nukes – Page 18 – Aerospace Projects Review Blog

Asteroid mining crew transport

nukes, rockets, spacecraft, transports 16 Responses »

Apr 032015

Every now and then you stumble across something that provides tantalizing yet nonchalant hints to something amazing. Recently this occurred while perusing a Boeing report on closed life support systems for spacecraft. One concept mentioned and minimally described was a previous 1981 study of a spacecraft meant to transport crew to the asteroid belt for the purpose of mining asteroids for their resources. Just the basic concept was fairly amazing on its own, especially all the way back in 1981. Second: the propulsion system was vaguely described as a nuclear fusion system. Third: well, here’s the disappointingly small diagram that was included for illustration purposes. See if you can see what makes the design especially interesting…

What can be seen: three arms that rotate for artificial gravity; three vast radiator fins and a relatively tiny fusion engine in the tail. But what makes the design amazing: just in front of the spacecraft is a Space Shuttle Orbiter, giving a sense of scale to the vehicle. It’s *vast.* And it would have to be… the cargo transported to the asteroid was 150 metric tons. Plus the passengers, all 1,250 of them. All ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY of them.

The vehicle massed 10,000 tons; the powerplant (two 6 GW fusion reactors, spitting out 4.8 GW of thrust power, 2.8 GW of heat needing radiating and 4.4 GW of high energy neutron) massed 2000 tons; 4000 tons of hydrogen fuel; and 4000 tons of spacecraft/payload/passengers. The vehicle would boost for 11 days, coast for 226 days and brake for 13 days to rendezvous.

That, sadly, is all that’s available in the report I have. A FOIA request has been made for the reference that *seems* like might describe this further.

I hope to be able to define this vehicle further. As it is I can only guesstimate sizes; the habitation modules at the ends of the arms appear to be repurposed Shuttle External Tanks. But even nine of them would seem to be kinda cramped for 1250 people for two-thirds of a year… nearly 140 passengers per tank.

At last: decent microfilm/fiche scanning

hi-rez, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft No Responses »

Mar 282015

I’ve had a stack of fiche and a number of rolls of microfilms sitting around doing nothing for a decade and more due to a lack of ability to get good images off ’em. Every scanner I came across out in the wild would only do two-bit black-and-white scans, which turned the already dubious image quality into useless mush; efforts to capture the images via photography were roughly equally useless. Fortunately, at long last, I found that the University library up in Logan has microform scanners that do proper grayscale. So today I blew a number of hours digging through some old periodicals (“Space World”) and making scans. At last I can get half-ass decent copies of a whole bunch of German V-2 diagrams, among other things.

The image quality still kinda blows compared to good scans taken directly off the documents, but this is about as good as it’ll get for microfiche.

Mar 272015

I have made some adjustments to the Aerospace Projects Review Patreon campaign. The first is that I’ve reduced the number of rewards levels, which I was informed was previously Too Many. More importantly, I have added some new rewards: if you become a patron at $5 or more per month, you receive 10% off all future purchases of APR, US Aerospace Projects and downloadable Documents and Drawings. If you become a patron at $10 per month, you will receive 20% off any such purchases. Check of the APR Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=197906

Additionally, the campaign has reached the point where the rewards are now *three* aerospace documents, one high-rez historical diagram and one all-new CAD diagram per month. This is in addition to the random “Extras” I throw in for $4 and up patrons. The most recent extra is a full-rez restoration of a three-view diagram of a 1978 McDonnell-Douglas concept for modifying Skylab to be serviced by the Space Shuttle. You can see a smaller-rez version of that here: http://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/?p=2153

If you sign up now you will get the latest rewards which include:

A Bell Aircraft presentation on the SR-126 Bomber Missile, a manned ICBM predecessor of the Dyna Soar
A Lockheed paper on the history of the Polaris to Trident Fleet Ballistic Missile
A large poster illustrating the missiles and rockets of the Orbital Sciences Corporation
An all-new CAD diagram detailing the 10-meter Orion nuclear pulse propulsion vehicle designed by General Atomic for the USAF

Atoms for Peace Dirigible

nukes, Patreon No Responses »

Jan 182015

I’ve made available to all APR Patreon patrons full-rez scan of of an article from Mechanix Illustrated, March, 1956. “Why Don’t We Build an Atom-For-Peace” was written and illustrated by Frank Tinsley and is, to say the least, kinda technologically optimistic. But it demonstrated a difference in psychology between then and now… sixty years ago, thinking this kind of big was not seen as crazy as it would be today.

If this is of interest, please consider signing up to become a patron. For a pittance per month, you get all kinds of aerospace history goodies.

Saturn I with nuclear upper stage

launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft 1 Response »

Jan 092015

This is one of the more unlikely-looking launch vehicle designs I’ve seen… a 1961 Saturn I first stage with an S-IV second stage and a nuclear upper stage. In and of itself that’s not that unusual… but the upper stage is *really* long and thin and appears to be devoid of a recognizable payload. The result, if it managed to survive launch and bending forces, is that at burnout it would be accelerating *really* hard.

