Planning for the future in space: 1963

launch vehicles, rockets, space station, spacecraft 1 Response »

May 302022

Pages from a Convair report on Post-Nova launch vehicles, 1963. This was for a contract to NASA-Marshall, and explains what the future of space launches looked like from this golden age, before Viet Nam and especially the “Great Society” program spending brought NASAs budget and its dreams of an actual future post-Apollo crashing down.

This particular report does not have the authors listed… but other related reports do. This has Krafft Ehricke all over it. It’s the sort of space optimism that he excelled at, and that a better world would have gotten.

Three models are examined… Conservative, Intermediate and Ambitious. Even the Conservative model has manned missions to Jupiter before 2000 (the thinking behind “2001” was not so far off… for the time), while the Ambitious model has long term Jovian bases by 1996 (followed by annual supply flights), manned missions to Titan bases by 1999 or so and manned flybys of Uranus and Neptune by the early/mid 1990s. A permanently manned Mars base by 1987 or so.

Instead we got… hmmm. What’d we get?

Along the same lines, two charts shown by Ehricke a few years later, showing what the future of spaceflight held:

The likes of Ehricke had a much higher opinion of Mankind than history has borne out.

If this sort of thing has been interesting, why not subscribe to the or the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. ? Or just hit the tip jar?

Do it.

DO IT.

HOTOL

hypersonic, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Apr 272022

HOTOL was a 1980’s/90’s British Aerospace idea for an airbreathing SSTO spaceplane. As with all such designs to date, it came equipped with a heavy load of optimism; physics, however, does not care about your sunny worldview, and like all other airbreathing SSTOs to date, the design simply could not be made to work with existing materials, propulsion systems, politics and economics.

March 2022 APR Rewards

hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Recon, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 312022

I’ve just made the March 2022 rewards available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:

Art: A poster of the 1990’s German Sanger II two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane

Document: Bell-Boeing “Pointer” brochure… full color brochure describing the proposed tiltrotor UAV

Document: Cessna EV-37E STOL: 1964 presentation on battlefield recon/surveillance version of the T-37

Document: History of the Juno Cluster System: conference paper on the early satellite launching system

CAD diagram: work-in-progress layout of the Aerocon Wingship. General arrangement diagram with brief description of how much trouble I have to go through sometimes…

If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.

December, January, February APR rewards

bomber, fighter, hi-rez, jetliner, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports No Responses »

Mar 052022

Yeesh, I am *terrible* at advertising. Just realized I missed reporting on *several* months worth of rewards packages for APR patrons and Monthly Historical Documents program subscribers.

December 2021 rewards:

Document: “B-52G Advanced Configuration Mockup inspection,” Boeing presentation on the design of the then-new B-52G configuration

Document: “Performance Potential Hydrogen Fueled, Airbreathing Cruise Aircraft, Final report, Volume I, Summary” 1966 Convair report on hydrogen fueled hypersonic jetliners

Document: “Integral Launch and Reentry Logistics System” late-60’s Space Division of North American Rockwell presentation on very early Space Shuttle-type systems

Art: Large format McDonnell Douglas DC-10 cutaway

CAD Diagram: Convair MA-1 pod for B-58

January 2022 rewards:

Document: “The Configuration of the European Spaceplane Hermes,” 1990 conference paper on the unbuilt French spaceplane

Document: “Space Rescue Charts,” 1965 USAF presentation charts describing space “life rafts” and shelters

Document: Two nuclear-powered car brochures… Ford “Gyron” and Ford “Seattle-ite XXI”

Diagram: “AGM28 Hound Dog Missile,” North American Aviation informational graphic

CAD Diagram: Boeing MX-1965 missile

February 2022 Rewards:

Diagram: Boeing 720-022 model diagram, United Airlines configuration

Document: Aerojet Ordnance Company brochure, describes aircraft ammo

Document: “The Nova (Liquid) Vehicle a Preliminary Project Development Plan,” October 1961 NASA-MSFC report on facilities planning for the “Saturn C-8” configuration of the Nova vehicle

Document: “Ground Handling Equipment and Procedures for a X-15 Research Aircraft Project 1226,” 1955 North American Aviation report on the early B-36-launched design for the X-15

CAD Diagram: F-111 Escape capsule

“Designs for Space”

launch vehicles, rockets, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Feb 272022

An early/mid 1960’s NASA film about the design of the Apollo hardware. Includes simple schematics of both Direct mission hardware as well as Lunar Orbit Rendezvous hardware; also visible are more detailed diagrams of Apollo and Apollo-derived designs.

Chemo-nuclear TSTO

launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft No Responses »

Feb 222022

A Douglas concept from 1963 for a large space booster that was to use both chemical and nuclear engines. The first stage was to have chemical engines; when the booster reached sufficient altitude, it would stage off and a purely nuclear stage would deliver a one million pound payload to low Earth orbit (in this case, a million pounds of liquid hydrogen for a large interplanetary spacecraft). both stages would be recovered for re-use.

*Somewhere* I have a paper that describes this at least a little bit, with a minimal diagram…

“The World of 1971”

hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft, transports No Responses »

Feb 162022

In March of 1961, “Space World” magazine published a few articles about what the future would look like thanks to the onrushing new technologies of the space age. It is… well, it’s wrong.

