Dark Moon Rising: Archibald space TL
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Scott Kenny
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That might be simple enough to work. Rocket-based combined cycle engine.
Especially if you turned whatever optimizer loose on the thing that simplified the SpaceX Raptor engines.
Project SCOOP office
Vandenberg AFB
"You know, we could easily send HIGH TOWN spysats chasing FOBS or Istrebitel Sputnikov; on suborbital or co-orbital trajectories. Satellites taking photos of satellites : the spooks call that sat-squared, short: S2.
"Won't this piss the Soviets: making them angry and nervous ?"
"Yes, absolutely. That's the political risk entailed by such missions; that can be minimized if we play smart. Back in the day the CIA had a project called ALIAS where a C-130 Hercules would scan space above with a modified Hawkeye radar; pin down a Soviet satellite; and then launch a rocket inspector vehicle on a suborbital trajectory. It would just passing by, with tremendous closing velocities. While it made the mission extremely difficult, it was also much less visible than chasing the Soviet sat on a co-orbit. See what I mean ?"
"Kinda. We want to peep at Soviet satellites, but very discretely; so we can deny if they get angry. I can really see the CIA playing outraged - or dumb. Thinking about it, that sat-squared business could be a mission for a man-tended MOL. With its extremely powerful camera and big mirror, it could observe Soviet satellites from a... safe distance."
"And we could stick an Agena booster or two on that MOL extremities; to give it large orbital manoeuvering capabilities. So it could chase Soviet satellites, but not too much."
"This also applies to on-board astronauts. Remember how they talked about doing astronomy as a secondary mission ? Observing the planets with that big mirror ? Well, if we can track the Moon and planets, we can certainly do the same for Soviet satellites. Nice cover story, don't you think ?"
Vandenberg AFB
"You know, we could easily send HIGH TOWN spysats chasing FOBS or Istrebitel Sputnikov; on suborbital or co-orbital trajectories. Satellites taking photos of satellites : the spooks call that sat-squared, short: S2.
"Won't this piss the Soviets: making them angry and nervous ?"
"Yes, absolutely. That's the political risk entailed by such missions; that can be minimized if we play smart. Back in the day the CIA had a project called ALIAS where a C-130 Hercules would scan space above with a modified Hawkeye radar; pin down a Soviet satellite; and then launch a rocket inspector vehicle on a suborbital trajectory. It would just passing by, with tremendous closing velocities. While it made the mission extremely difficult, it was also much less visible than chasing the Soviet sat on a co-orbit. See what I mean ?"
"Kinda. We want to peep at Soviet satellites, but very discretely; so we can deny if they get angry. I can really see the CIA playing outraged - or dumb. Thinking about it, that sat-squared business could be a mission for a man-tended MOL. With its extremely powerful camera and big mirror, it could observe Soviet satellites from a... safe distance."
"And we could stick an Agena booster or two on that MOL extremities; to give it large orbital manoeuvering capabilities. So it could chase Soviet satellites, but not too much."
"This also applies to on-board astronauts. Remember how they talked about doing astronomy as a secondary mission ? Observing the planets with that big mirror ? Well, if we can track the Moon and planets, we can certainly do the same for Soviet satellites. Nice cover story, don't you think ?"
December 30, 1962
The KGB headquarters
Alan Gordon illegals spy ring had done an even better job than usual. His report sent shivers down the spine of the KGB operatives that digested it; and the Soviet leadership that red the summary thereafters.
The Americans were utterly determined to get a shotgun marriage between a B-58 and a Minuteman; in passing, expanding their production beyond 116 Hustlers and one-thousand missiles.
Alan comprehensive report was far reaching: showing incredible prospects. For a start, the stretched B-58B canned in June 1959 would return; this time with TF30 turbofans, killing the FB-111A with similar engines.
Next, the revamped bomber would air-launch a Minuteman: reaching into space all the way from 65 to 1600 nautical miles high.
This, for General Shoemaker intertwined five core missions: spysat, satellite imaging, interception and destruction; spaceborne ABM.
Modifications to both Hustler and Minuteman would be kept to the minimum, slashing development costs.
From a 2 G pull-up from mach 2.4 level flight at 45,000 foot altitude, the flexible air-launching system could throw a 2000 pound spysat in a 65 nautical miles orbit, single or multiple pass.
While the spacecraft wouldn't last very long, ground resolution would be 3 feet.
...
PROJECT TOWN HALL – AIR LAUNCHED PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE SATELLITE
CONOPS
A-aircraft positions booster in orbital plane;
B-ballistic flight path with apogee at satellite altitude;
C-interception of a satellite is four dimensional : time, height, longitudinal, lateral.
