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Brilliant Pebbles artwork

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Nov 222013

The smallest individual spacecraft concept proposed for the Strategic Defense Initiative was the “Brilliant Pebbles” system. Instead of vast, multi-hundred-ton battle platforms like the lasers and neutral particle beams and railguns, Brilliant Pebbles were *relatively* small rocket vehicle designed to intercept enemy missiles and warheads while in space. The system was composed of a rocket-powered kill vehicle (usually fueled by dense, easily storable propellants such as nitric acid and hydrazine), and a “cocoon.” The latter was a shroud that protected the kill vehicle while it waited out the years floating in space.

The kill vehicle, in order to do its job, had to be *extremely* high performance. It was composed of a series of thrusters, lightweight composite propellant tanks, optics to spot and track the target, a computer to run it, communication systems, batteries… and not much else. The Brilliant Pebbles (so named because they were derived from the concept of “smart rocks,” which was a jovial way to describe a hit-to-kill system: instead of taking out the target with a warhead, you actually ram the target with your vehicle) vehicles were said to have the propulsive capability of boosting themselves out of Earth orbit and doing a fast flyby of Mars. This performance was needed in order to be able to launch from wherever they happened to be and race to intercept enemy missiles.

Data, such as mass and dimensions, is sadly lacking. Guesstimate that the cocoon is about the size of a Volkswagen. Where the bigger systems such as lasers would require heavy lift launchers, Brilliant Pebbles could be launched by much smaller rockets… and a whole lot of them. *Thousands* of Brilliant Pebbles would be needed in low Earth orbit to provide basic coverage. For every Brilliant Pebble that would be in place to take on a Soviet missile, many more would not be. It was the need to launch vast flocks of these that the SDI program began studying reusable, low-cost launchers, leading to the Delta Clipper program.

Aerospace Projects Review, Volumes 4 and 5

bomber, Dyna Soar, fighter, future projects, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, Recon, research, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane, stealth, transports, VTOL 2 Responses »

Nov 212013

The complete rework of APR from the original release a decade ago is going a lot slower than I’d planned. A lot of people have asked for the original versions of the as-yet-unreleased issues of APR to be made available. I’ve been hesitant to do so, but… it’s just taking too long. So, I’ve taken the original Word files for the six issues of Volume 4 and the six issues of Volume 5, and made two PDF files from them. I’m making them temporarily available as two bulk sets. When the issues are re-released, these full-volume sets will be withdrawn. So, Volume 5 might remain available till the sun explodes, I dunno…

If you’re dying to get hold of the old-school APRs, here’s your chance. Remember, these are the *original* files from around 2002-2004, without any updates, edits or other changes. Errors, crappy formatting and all. A bunch of the individual old articles remain available as well.

APR Original Run Volume 4 downloadable PDF: $30

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APR Original Run Volume 5 downloadable PDF: $30

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Here are the contents:

Volume 4:

The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Bell Aircraft Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
First in a series of articles describing the competitors for the X-15

Lockheed Model L-153 Part 2 by Bill Slayton
Immediately post-war M-wing jet fighter designs

Cobras Of The Field by Scott Lowther
Modified helicopters for ag duty

Lockheed Model L-153 Part 3 by Bill Slayton
Immediately post-war swept-wing jet fighter designs

The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Douglas Aircraft Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The Douglas competitor for the X-15

The Martin “Spacemaster” by Scott Lowther
An unconventional design competitor for the Shuttle

Radial Engine P-51 Mustang by Scott Lowther
A little-known modification to the supreme WWII fighter

The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The Republic Aviation Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The Republic competitor for the X-15

Boeing Super Clippers, then and Now by Scott Lowther
Truly grand aircraft

The X-15 Research Airplane Competition: The North American Proposal by Dennis R. Jenkins
The winning competitor for the X-15

The HFB 530 Ranger by Mike Hirschberg A German VTOL strike/recon design

Lockheed Model L-153 Part 4 by Bill Slayton
Early Post-war variable geometry fighters

Sonic Cruiser Update by Scott Lowther
New drawings of a new aircraft

LARA Craft: COIN Raiders by Scott Lowther
A long way to go for a bad pun for some tough aircraft

English MUSTARD by Scott Lowther
An early 1960’s British fully reusable Space Shuttle

The NACA’s First Jet by Scott Lowther
The last gasp for ducted fans prior to the turbojet

Addendum to Issue V4N5
Ooops.

