Feb 272021
 

This photo has popped up online before, but usually in pretty crummy resolution. It’s taken from “Aerojet – The Creative Company” and shows a mockup for a Titan-derived first stage booster rocket. It has double the engines of the standard Titan core stage, either two or four engines depending on how you want to count the LR-87 engines (one set of turbopumps, two combustion chambers) married to a 15-foot diameter core. This is described as a booster designed to loft the Zenith Star space-based laser weapon test system (the ZS was described and illustrated in US Spacecraft Projects #1). Documentation on this specific booster has always been somewhat lacking, though there have been quite a number of Large Diameter Core Titans designed by Aerojet and Martin over the years.

Higher rez scan in the 2021-02 APR Extras Dropbox folder for patrons/subscribers.

 

 Posted by at 8:26 am
Feb 192021
 

Recently for sale on ebay was a display model of the Saro “Princess” turboprop flying boat, as Convair planned to modify it into a nuclear-powered research prototype. This late 50’s design was ballsy if nothing else: a nuclear reactor would be installed within the fuselage, providing superheated air from the reactor to the inboard above-wing modified turboprops. Unlike the NB-36H, this aircraft would have been actually powered by the reactor.

A description of the concept was written up HERE. A set of detailed diagrams are available as Air Drawing 8.

 Posted by at 8:51 pm