space shuttle – Page 4 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

Aug 212020

July 2020 Rewards now available

hi-rez, hypersonic, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Jul 312020

Rewards have just been posted for APR Patrons/Monthly Historical Documents Program subscribers. Included this time:

1) An early (1969) NASA study of possible Space Shuttle configurations

2) A 1991 Strategic Defense Initiative Office presentation/transcript on the SDI program

3) A good, clear general arrangement diagram of the North American F-107

4) A CAD diagram of the late 1950’s Convair “Landing boat” that often appeared in presentations (art and models) from Krafft Ehricke

If you are a paid-up Patron/Subscriber, you should by now have received a message with a link to your rewards. If you haven’t, let me know.

10-passenger shuttle: 1964

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

Jul 142020

In 1963-64, NASA was looking forward to a very bright future. Moon landings within a handful of years, a serious space station or two in the early seventies, manned missions to the vicinity of Mars and/or Venus probably by the early eighties, manned Mars landings not long after. Moon bases, Mars based, nuclear rockets, missions to the asteroids and the moons of Jupiter… in 1964, the rest of the 20th century must’ve looked *fantastic.*

In order to pull all that off, it was clear that NASA would need to launch a *lot* of astronauts. Consequently, a request for proposals went out to the aerospace industry to design the capability to do just that. Boeing, North American, Martin, Lockheed… a great deal of interest was shown and work accomplished. One design produced is illustrated below, a Lockheed design for a two-stage fully reusable spaceplane capable of transporting ten tons of payload or ten passengers to an orbiting space station. The booster stage had a cockpit about where you’d expect; the spaceplane, conversely, had an offset spaceplane so that the crew would have *some* sort of forward view during landing. Both stages used advanced rocket engines; the first stage also had turbojets to get it back to the launch site. As with all pre-Shuttle designs, estimates of turnaround time and minimal launch cost are impressive and a bit depressing in just how fabulously optimistic they were.

An earlier three-stage concept was shown in US Launcher Projects #5.

The future looked bright. And then… LBJ.

DC-3 orbiter

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

Jul 012020

The orbiter for the “DC-3” referenced previously. This vehicle had relatively small wings, leading to quite low crossrange. The wings were also simple straight wings, not highly swept deltas; the vehicle could get away with this because it did not “glide” during re-entry, but “belly flopped.” To aid in crossrange and landing, each wing would have a single turbofan in a sealed pod. The payload bay is not shown here, but would be quite small and right behind the cockpit.

MX-2276 BoMi

bomber, Dyna Soar, hypersonic, launch vehicles, nukes, Recon, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Jun 262020

Before the Convair Atlas ICBM proved that it was possible for a rocket to reach out across the world and deposit some canned sunlight reliably close to commie targets, it was understood that the only way to accomplish the task was with pilots and bombardiers. But by the mid 1950’s the idea of subsonic manned bombers sneaking into the heart of the Soviet Union without getting swatted was starting to seem nonsensical. So Bell Aircraft, under the direction of former V-2 program director Walter Dornberger, dreamed up the MX-2276: a three-stage manned rocket bomber. Looking akin to an evolved Sanger Antipodal Bomber, the MX-2276 used two manned and winged stages, with an unmanned expendable stage in between. The final stage would carry a single gliding nuclear warhead deep into the USSR, using the human crew to attain some measure of accuracy.

But then the Atlas came along and ruined all that.

The idea persisted, however, turning first into the Bomber Missile (BoMi) then the Rocket Bomber (RoBo) then Dyna Soar. With each step it became less fantastical, and also less of a dedicated weapon system; by the end of the Dyna Soar, it was a one-man experimental re-entry vehicle launched by a fully expendable Titan IIIC. Since then the idea of a “rocket bomber” has popped up from time to time, but never with the level of seriousness displayed in the mid/late 1950’s. For more on the whole BoMi program, see Aerospace projects Review issues V2N2, V2N3 and V2N4. APR issue V3N4 gives a pretty complete rundown of the final Model 2050E Dyna Soar.

DC-3 launch stack

hypersonic, launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane 2 Responses »

Jun 102020

In 1969, Maxime Faget of NASA-Manned Spacecraft Center (later renamed Johnson Space Center) produced a concept for a simplified version of the Space Shuttles then being designed. The idea at the time was that the Shuttle would be a two-stage vehicle, both being fully reusable manned flyback vehicles. The Orbiter would be much larger than the Orbiter that actually got built because it included substantial hydrogen/oxygen tankage. The boosters were generally *vast* vehicles larger than the C-5 Galaxy meant to fly higher and faster than the X-15. Optimistic to be sure. Faget’s “DC-3” design had the same basic architecture but attempted to produce a smaller, cheaper, less complex and more realistic design. The design, produced in-house at NASA, was picked up by both North American and McDonnell Douglas, who designed their own variations on the theme.

Here is the basic configuration of the NASA-MSC “DC-3:”

Dyna Soar launcher options

Dyna Soar, hypersonic, launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Jun 082020

A photo montage of Boeing display models showing a range of launch vehicles intended to put the early (1959) Dyna Soar into orbit. The three at left are clusters of Minuteman ICBM boosters; the next two are larger solid rocket motor clusters. The next is a Saturn I booster, followed by an all-new recoverable liquid rocket booster, the Titan II and the Atlas/Centaur. The Titan II design was chosen, though it could not actually get the Dyna Soar into a true orbit. To do that, solid rocket boosters needed to be strapped to the sides of the Titan II… leading to the creation of the Titan III.

North American Rocket Transport

hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports No Responses »

Apr 242020

In 1965 North American Aviation produced a study for NASA about reusable space launch vehicles to support forthcoming expected space stations. Included within that study was an alternate use of rocket vehicles… point-to-point hypersonic commercial passenger transportation. This concept goes back to the late 1940’s and has continued to the present day, with the Elon Musk suggesting that the SpaceX Starship could be used for that purpose. The idea is interesting and it certainly *could* work. But could it be commercially cost effective? History with craft such as the Concorde and the Shuttle argue strongly against an early vehicle like this doing anything but losing truckloads of cash every time it launches.

Martin Dyna Soar Evolution

bomber, Dyna Soar, hypersonic, nukes, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Apr 102020

From April 1959. Boeing won the competition to build the Dyna Soar with a desing that looked a lot *unlike* the Dyna Soar they actually started building; ironically, Martins design from December 1958 (working with Bell Aircraft) was far closer to the final Dyna Soar in configuration.

Apr 052020

Once again Patreon seems to be becoming unstable. So I’ve got an alternate: The APR Monthly Historical Documents Program

For some years I have been operating the “Aerospace Projects Review Patreon” which provides monthly rewards in the form of high resolution scans of vintage aerospace diagrams, art and documents. This has worked pretty well, but it seems that perhaps some people might prefer to sign on more directly. Fortunately, PayPal provides the option not only for one-time purchases but also monthly subscriptions. By subscribing using the drop-down menu below, you will receive the same benefits as APR Patrons, but without going through Patreon itself.

Older Entries Newer Entries