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.
Found on ebay a while back, an artists concept (almost certainly an AP artist, using imagination more than primary documentation) showing an odd little submarine carrying four Polaris missiles while would launch through the sail. Such concepts *were* studied early on in the process, but I think this one is pure artistic license.
I have added another milestone to my Patreon campaign. If I get to $500 of patronage…
There are a lot of PDF (and Powerpoint) references available online that would be of interest to aerospace aficionados. But that’s kinda the problem: there are a *lot* of them. NASA alone has had millions of reports online. There are far too many for any one person to even try to get a handle on. However… I’ve got a handle on a great many of them. While they are – or in some cases were – freely available online, you’d have to know they existed first. Well… for many thousands of such reports… I know they exist. So at this milestone, I’ll post reviews, including illustrations, of two such reports or presentations per month. Additionally, I’ll post links to the reports or, in some cases, the reports themselves.
So rather than just some snipped images, you’ll get the images, a description of the report *and* the report itself, posted to the APR Blog. This is in addition to the reports, brochures, documents and diagrams that get sent to patrons, stuff that *isn’t* otherwise available.
I have a pretty fair supply of interesting documents and large format drawings… but not an infinite supply. Consequently, I’m in the market. Do you have interesting aerospace (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft or even perhaps unusual naval or terrestrial projects) documents, large format diagrams or actual blueprints? If so, let’s talk. I’d like to borrow, rent or buy such things. My preference is of course for unbuilt projects, but basically *anything* interesting would be… interesting.
If you have something you’d be willing to share, but not give away, I’d be happy to scan it and send it back ASAP. Alternatively, I’d be happy with good scans.
Additionally: a lot of interesting stuff pops up on eBay. I am actively trolling eBay for such things; just bought two documents tonight. But there’s so much stuff on eBay, with such weird and divergent descriptions, that I can’t possibly hope to catch everything. So if you see something on eBay that looks interesting, by all means let me know.
These are vastly-reduced versions of some of the diagrams I may include as rewards for Patreon patronage. Not all are unbuilt aerospace projects, obviously, but all are, I trust, of interest to those interested in aerospace. If interested, please consider joining my Patreon campaign. Also to be provided are PDFs of aerospace documents
I’ve launched the Patreon funding campaign:
http://www.patreon.com/user?u=197906
If you appreciate the aerospace research I do and the stuff I dig up, please consider contributing. As a bonus, you will get goodies if you do! High rez large format diagram scans, brochures, reports, proposals, etc.
Pledge $0.75 or more per month
You get my thanks and a warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that you are contributing to saving the history of aerospace engineering!
Pledge $1.50 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 125 dpi
Pledge $3.00 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 200 dpi
Pledge $4.00 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi
Pledge $5.00 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi, sized for 8.5X11
Pledge $6.00 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi sized for 11X17
Pledge $8.00 or more per month
You will receive the uploaded documents and blueprints at 300 dpi plus a bonus CAD diagram at 300 dpi sized for 18X24 or larger AND the diagram in the native vector format
Pledge $10.00 or more per month
You will receive all the prior rewards, plus have the opportunity to vote on what will be released next.
Tell all your friends.
The San Diego Air and Space Museum has posted a great many images to Flickr, including a fair amount of concept art. One piece (you can see the best-rez version HERE) depicts a Ryan Aeronautical concept for an air boat equipped with a Flex-Wing. Date would probably have been around 1962, plus or minus a few years. The exact role here is a bit obscure… why would the Army have boats like this? Perhaps a troops transport of some type, though a helicopter would probably be a better choice.
The second of two images of the Saturn-carrying hovercraft from Bell. Here it’s shown unloading a Saturn stage… it looks like the front end of the S-IC stage, but it doesn’t look like it would fit with the semi-conical engine fairings, never mind the fins.
Back in 2007 I visited the Bell Aircraft Museum in Niagara Falls, NY and got a chance to poke through their archives. Sadly, my scanner chose that day to not work, so all imagery I got came via photography with an indifferent camera. While it was more or less ok, it was not such a good system for capturing good images of glossies.
One such glossy was a 1960’s Bell concept for a hovercraft designed to transport Saturn V stages, presumably from the Michaud facility near New Orleans to Cape Canaveral.
Before the Polaris missile was developed, the US Navy studied several approaches to using submarines to launch ballistic missiles. An early idea was taken directly from WWII Germany… store Jupiter IRBMs in special canisters, towed behind subs. These would be partially flooded whe the subs got to the launch site; this would cause the canister to tip up 90 degrees. A few hours later, the liquid fueled Jupiter would be ready to launch. Additionally, there was some thought put into the idea of installing the Jupiter vertically within subs. But nobody much liked the idea of large liquid propellant missiles in submarines. So by April 1956 the idea then moved to solid propellant rockets designed to emulate the Jupiter, carrying the same payload on more or less the same trajectory. The missile would be fatter than the standard Jupiter, but also shorter. Still, at ten feet in diameter and 41 feet in length, it was a very large missile, and only four could be carried within the body of the sub and the greatly extended sail. Fortunately, within a few months the Polaris design came on the scene, a much smaller missile made possible by both a smaller warhead and higher energy density double-base solid propellant.
Lockheed illustration.