However, the great probability here is that this was not an actual serious engineering study for a launch vehicle, but instead a notional concept, useful for studying the whichness of the why regarding the use of automated systems for nuclear rocket preparation an launch.

Long Beach w/Polaris

nukes, rockets, ships No Responses »

Jan 052015

A scan of a piece of art from 1961 depicting a Long Beach-class guided missile cruiser launching a Polaris ballistic missile. Note that the caption says that this *will* happen; as it turned out, not only was the Long Beach never equipped with Polarises, it was also the only ship in its class. The US Navy decided that putting strategic nuclear ballistic missiles on easily-spotted and tracked surface ships was less desirable than putting them on far stealthier submarines.

USBP #12 and ANED #01 Now Available

American Nuclear Explosive Devices, bomber, hypersonic, nukes, rockets, spaceplane, US Bomber Projects No Responses »

Dec 172014

The latest releases in the “US Aerospace Projects” line (see the full library HERE):

US Bomber Projects #12 contents:

Boeing Model 464-41: A turboprop B-52 predecessor
Boeing “Big Bird”: a long-durational, low-speed, low-altitude missile carrying loiterer
Douglas MX-2091-E: A 1950’s canard configured missile carrier
Boeing Model 701-238: A supersonic design on the road to the B-59
Northrop Nuclear Flying Wing: Atomic power with two crew pods
Martin Model 223-12: the final design in the XB-48 design series
Rockwell MRCC: An airplane that could be tossed into space atop an RSRM
Lockheed CL-820-8: A Mach 3 variable-geometry design

USBP #12 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

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New: American Nuclear Explosive Devices #01

This is a prototype issue for what may become a series but which I hope to turn into a Real Book. The plan is to eventually document via accurate and detailed diagrams every nuclear explosive device produced by the US (obviously some are a little lean on declassified data). This includes bombs, Re-Entry Vehicles, a few actual “physics packages” and some stand-alone test devices. ANED01 contains information and diagrams of the first three atom bombs worked on by the US: the Thin Man and Little Boy air-droppable bombs and the Trinity “Gadget” test device. The American Nuclear Explosive Devices webpage is HERE.

ANED01 is formatted for 11X17, so the diagrams are good and large.

ANED #01 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:

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US Transport Projects #02, Spacecraft Projects #01 now available

Dyna Soar, future projects, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, stealth, transports, US Spacecraft Projects, US Transport Projects No Responses »

Nov 192014

The latest releases in the “US Projects” line (see the full library HERE):

USTP 02

Issue #02 of US Transport Projects, done in the same format as US Bomber Projects, USTP will cover flying vehicles designed to transport cargo, passengers and troops. Issue 02 includes:

Jupiter Troop Transport: A 1956 Army concept for ballistically launched soldiers
Catamaran 747: A NASA concept for a more efficient twin-fuselage 747
Nuclear C-5A: A NASA concept for using the existing C-5 to demonstrate nuclear powered flight
Boeing 765-076E: A recent design for a small supersonic transport
Lockheed L-151: An early jetliner concept adding six turbojets to a Constellation
AAFRL/Lockheed AMC-X: A recent design for a stealthy C-130 replacement
Boeing Twin Hull Airship: A 1970’s design for a semi-buoyant cargo lifter
Douglas D5.0-15A: A partially NASP-derived hypersonic jetliner

USTP #02 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

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USSP 01

Also available: issue #01 of US Spacecraft Projects. This series will present some of the wide range of manned and unmanned probes, stations, landers, spaceplanes and so on that have been designed over the decades. Issue #01 includes:

General Dynamics 2-Man Space Taxi: A concept for the minimum possible manned spacecraft
General Dynamics EMPIRE lander: one of the earliest designs for an excursion module to and from the surface of Mars
Convair Landing Boat: Krafft Ehricke’s Atlas-launched spaceplane
Zenith Star: the SDI laser battlestation experiment
Northrop PROFAC: a flying gas station for spacecraft
NASA Warp-drive spacecraft: a highly hypothetical concept for planning purposes
Martin Direct Flight Apollo: lunar landing without the LEM
Boeing DS-1 Satellite Interceptor: an early Dyna Soar with nuclear missiles

USSP #01 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

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Forthcoming

Dyna Soar, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, US Transport Projects 1 Response »

Nov 062014

Two current projects…

X-37B and the Dyna Soar

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

Oct 312014

I’ve written a short and illustrated piece on how the Dyna Soar can illustrate the possible capabilities of the X-37B over at War Is Boring:

Wondering What the U.S. Air Force’s Secretive Spaceplane Can Do? History Offers Clues

I am contemplating expanding this considerably for a separate release. It’d be a little different from the usual sort of thing I do, since the X-37B is a real flying vehicle, not just an unbuilt project.

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