Ryan Vertifan in a rescue role

Aug 212016

The Ryan XV-5A Vertifan was a 1960’s VTOL aircraft that was given considerable testing and proved to be reasonably successful, yet it was not chosen to be put into production. he video below (a couple different versions of it) show the XV-5A being put through its paces. It’s shown to be a remarkably nimble and stable platform. Also shown are numerous pieces of concept art, the XV-5A being used in a rescue capacity. Interestingly, the idea presented was to send the VTOL right alongside strike aircraft so that it would be right there on the scene ready to collect any pilots who happen to get shot down during the mission.

The XV-5A used largish fans embedded win the nose and wings to provide vertical thrust; the fans were driven by the exhaust from the jet engines. This is not a particularly elegant solution, unlike the Harrier with its fully integrated single engine system, but the fan approach would provide both better fuel efficiency during hover and lower jet velocity compared to something like the Harrier or the F-35. This would mean that the vertical thrust would tear up the dirt or deck plating a whole lot less.

One wonders how well the XV-5A would perform today. It would have the benefit of better engines and better materials, meaning more thrust at lower fuel consumption, in an aircraft that weighs less. And perhaps more importantly, modern avionics and computerized controls would make this plane much more stable, controllable and safe in hover.

Thousand Astronomical Unit spacecraft

nukes, rockets, spacecraft, US Spacecraft Projects 3 Responses »

Aug 102016

Starting in the 1970s and running through much of the 1980’s, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ran numerous studies of Thousand Astronomical Unit (TAU) spacecraft. These were somewhat akin to Voyager class probes, but with important differences. instead of small RTGs for power, they would use SP-100 class fission reactors, mounted many dozens of meters away at the end of long booms. Located at the center of mass of the system would be a bank of ion engines; the nuclear electric propulsion system would operate for *years* to boost these craft to extremely high speeds. Still, it would take decades for them to travel 1,000 AU from the Sun, many times further than Pluto. There, large optical telescopes would take parallax measurements on distant stars; by positioning numerous TAU craft in every direction, the measurement baseline would be vast, and precise distance fixes could be made for stars on the other side of the galaxy.

A number of TAU designs were examined, but the one shown here in JPL art seems to be pretty representative. These probes would have to be engineered with a high degree of both reliability and autonomy as their main observation missions would only begin something like 50 years after launch. Diagrams of a different design and more information were presented in US Spacecraft Projects #3.

Space Colony Artwork

hi-rez, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Aug 042016

Probably nothing here really new to anyone, but it’s still a good reminder that every now and again people think big. A Flickr collection of color concept art from the 1970s illustrating NASA-Ames ideas for space colonies.

Space Colony Artwork From the 1970s

Dual Keel Space Station Art: Part Two

hi-rez, space station, spacecraft No Responses »

Aug 032016

A while ago I was asked by another aerospace historian if I had any artwork of the “Dual Keel” version of the Space Station design from the mid/late 1980s. This was a predecessor to the International Space Station (the “Russians” being the “Soviets” at the time) and was to be used not just as an orbiting shack for some basic research, but also as an assembly area for manned missions to the moon and Mars. Turns out I had a fair amount of Dual Keel art. As is the way of things, a lot of that art is moderately poor… scanned from dusty slides, in many cases. Still, it’s what I had. It dawned on me that others might be interested in it, so I put all the images into the same size and format (standard 8.5X11) and made a PDF out of it, seventy some pages. I have uploaded Part Two to the “APR Extras” Dropbox site into the “2016-08 APR Extras” folder. This is accessible to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above (if you are such a patron and don’t have access, send me a message via Patreon, I’ll get you fixed up). Part One was uploaded to the “2016-07 APR Extras” Dropbox folder last month.

Northrop Low Altitude Penetrator

bomber, CAD Diagrams, US Bomber Projects No Responses »

Jul 292016

An artist used my diagrams of the Northrop Low Altitude Penetrator (a concept that competed against the design that became the B-2) to create a full-color layout. I wish I could work in color half as well…

The CAD vector-PDF, released in May:

And US Bomber Projects #2:

Which resulted in this:

The artist (Kurt Beswick) bounced an earlier version of the art off me and we discussed it for a bit. It was my opinion that a stealth bomber like this specifically designed to fly at near-treetop level (200 feet) would either be in green camouflage, or F-117 Nighthawk black. What do you think?

