Published in a magazine in 1983, this artist depiction shows a concept for a 1982 space station by Rockwell. Clearly of the same *kind* of station as the eventual ISS, this is a simpler, smaller construct. However, it also includes a “cargo bay” modeled aft that of the Space Shuttle, allowing payloads (what appear to be temporary science modules) to be readily transferred back and forth.
The rewards for August, 2023, have been released. They include:
Document: Report No. ZD-013, “Preliminary Detail Specification for United States Navy Class VP Long Range Patrol Seaplane,” Convair, 1 April 1946
Document: “Space Shuttle: What Will It Do?” A 1970’s brochure describing the Shuttle, with six full-color full page illustrations
Art: McDonnell-Douglas lithograph of “NASA Earth Orbital Space Station”
CAD Diagram: Northrop Grumman Next Generation Long Range Strike
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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.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.
And as happens far too often, I’ve been remiss in my PR campaign. The rewards for July, released a month ago, included:
Document: “C-5 Galaxy Pocket Guide,” brochure giving info on the C-5
Document: GDIC-64 O29-21, “Alighting Gear Convair Model 48 Light Armed Reconnaissance Airplane,” an illustrated report on the landing gear for Convairs competitor for the OV-10
Document: “Police Department Lecture #3 Effects of Atomic Weapons,” an early-50’s paper describing what NYC could expect int he event of a nuclear strike
Diagram: EMW “Wasserfall,” German WWII surface to air guided missile
CAD Diagram: Boeing 2707-100-derived bomber
Thanks to ebay and my fabulously lean bank account, I have recently procured a number of items of potential interest:
“NASA Earth Orbital Space Station,” a poster-sized lithograph from McDonnell Douglas depicting a space station that tumbles for artificial-G.
“Re-Entry Payload Launch Vehicle,” A *brief* General Dynamics presentation on a vehicle to launch re-entry vehicles such as MIRV warhead shapes
“Proposed Development Program on Rocket-Type Missiles,” a 1948 Convair report on early ballistic/boost glide missile concepts, that would lead to Atlas. Includes some fantastic large format layout diagrams.
“Detail Specification for Consolidated Vultee Model 117 Airplane Class VR Transport Flying Boat,” August 1950, all the details on the then-brand new Tradewind.
“Detail Specification for Class VP Long Range Patrol Seaplane,” Consolidated Vultee 1946, all the details on a proposed flying boat patrol/bomber
32 issues of “Astronautics” magazine from 1957 to 1969, mostly 57-59 and 63 or so.
The lithograph and the reports will be scanned and put forward for consideration for monthly rewards; the magazines will have the interesting bits scanned and made available to the subscribers/patrons.
The National Reconnaissance Office is starting a series on the history of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a small space lab that was designed in the early/mid 1960s for the Air Force. Officially just a basic space lab, in reality it was an advanced (for the time) spy satellite. So far there is only Part One on the NRO website, and there’s not much to it… but we’ll see how it goes.
As a reminder, there is a whole freakin’ mountain of MOL documents on the NRO website:
Back in 2016 I released seven PDFs of CAD diagrams formatted for printing at 24X36 inches (those are shown after the break). This was another product line that didn’t exactly blow up the market, and no further diagrams were released. But now that I have two books of CAD diagrams released, and two more coming (and potentially more after that), I’m considering trying again. The Lockheed CL-400 Suntan, A-11, A-12, SR-71, YF-12, along with several B-47 and B-52 related designs are possible, as well as designs that aren’t from those books (X-20 Dyna Soar, several Orion vehicles, etc.). If this sounds interesting, let me know; if there is something specific you might be interested in, let me know.
A piece of artwork attributed to the DoD (1984 or before) depicting a large structure being built in space. Since it’s DoD, it is most likely a surveillance or mapping radar system of some kind, or an electronic listening system. Since it doesn’t seem to have either large PV arrays or a nuclear reactor – at least not yet at this stage in construction – I’d lean towards it being a listening system. Of course, a great deal more stuff may have been added to it after this… assuming it’s an actual design and not pure art.
Prior to Challenger, one piece of technology that was often touted as something that would be deployed by the Space Shuttle was the “beam builder.” This was a mechanism that would take rolls of aluminum “tape” a millimeter or less in thickness and automatically chop, bend, deploy and weld said aluminum into truss structure beams. These beams would be arbitrarily long… useful for building all manner of things, from space stations to radar satellites, on up to solar power satellites. The technology got fairly far along… but once Challenger exploded, the idea of actually using the shuttle to build vast constructs in space kinda vanished, with ISS being the only example of that. And in the case of ISS, very little actual “construction” was carried out, instead the ISS was simply assembled, with parts like the solar panels deploying rather than being built.
But while it lasted, beam builders featured in a lot of concept art, such as the one below depicting a beam being extruded from the Beam Builder in the rear of the Shuttle cargo bay. Irritatingly, I’ve misplaced the book I scanned this from and cannot immediately confirm who to credit it to.
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.
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
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.