The article is jam-packed with predictions of a glorious technological and economic future to be brought about by the Space Age. And from the standpoint of 1961, it probably made sense: technology was advancing by leaps and bounds, the budget for NASA was beginning to explode, overall space and related science spending by both government and industry were shooting upwards. It *should* have been a glorious new age. But the experts did not count on a few things. Viet Nam, for example and, worse, LBJs “Great Society” economic and social suppression/dystopia promotion programs.

Some of the predictions for 1971:

1) The “Space Industry” would be the biggest industry in America

2) The “middle class” would be working high-paying skilled jobs and would make up 80% of the population

3) Skyscrapers would dwarf the Empire State Building, using girders made from beryllium, tantalum and niobium

4) Tape recorders would be the size of a cigarette

5) You could easily send a fax from, say, New York to Australia. You’d scan the page, beam it up to a satellite passing overhead, the satellite would store the scan and, when it some time later passed over Australia, the fax would be beamed down. That’s… not how international satellite communications works, but OK.

6) There’d be cities in Antarctica

7) There’d be regular, routine and affordable suborbital rocket passenger transport. Such as from Antarctica to New York, several flights a day.

Amusingly, these predictions are considered likely to be too conservative; people would look back to the predictions and “wonder why the prophets of 1961 were so shortsighted.”

“Today it is rocket time, and the coming decade will carry us all into the Age of Astronautics.”

They could not have known that their glorious future would only last a small handful of years. By 1968, the Apollo program was already terminated, with no follow-on. And the maximum spending for NASA occurred only in 65-66 or so, peaking at about 4% of the federal budget. Imagine if the upward trend had continued to, say, 1970. Perhaps 6, maybe 8% of the federal budget. What a world it could have been.

Awww. I gave myself a sad.

Sigh.

The full-rez scan of the article has been uploaded to the 2022-02 APR Extras folder on Dropbox. This is available to all $4 and up Patrons and Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

Crowdfund: Shuttle II stuff: Success

hi-rez, launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft 2 Responses »

Feb 082022

The package of Shuttle II stuff (actually, “Shuttle Evolved”) arrived today and has been scanned and uploaded to Dropbox (some 350 megabytes). Enough funders came on board to drop the per-funder price to a mere $13. The artwork was particularly nice; it was scanned in at 600 dpi and provided both as-scanned, and with some process to de-age and brighten the art. The documents have been turned into PDFs, as well as providing the raw scans.

The collection of stuff was expensive, but crowdfunding it made it inexpensive for everyone. If you see anything on ebay or elsewhere that might benefit from such an approach, don’t hesitate to point it out.

Funders who have paid the $13 should have received a Dropbox notification about the uploads providing access to the files.

Crowdfund: Shuttle II stuff

hi-rez, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Feb 022022

So a lot of “Shuttle II” stuff appeared on eBay for an exorbitant price. I’m becoming increasingly leery of plunking down excessive sums for this sort of thing… not only due to my own finances and the onrushing economic meltdown, but because doing so incentivizes sellers to slap even more exorbitant prices on things. But, I put this lot before my APR patrons/subscribers as a potential crowdfunding opportunity, and enough signed on that I went ahead and purchased the lot. It should arrive early next week.

As with all my APR crowdfunds, the cost of the item is split evenly among the funders; the more funders, the lower the price per person. Each funder will receive a complete set of high-rez (300 DPI, full color… higher rez if called for) scans of the items. Typically these crowdfunded items then get sent on to appropriate archive, library or museum, though this time I’m not quite sure where they should go.

If you would be interested in signing on, send me an email . There are currently enough funders that the per-funder price is ~~~$24~~ under $14; the more sign on, the lower it’ll get. If you have a price limit noticeably lower than ~~$24~~ $14, let me know in your email. This will remain open until the stuff arrives, presumably early next week. At that point it’ll be closed and the price set.

Additionally: the box shown below, loaded with blueprints/diagrams, is somewhere in the system headed my way. It was procured sight unseen; I have high hopes. This sort of thing is made possible by the APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers. If you want to help preserve aerospace history and get in on these goodies, please consider subscribing.

This seems familiar

future projects, hypersonic, launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane 1 Response »

Jan 192022

Radian announces plans to build one of the holy grails of spaceflight

The “holy grail” in this case is an SSTO spaceplane. It is to *not* incorporate airbreathing or wacky unproven technologies; instead, it is to use fairly conventional liquid propellant rocket engines in the tail of a cranked-delta spaceplane. To lob it off the ground, it will use a powered sled for a horizontal runway launch.

Ehh.

Same basic concept as the Sanger Silverbird of 1944 vintage, or the Boeing “Windjammer” and RASV concepts from the 70’s. If they can get the mass ratio to work… sure, it’s possible. They’re claiming a 48-hour turnaround. Uh-huh. I’ll believe it when I see it. I wish them the best, but I’ve seen far too many such press releases since the 90’s to get all excited.

A few patent applications that might be of interest:

“Earth to Orbit Transportation System”

“Rocket propulsion systems and associated methods”

The not terribly enlightening website is here:

https://www.radianaerospace.com/

Curiously, one of the names attached to both patent applications that might be of interest to readers of this blog is Gary Hudson, of the Phoenix SSTO, Air Launch and Roton fame. But he doesn’t seem to be listed on the website.

Older Entries Newer Entries