No, that’s not a Geodetic Satellite Model

nukes, spacecraft No Responses »

Jul 202016

Bonham’s just wrapped up another one of their “no you can’t afford these” space history memorabilia auctions. Among the interesting stuff I looked at, sighed over and wished I lived in a world where somehow I was rich enough to afford, there was this item:

Lot 75

GEODETIC SATELLITE MODEL

The other items listed all have their sales prices listed (like the $269,000 Sputnik model… yow), but this item seems to still only have it’s estimated price of $1500-$2500. My guess is that that means it didn’t sell. And if it didn’t, maybe it’s because it was advertised as being something far less interesting than it actually is. Consider: the description goes thus:

GEODETIC SATELLITE MODEL

Large scale model of a Geodetic Satellite. 37½ inch tall plexiglass pole topped with 16½ inch tall conical satellite with ten 21 inch long folding blue panels.

Employed by the United States Navy, the GeoSat was an Earth observation satellite launched in 1985. The goal of the GeoSat mission was to provide information on the marine gravity field.

Which, yeah, I guess that’s nice, but it’s not really one of the more exciting satellites out there. By the way, here is a geodetic satellite rendering:

And here is the model that was up for auction:

Are there similarities? Sure. But you know what that model *isn’t* a model of? A geodetic satellite. It’s a model of this:

Yup. That there is the business end of an SP-100 space nuclear reactor.

Now, I don’t know that the model is *really* anything special… the payload it’s attached to is dreadfully small and dull. It’s not like it’s attached to a neutral particle beam weapon or something similarly intriguing, and the SP-100 was hardly a classified program. But still a nuclear reactor powered spacecraft has *got* to be more interesting than a geodetic satellite, yes?

SP-100 art

This is what happens when people and institutions do not contract with me to vet all their aerospace stuff. Reasonable rates, people!

Unexpected Orion

nukes, spacecraft 4 Responses »

Jul 142016

For the past several months Syfy has been in a bit of a programming lull. Prestige shows like “The Expanse” have finished their seasons, and we’re many months from new episodes. Modestly entertaining shows like “Dark Matter” and “Killjoys” have only just started new seasons. Shows like “Footfall: The Series” only exist in alternate universes. So Syfy has had to rely on their tertiary shows to fill the schedule. Of of these has been “Hunters,” a generally “meh” show. Production values are good, acting is… meh. Basic idea is that a few decades ago an alien species crashed to Earth (some trouble on their colony ship, stuck in orbit around Saturn) and assumed human identities; sadly, these aliens are generally kinda dickish, what with slaughtering people and all. So there’s the requisite shadowy government organization tasked with capturing/killing the alien “Hunters.” In the last several episodes it has been clear that the aliens were working on a spaceship of some kind, somewhere off screen.

The show, as I said, is “meh” grade entertainment. Not good enough to watch live, entertaining enough to DVR and watch later, distractedly while preparing supper, working on the computer, cleaning out the litter box, whatever. So finding myself burned out a bit from the current projects I’m plugging away at today, I plopped myself before the idiot box and called up yesterdays episode. Imagine my surprise when *this* is how the show started:

This was followed by clips from relatively well-known (among space nuts, anyway) General Atomic films of tests of subscale Project Orion hardware. Static fiberglass models on up to the “Hot Rod.”

As it turns out, the ship the aliens have been building in the northern Mexican desert is an Orion. The characters describe Project Orion specifically, by name; and while the cataclysmic apocalyptic results of a small Orion launch are overblown, they otherwise don’t *totally* screw up the description.

The design of the ship… well, it’s far from perfect, but it’s actually one of the more clearly-Orion nuclear pulse vessels I’ve seen on scree. Whoever designed it clearly had access to some Orion design info. Perhaps little more than a Google image search might pull up, but still, they did a better job than anyone else can think of offhand. The screenshots below were taken via the expedient of pointing a digital camera at the TV screen.

One of the computer interfaces shown on the ship – everything is in English, which is odd given that the ship was built by and for aliens – gives a few diagrams. Shown here is a schematic of a very recognizable pulse unit.

