Aerospace Projects Review Blog – Page 125 – Unbuilt aircraft and Spacecraft Projects

NASA SST model

Apr 102012

From the Fifth Semiannual Report to Congress (NASA, 1961) comes a photo of a supersonic transport wind tunnel model. This configuration would have been quite difficult to translate into a practical airliner design; while the dedication to area ruling would have made it quite low drag at supersonic, it would have made manufacturing a nightmare. Additionally, the severe wasp-waisting of the fuselage would have made not only the structural design of the pressure vessel a challenge, it would have made the passenger seating layout quite a mess.

NASP PR Card #5

hi-rez, hypersonic, jetliner, launch vehicles, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Apr 102012

This card shows an early (late 1980’s) McDonnell-Douglas design for NASP. A relatively fat lifting body design, this has many similarities to hypothetical “Aurora” hypersonic spyplane designs bandied about at the same time. This is not surprising… this NASP design is similar to any of a number of hypersonic configurations tested in NASA wind tunnels and shown publicly.

Note that the text on the back of the card describes a vehicle somewhat different than what NASP was supposed to be. The claim is made that the scramjets could power the vehicle Mach 25, orbital velocity… of they could allow the vehicle to cruise at Mach 6 for long range hypersonic transport. Early on in the program, the “Orient Express” was touted as a logical result of NASP work, but that quickly faded.

You can download 5.3 and 2.5 megabyte JPG files of the illustrations. The links to the JPG files are HERE and HERE. To access them, you will need to enter a username and password. The username: the first word in the body of the text on page 5 of APR issue V1N1. The password: the first word in the body of the text on page 11 of the same issue. Note that both are case sensitive.

Lockheed Star Clipper model photo

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Apr 082012

Another one from Lockheed Horizons, a rare color photo of a later STAR Clipper configuration. This one-and-a-half-stage-to-orbit design dates from the early days of the Space Shuttle program. Much, much more on the STAR Clipper and its Shuttle descendants can be read about in issue V3N2 of Aerospace Projects Review.

METEOR: 1956

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, space station, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Apr 062012

One of the pleasant surprises from my recent trip to D.C. was obtaining a scan of a color version of an illustration I’ve only ever seen in B&W… the Goodyear “METEOR” spaceplane design from about 1956. This was part of a truly audacious plan put forward by Goodyear’s Darrel Romick and others to develop a “city in space,” a giant space station with artificial gravity and giant hangars for spacecraft.

The color seems to be off, due, likely, to the fading effects of half a century. But even after some “fade correction” processing, it’s clear that the spaceplane was painted red… an interesting choice.

And it’s a little difficult to tell, but a closeup focusing on the crew seems to either show that the heads were pasted on, or are surrounded by some sort of bubble helmets.

Much more on the METEOR plan is available HERE.

NAA SST concepts

jetliner, transports No Responses »

Apr 052012

A photo of unfortunate quality showing a collection of supersonic transport designs from North American Aviation, circa late 1963. Note that this is about 50 years ago, and each of these designs still look futuristic.

Bell Hypersonic Rocket Transport in Hi-Rez

Dyna Soar, hi-rez, hypersonic, jetliner, rockets, space shuttle, spaceplane, transports 2 Responses »

Apr 032012

In 1960, Bell Aircraft released several paintings depicting a two-stage hypersonic passenger transport. The first stage was a multi-engined supersonic jet of fairly conventional configuration (though with very large 50,000 lb-thrust turboramjet engines), carrying on its back a rocket-powered second stage. The second stage was clearly influenced by Bell work on the Dyna Soar program.

The carrier would transport the second stage to an altitude of 20 miles and 5,300 mph. After release, the second stage would boost to 40 miles and speeds up to 15,000 miles per hour, permitting travel times from Los Angeles to Paris of one hour and four minutes for the thirty passengers on board. The vehicle was intended to enter service in the 1980-1990 timeframe.

Weight for the combined vehicle at takeoff would be 750,000 pounds. Span of the booster was 150 feet, length 200 feet. It’s unclear if this was a serious engineering design or purely speculative. Paintings and a display model show some notable differences.

You can download a 3 megabyte JPG file of the artwork; the link is HERE. To access it, you will need to enter a username and password. The username: the first word in the body of the text on page 6 of APR issue V1N3. The password: the first word in the body of the text on page 23 of the same issue. Note that both are case sensitive.

Saturns Vehicles for Apollo

launch vehicles No Responses »

Apr 012012

A piece of NASA promo art, dating to around 1964 (plus or minus), showing the Saturn I, Saturn Ib and Saturn V to scale.

A high rez of this can be downloaded here:

APR Corner: Phoenix E

launch vehicles, rockets, spacecraft, VTOL No Responses »

Mar 202012

The latest AIAA-Houston newsletter Horizons, January/February 2012, has a brief article by me on the Phoenix-E tourism SSTO. Free to download!

STAR Clipper artwork

launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft, spaceplane No Responses »

Mar 172012

A painting from an old issue of “Lockheed horizons” depicts a STAR Clipper 1.5-stage-to-orbit early Space Shuttle design lifting off from a desert launch facility (probably White Sands or Vandenberg).

Much, much more on the STAR Clipper can be found in issue V3N2 of Aerospace Projects Review.

Stagger Around #1: F-104A Starfighter

fighter No Responses »

Mar 172012

I put together a number of photos I recently took of Hill Aerospace Museums newly-restored F-104A into a free downloadable PDF booklet.

If you like this, feel free to distribute hither and yon. If you *really* like this, feel free to toss a dollar or three my way.

If there is interest, I will make more of this sort of thing… I have a vast collection of photos of aerospace and weapons systems that might be of interest.

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