The Hopeless Diamond by Scott Lowther
The first cut of the stealth fighter

Sea Dragon by Scott Lowther
A giant, dirt-cheap launch vehicle

North American NA-116 by Scott Lowther
A long-range bomber

Multibody Designs From Lockheed by Scott Lowther
Unconventional yet fuel efficient designs

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Volume 5:

Editor’s Gratuitous Additions: Republic XF-103
A little bit of extra info.

Republic XF-103 by Dennis R. Jenkins
About as sleek as an aircraft can get.

Boeing’s Advanced Multipurpose Large Launch Vehicle by Scott Lowther
Perhaps the most powerful space launcher ever seriously conceived.

McDonnell Douglas GRM-29A by Scott Lowther
Just about the coolest spaceplane ever… but would it have worked???

The Rockwell XFV-12A V/STOL Prototype by Dana E. Lubich
It came close…

XFV-12A Followons by Scott Lowther
The end of the program wasn’t the end of the concept

Hawker Siddeley HS 141 by Scott Lowther
VTOL jetliner concept

Bell/Boeing Armed XV-15 by Scott Lowther
A tilt rotor with a mission

Lockheed Sea Sitter by Scott Lowther
A seaplane to conquer the oceans

Early Atlas Missile Designs by Scott Lowther
Evolution of America’s first ICBM

Boeing’s Air-Launched Micro-Fighters by Scott Lowther
The fighter needed for a flying aircraft carrier

Chrysler SERV by Scott Lowther
An SSTO Space Shuttle design

Soviet Seaplane Jet Bombers by Thomas Mueller and Jens Baganz
A counterpoint to American efforts

4,000 Ton Orion by Scott Lowther
Recently declassified data on a large nuclear pulse propulsion craft

Mart Model 262 by Scott Lowther
A mysteriously delayed article on VTOL fighters…

NASA Langley High Speed Civil Transport by Scott Lowther
Mach 3 and Mach 4 transports from the late 1980’s

Convair/Canadair Tilt-Wing Close Support Aircraft by Scott Lowther
VTOL gunship

Spacejet by Scott Lowther
Spaceplanes with dropable jet engines

Handley Page All-Wing Airbus by Scott Lowther
A British flying-wing transport from the 1960’s

Convair NX-2 Nuclear Powered Bomber by Scott Lowther
A well known but – until now – poorly documented nuclear powered aircraft project

Technology Needs for High Speed Rotorcraft Part 1 Sikorsky and Bell by Scott Lowther
Tiltrotos, tiltwings, fan-in-body designs

Lockheed-Martin ICE by Scott Lowther
An experimental tailless stealth fighter design

Raumwaffe, 1946

Boeing WS-110A

X-Wings

Dash-On-Warning

Nuclear D-Cells

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Oct 232013

Two notional concept for “nuclear batteries were shown in a Defense Science Board report:

The upper concept shows something of a conventional radioistotope thermionic generator, but in small scale. Within it is a 1-cubic centimeter chunk of material infused with alpha and/or beta emitter; the radiation is emitted and absorbed within the chunk, raising the temperature to 1000 Kelvin. A “photonic crystal” captures the blackbody radiation (which in this case would be well into the visible at that temperature) and deposits it onto a thermophotovoltaic cell, where it is converted to electricity. The insulating shell keeps the exterior temperature to about 25 degrees C.

The lower design uses a “jelly roll” configuration with thin flat sheets of alpha and/or beta emitter sandwiched between a sheet of quantum dots, which directly converts the radiation to electricity.

