-31 Flying Wing Bomber: A series of turboprop-powered bomber designs
Martin XB-68: A supersonic tactical bomber concept
Aerospace History Nugget: Mach 6.0 SST: Three fuselages for the price of one
Kaiser Tailless Airplane: A flying wing cargo carrier
Boeing VTOL Intercity Transport: A jetliner that can land on your office building
Boeing Transport-To-Space: The spaceplane that needs to be assembled in space
Aerospace History Nugget: Curtis High-Speed Fighter Concepts: Hypothetical fighters designed for maximum speed
Aerospace History Nugget: Convair VTOL Tailsitter: An early VTOL jet fighter capable of supersonic speeds
It is available in three formats. Firstly, it can be downloaded directly from me for the low, low price of $6.50. Second, it can be purchased as a professionally printed volume through Magcloud; third, it can be procured in both formats. To get the download, simply pay for it here through Paypal.
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To get the printed version (or print + PDF version), visit my MagCloud page:
I have some remarkably good diagrams of early-program NERVA nuclear rocket designs (first half of the 1960’s), but the later, more refined designs remain a bit unavailable. (I know an archive that has several linear feet of NERVA stuff… anyone want to fund an expedition for me?) Here is an Aerojet diagram for a 75,000 lb-thrust NERVA from 1968. Compare to THIS design from 1962…
Minor update: I made an offhand mention above of getting funding for a research expedition. I’ve gotten a few responses to this, both in comments and email. So… who might be seriously interested? If I could get at least ten people to commit to pitch in $100, I’d get the process underway. The archive has several linear feet of NERVA stuff, several linear feet of Solar Power Satellite stuff, and a whole bunch of boxes of Space Shuttle development stuff (ILRV, Phase A, etc.). Ideally, I’d spend about a weeks there, scanning and photocopying. Investors would get DVDs containing scans of everything I get… excepting, of course, that non-US investors wouldn’t get any ITAR-marked stuff.
Boeing is unsurprisingly interested in expanding the utilization of their X-37 program. One concept that has been studied is the X-37C, which is a 165% scaleup of the X-37B designed for cargo and passenger transport to and from the ISS. It would be launched as a payload atop something like the Lockheed Martin Atlas V.
As a passenger transport, it could carry up to seven crewmembers. This would make it an adequate replacement for the Space Shuttle which could, in theory, transport fifty or more (using a payload bay passenger module) but never carried more than 7. As a cargo carrier, it would be of minimal value; the Atlas V launch vehicle could transport a far larger payload sans X-37C.
