Secret Projects: Military Space Technology by Bill Rose

[overscan]

I must preface this first look review by saying that, while I'm interested in space technology, its not my speciality, so I'm approaching this book from this angle.

Bill Rose has put together a well written and nicely illustrated book on various military space projects. Its 192 pages long and there were quite a few things new to me, and a lot of additional illustrations of things I've heard of or seen. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of British projects included.

Here's a quick guide to the chapters in the book:

Introduction p.1
1) German Wartime Ambitions p.14
Rocket Planes
Towards a Strategic Weapon
An Orbital Space Plane

2) British Space Ambitions p.41
Megaroc
Ross-Smith Glider
Saunders-Roe High-Altitude Rocketplane
Nonweiler's Waveriders
Armstrong Whitworth Pyramid
Advanced Blue Steel Projects
BAC Delta-winged Spaceplane
RAE Space Fighter
MUSTARD
Hawker Siddeley TSTO concept
HOTOL
Interim HOTOL
Skylon
Lapcat

3) US Projects p.63
WAC Corporal
Hermes
Redstone
Jupiter
Rocketplanes (incl. Miles M-52)
Douglas Rocketplanes
Bell X-2
X-15 (NA, Republic, Lockheed CL-839-28)
Advanced studies at Bell
Boeing X-20 Dyna-soar
Military Uses for NASA Hardware
MOL Manned Orbital Laboratory (includes Big Gemini)
Single Stage To Orbit
Delta Clipper
ASAT Weapons
Space Cruiser
The Military Shuttle
Lifting Bodies (includes X-24C, Lockheed MRS/CL-639/CL-1047/CL-651, Isinglass, mentions Rheinberry)

4) Aurora- Myth or Reality? P.128
Includes CL-839, X-24C-L301, Aurora concepts, Suntan, HGV, ALSV, Rockwell TAV, NASP/X-30, Boeing TSTO, Blackstar, X-33, Falcon, Blackswift...

5) Soviet Military Space Programmes
Buran and Burya
Early Spaceplanes
Spiral
Uragan
LKS
MAKS
Buran
Russia's Aurora (NASP type spaceplanes eg Tu-2000, MiG-2000, NPO Energia concept)
Korolev's Heavy Space Station
Diamond in the Sky (Almaz)
TKS
Soyuz as a Military Spacecraft
Russian ASAT Weapon Development
The IS System
Air Launched ASAT Systems

6) Nuclear Propulsion
American Efforts (NERVA)
Soviet Nuclear Rockets
Riding the Pulse (Orion)

7) Destination Moon
Project E-4
Lunex
Project Horizon
Russians on the Moon


As with all Secret Projects books, you can always think of other projects that aren't included, but that by no means detracts from the excellent job Bill Rose has done making a coherent book from this subject.

If you have any specific questions, I will post a more detailed review when I've finished reading it.

In conclusion, this is a worthy addition to the Secret Projects series. Well done Mr Rose!

[pometablava]

Thanks a lot for the review Paul, I'm already waiting for my copy

[Barrington Bond]

Are there pictures of the RAE space fighter?!?!?!?!?

[overscan]

Unfortunately not. Some verbal descriptions. Lashings of MUSTARD though

[Barrington Bond]

Hmmm, I was going to make a quip about English MUSTARD and it got me thinking that I cannot think of any French or German military (except WW11) space technology stuff

Regards,
Barry

[overscan]

Sanger II, Hermes?

[Barrington Bond]

Well, yes and no but thinking about it how does he fit MUSTARD say into a military role? There are a few things there I have never thought about being military...

Regards,
Barry

[flateric]

British military manned spacecraft...yes...it's hardly come to mind

[robunos]

thanks for the review, now the choice, this book, or some new tyres?

cheers,
         Robin.

[Barrington Bond]

I'll be buying but unfortunately I "do" have to include the tyres in the price..

Regards,
Barry

[overscan]

Its in stock at Amazon UK, but Ian Allan Superstore has a better price. Their website says its not out though.

[robunos]

just got mine today, much of interest, , though i'm sure i've seen some of that stuff somewhere before, can't think where?, ,
oh well, maybe new tyres next month, 

cheers,
         Robin.

[robunos]

while looking at the PDF linked to by flateric in the 'DARPA Vulture' thread, here,

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4241.msg37132.html#msg37132

i saw this picture.
a quick search on designation-systems.net gave me the following,

A project to develop a low-energy laser to demonstrate acquisition and tracking of targets from space and to precisely point a narrow laser beam. An essential prerequisite for deploying a high-energy laser weapon system. Involves Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and USAF SAMSO, Army Missile R&D Command.

so now we have a name for the cover illustration, also seen on page 117.
more googling awaits...

cheers,
         Robin.

[sferrin]

That certainly looks larger than a low energy laser.  Reminds me more of Zenith Star almost.

[Andreas Parsch]

I got my copy of the book two days ago, and after a quick browse have now started reading it back-to-back. And already in the section about German rocket planes, I noticed what's in my view a severe drawback: Lack of quoted reference sources  !

Specifically, I stumbled upon the description of the final status of the Ba 349 "Natter" project. After mentioning the well-known fatal accident in the first manned vertical launch, The author says "after the failure, there were six or seven further manned launches, all successful". I would really like to know where he found that information, because a German expert on the "Natter" (Horst Lommel) couldn't come up with conclusive evidence for even one successful manned(!) vertical launch, let alone 6 or 7! Continuing, the author says that a small operational "Natter" site with about 10 aircraft had been set-up and was ready for action, but was destroyed (by the Germans, to prevent it from falling into Allied hands) before any missions were flown. Lommel has convincingly shown in his two books on the "Natter", that the story about the operational Natter site is a myth! So it seems that the author has either found absolutely astonishing new evidence about the "Natter" (but doesn't name his source!) or simply reiterates old stories without evidence - I'd guess at the latter, but the first alternative wouldn't be satisfying, either  .

That said, I wonder how far I can trust all the more "exotic" bits of information, which I'm surely going to find in this book  .

Regards
Andreas