Both designs seem to be made for the same requirements, would produce one to five watts for several years. The radioactive material would be americium or plutonium-238. Pu-238 is a strong alpha emitter, and produced about 0.39 of a watt per gram, so several dozen grams might be needed, depending on efficiency. The only real use for Pu-238 is radioisotope thermionic generators, used on spacecraft; these nuclear batteries would be quite similar. The sad thing is that the US stopped producing Pu-238 in 1988; we now buy it from Russia… but even they have stopped producing it. NASA and the DoE are trying to restore production at a rate of 1.5 kilos or so per year. Since these “nuclear D-cells” are specifically for military applications, restoring manufacturing capability would seem to be needed as a single D-cell would consume maybe 1% of the annual NASA/DoE production.

Americium-241 produces 0.12 watts/gram, substantially less than Pu-238. More importantly, it’s also a neutron emitter, which is obviously bad news for the guy carrying a dozen of these batteries on his belt to power his GPS system, radio and phased plasma rifle in the 40 Watt range.

Neutral Particle Beam Weapon concepts

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Oct 172013

Very little has emerged from the Strategic Defense Initiative days revealing *actual* weapons designs. With the exception of some of the Brilliant Pebbles and Zenith Star designs, almost nothing apart from unreliable artwork has been released. On occasion, though, bits have come out. Three neutral particle beam satellite weapon concepts were shown, in low-rez and frustrating detail, in a report on power systems for SDI use.

The Martin-Marietta NPB concept:

The Ge/Lockheed NPB concept:

The TRW concept:

The drawings are too small to glean details such as full-scale dimensions, or even get a really good handle on layouts. The GE/Lockheed design seems to come equipped with large panels, presumably radiators, held within a triangular cross-section framework. The Martin and TRW concepts appear to be roughly cylindrical. And unlike the majority of the artwork produced for public consumption, here you can make out the nuclear reactors meant to power the systems.

While dimensions are either unavailable or illegible in these illustrations, two show the SP-100 reactor and associated radiator system. The radiators change from illustration to illustration of the SP-100, so cannot be firmly relied upon as a scale reference, and the Sp-100 reactor itself is little more than a dot, but this illustration of the SP-100 should help to give a rough idea how big it, and by extension the NPB concepts, were going to be.

SDI Neutral Particle Beam weapon

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Oct 102013

Another space-based anti-missile system contemplated for the Strategic Defense Initiative was the neutral particle beam. Specifics are exceedingly thin as befits a concept that sounds a *lot* like science fiction.

In practice, the system is a particle accelerator that ionizes hydrogen atoms, grabs them with massively powerful magnetic fields and accelerates them to near light speed. At the end o the weapon, extra electrons are stripped from the atoms, making the hydrogen atoms electrically neutral. This makes them largely impervious to natural and artificial magnetic fields, so they go where you aim ’em and can’t be readily shielded against. However, atmosphere rapidly scatters the beam, so space basing is really the only option. Unlike a laser beam, a mirrored surface would not faze a neutral particle beam. In fact, much of the damage would be done *within* the target, as the hydrogen atoms would penetrate some distance before being stopped and depositing their kinetic energy as heat.

Most of the artist impressions of NPB weapons that I recall showed U-shaped accelerators. By folding the accelerator in half, the spacecraft would be more compact. The energy requirements meant that nuclear powerplants were needed, but the power requirements – billions of Watts for a tiny fraction of a second – would make the power storage and supply issue entertaining. If that issue is cleared up, firing rates of perhaps thousands of shots per second would be possible.

Heres a terrible-quality image of unknown origin, but shows the basic idea:

Another illustration, credited to Los Alamos National Lab. Note that what at first glance appears to be solar panels is actually transparent; these are either the result of severe artistic license or depict not solar panels but radiators.

I’ve seen virtually nothing to judge the scale of these systems, but there were multiple references to NPB weapons being very large systems requiring numerous launches and considerable on-orbit assembly. Studies in the early 1990’s indicated that operational NPB weapons would probably not be feasible before 2025.

SDI Railgun

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Oct 082013

During Reagan’s “Star Wars” days, concept art of space-based anti-missile systems were cranked out on a fairly regular basis. Much of it was, most likely, pure artistic license with little basis in reality. However, some of the weapon artwork was clearly based on actual engineering, such as the Zenith Star and Brilliant Pebbles programs.