I was of course looking forward to see how well they showed the vehicle in flight. Sadly, that did not occur.

Interesting timing, given my Space Show interview just two days ago. One of the main subjects I was thinking I would cover on the show was the depiction of Orion/NPP on film and TV, but obviously we got nowhere near that subject. Oh well…

Dual Keel Space Station Art

hi-rez, Patreon, space station No Responses »

Jul 082016

A while ago I was asked by another aerospace historian if I had any artwork of the “Dual Keel” version of the Space Station design from the mid/late 1980s. This was a predecessor to the International Space Station (the “Russians” being the “Soviets” at the time) and was to be used not just as an orbiting shack for some basic research, but also as an assembly area for manned missions to the moon and Mars. Turns out I had a fair amount of Dual Keel art. As is the way of things, a lot of that art is moderately poor… scanned from dusty slides, in many cases. Still, it’s what I had. It dawned on me that others might be interested in it, so I put all the images into the same size and format (standard 8.5X11) and made a PDF out of it, seventy some pages. I have uploaded Part One to the “APR Extras” Dropbox site into the “2016-07 APR Extras” folder. This is accessible to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and above (if you are such a patron and don’t have access, send me a message via Patreon, I’ll get you fixed up).

747 MX-launcher

bomber, hi-rez, jetliner, nukes, rockets 1 Response »

Jul 062016

Every now and then ebay provides some interesting items that are just plain too expensive. One such is a Boeing presentation on using the 747 to carry and air-launch MX ICBMs. The original Buy It Now price was over two grand; consequently, the document remained on ebay for something like a year. However, I negotiated down to $250. Still too expensive, but crowdfunding makes it reasonably affordable.

I currently have about 9 people interested in splitting the cost. Nine plus me means the cost is $25 per person… suddenly not quite so horrible. If more people come on board, the price will fall even more. Twenty people total drops it to $12.50 each. Thirty drops it to $8.33, and so on. Each contributor gets a complete high-rez scan of the document.

If you are interested in getting in on this, it’s open to APR Patreon patrons at all levels. Check out the APR Patreon for this and other rewards. The most recent posting at the APR Patreon has a place to comment and express your interest in getting a copy of this document.

The opportunity will be open until the document arrives in the mail, which should be a few days.

New diagrams & blueprints: Shuttle & SLS

future projects, hi-rez, launch vehicles, rockets, space shuttle, spacecraft 5 Responses »

Jun 282016

NOTE: Not the best photos, but… ehh, what’re ya gonna do…

I have a new batch of physical media… digital prints and old-school cyanotype blueprints. What sets these apart is that they are BIG.

First, a book: Space Transportation System Diagrams. This is a collection of 27 wide format (the standard 11 inches high… but up to *40* inches wide) Space Shuttle diagrams. They are all official NASA.industry diagrams, painstakingly cleaned, depicting all aspects of the STS. Includes numerous instrument panel diagrams as well as structural arrangements, general arrangements, insulation/tile layouts, etc. This is available for $75. Ten were printed. NOW SOLD OUT

STS Diagrams book: $75

Second, some very large digital prints of the Shuttle orbiter underside tile maps. Three maps provided… left wing, right wing and fuselage. They are all 20 inches high, with the centerline diagram being about 80 inches long. Shows you where every tile goes, ~~all for only $30.~~ This has sold out. If you are interested, send me an email and I’ll let you know when/if more are made available.

Third: 1/72 scale cyanotype blueprints, handmade, of the Space Launch System Block 1 launch vehicle. This blueprint is 24 inches wide by about 67 inches long, based on a CAD layout of my own creation and is available for $80.

1/72 SLS Cyanotype Blueprint: $80

All of these are likely going to be available for only a limited time. I’ve had ten copies of the STS Diagram Book printed; each is individually numbered. So far, one sold. The 1/72 SLS is also likely to be only limited print run; while undeniably awesome, it is kinda big, and I think I’d do better to replace the 1/72 diagram with a 1/144 version. So snap ’em up fast before they become collectors items!

As always with physical items, postage is required. A single flat fee is charged no matter how many items… if you’re in the US, you pay $10 in postage is you order one item or a dozen (so order a dozen). Elsewhere… costs a little more.

US postage: $10

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