One uncertain design is shown in the painting below. It represents a space-based railgun, apparently capable of firing projectiles at high speed in rapid succession. While attributed to the DoD, the vehicle has “Boeing” painted on it. Unlike a lot of the designs, this one at least has a sufficiency of attitude control thrusters. Power for the system is probably nuclear, with the reactor on the far right, surrounded by conical radiators.

More on XS-1

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Sep 182013

Experimental Spaceplane Shooting for “Aircraft-Like” Operations in Orbit

To help address these challenges, DARPA has established the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program. The program aims to develop a fully reusable unmanned vehicle that would provide aircraft-like access to space. The vehicle is envisioned to operate from a “clean pad” with a small ground crew and no need for expensive specialized infrastructure. This setup would enable routine daily operations and flights from a wide range of locations. XS-1 seeks to deploy small satellites faster and more affordably, while demonstrating technology for next-generation space and hypersonic flight for both government and commercial users.

“We want to build off of proven technologies to create a reliable, cost-effective space delivery system with one-day turnaround,” said Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager heading XS-1. “How it’s configured, how it gets up and how it gets back are pretty much all on the table—we’re looking for the most creative yet practical solutions possible.”

DARPA seeks ideas and technical proposals for how to best develop and implement the XS-1 program. The agency has scheduled an XS-1 Proposers’ Day for Monday, October 7, 2013. The agency also plans to hold 1-on-1 discussions with potential proposers on the following day, October 8, 2013. Advance registration is required; more information is available at http://www.sa-meetings.com/XS1ProposersDay. Registration closes on Tuesday, October 1,2013, at 12:00 PM EDT. For more information, please email DARPA-SN-14-01@darpa.mil.

The DARPA Special Notice describing the specific capabilities the program seeks is available at http://go.usa.gov/DNkF. A Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for XS-1 is forthcoming and will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

Note that the DARPA artwork depicts the XS-1 here in a global strike configuration, equipped with an upper stage and a warhead, either a conical MIRV_style, or perhaps a lifting HTV-type. In either event, the basic layout sure seems familiar… hmmm…

US Bomber Projects #04 Available

bomber, Dyna Soar, hypersonic, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, stealth, US Bomber Projects 1 Response »

Sep 112013

Issue number 4 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:

McDonnell System 464L: McDonnell’s entry into the initial Dyna Soar contest, 1958
Lockheed-Martin Falcon: A recent design for an unmanned hypersonic global range bomber
Lockheed Senior Peg: Lockheed’s competitor to the Northrop B-2
Boeing Mobile Missile Carrier: A giant hydrogen fueled amphibian
Boeing Model 701-273-4: A very asymmetrical supersonic predecessor to the B-59
Lockheed Cruise Missile Carrier: A large nuclear-powered cargo plane converted to carry 90 cruise missiles
Boeing Model 462-5: A six-turboprop B-52 ancestor
Martin Model 223-4: A twin-fuselage design on the road to the B-48

USBP#04 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

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US Bomber Projects #03 Available

bomber, Dyna Soar, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, nukes, rockets, spacecraft, spaceplane, transports, US Bomber Projects No Responses »

Sep 112013

Issue number 3 of US Bomber Projects is now available (for background, see HERE). This issue includes:

Rockwell D 645-4A: A compact stealthy flying wing

Lockheed System 464L: Lockheed’s entry into the initial Dyna Soar program, 1958
Convair Mach 4 “Rollover:” A Mach 4 seaplane with a unique approach
Boeing Model 701-273-3: An asymmetrical supersonic precursor to the B-59
Boeing HSCT Model 1080-854: A late 1980’s missile carrier derivative of a commercial supersonic transport
Martin Model 223-3: A canard antecedent to the B-48
Boeing Model 462: A large six-turboprop ancestor of the B-52

USBP#03 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4.25:

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MC-747

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Sep 112013

A Boeing artists impression of a 747 modified to launch ICBMs (probably Minuteman IIIs). Dates from 1974. Missile load appears to be at least 4. Given how far aft the missiles are dropped, there would likely be an impressive pitch even upon drop.

From an old ebay auction.

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