D-boosters interception altitude capabilities
-Skybolt --------------------- 310 n.m
-Minuteman stage 2 - 3----- 510 n.m
-Polaris ---------------------- 930 n.m
-Modified Minuteman------ 1500 n.m
SYSTEM OPERATION
1-Pre-flight alert at Strategic Air Command bases.
2-B-58 prepared for flight
3-Missile guidance aligned and trimmed
4-Initial ephemeris and trajectory loaded
5-System check-out
6-System ground aligned and checked out
7-Missile guidance navigates self B-58 to launch area; pre-computed course.
8-Updated ephemeris entered
9-Launch command
10-Launch with precise velocity & vertical; position azimuth not critical
11-Launch point determined by guidance computer
12-Boost guidance by inertial measurements
13-Thrust termination not critical
14-Stellar fix for position & azimuth correction
15-Booster burns out with velocity in orbit plane
16-Interceptor separates from booster
17-Terminal phase
18-Interceptor, searches expected area
19-Target acquired at-50-80 n.mi.
20-Line-of-sight (LOS), relative bearing angular rate establighed
21-Interceptor yawed 90 degree from line of sight
22-Engine ignited to thrust toward orbit
23-When LOS rates zero vehicle yawed to thrust along los on colligion course
24-Warhead deployed on range to target basis
25-Vernier engine used for orbit adjustment or orbit transfer
26-Multiple pass capability enhanced by virtue of in-orbit
27-Trajectory adjust and de-orbit- re-entry vernier correction
...
CONCLUSION
ADO-40 – now called Project 437 - and various covert reconnaissance systems are being studied and evaluated by separate contractor and USAF groups. This dual separate approach may well result in choice of two systems: optimum for each mission, but entirely different in hardware items. The mobile launch concept is competitive for each mission and should be evaluated simultaneously by usaf personnel cognizant of both missions. Choice of mobile launch concept could lead to greatly reduced development costs, operational costs and reliability improvements through adoption of 2 standard boost: vehicle for dual purpose use.
FOOTNOTE
Project TOWN HALL as it presently stands already has incredibly disruptive potential. Yet consideration is given to add a Lockheed Agena to the baseline. This could make TOWN HALL even more groundbreaking: vastly improving performance and linking it to many space military vehicles.
...
AIR LAUNCHED INTELLIGENCE ACQUISITION SYSTEM (ALIAS)
CONOPS
-Align platforms
-Update ephemeris
-Turn across orbit plane
-Intercept altitude selectable between 90 and 150 n. mi - crossing velocity not exceeding 3000 fps.
-Eject missile from C-130 cargo hold
-Fire missile - 2 stage, 2 cluster - Terrier I sustainer
-Aircraft acquires target
-First-stage & fairings separate
-First-stage soft lands
-ALIAS vehicle acquires target
-Vehicle attitude adjusted
-Terminal correction motor fires
-Vehicle re-acquires target
-Photographic sequence
-Apogee.
-Flat-spin initiated
-Flat-spin stopped
-Recovery chute deployed.
-C-130 recovers ALIAS vehicle
...
The function to be performed by the Air Launched Intelligence Acquisition System (ALIAS) guidance system is the positioning of the payload at the offset distance from the satellite trajectory which is compatible with the chosen sensor capabilities. For a desired 1 inch resolution capability, 5401 film, a 1 percent image motion compensation error, and a 7.5" diameter, 40" focal length optical system, the desired offset distance is 3000 ft and the allowable one sigma guidance error is 1500 ft. The selection of the intercept region along the satellite trajectory will be based on ephemeris data.
A C-130 Hercules is to be modified as below.
-sealed launch duct for rearward extraction at 35,000 ft altitude.
-HF radio for latest SPADATS 66 data.
-AN/ASN-59 Litton Stellar inertial navigation system aboard aircraft, (or Nortronics NAS-14).
-AN-APS-96 airborne radar (similar to the E-2B Hawkeye) modified to match satellite tracking and C-130 aircraft installation requirements;
-Northrop - ALOTS optical tracking system.
-All American Engineering model 90 recovery equipment for rear door pickup from C-130.
-Recovery intercept computer.
AIRBORNE EARLY WARNING RADAR - PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS
The existing airborne early warning and tracking radars of most interest to ALIAS are the APS-70, APS-96 and APS-111. The APS-96 Airborne Early Waring (AEW) radar has the desired performance capability and appears to be most readily available. The APS-96 acquisition range for a 10m2 target is 90% probability of detection at about 200 n.m. if the search is restricted to a particular azimuth.
The Cosmos class satellite radar cross section has been observed to range from 1 to 600 m2 at UHF frequencies.
The major APS-96 modifications which would be required to make this AEW radar compatible with the ALIAS mission are first the tilting of the antenna to acquire satellites 90-150 n.m. in attitude at a slant range of about 200 n.m. and, second, the modification of the radar receiver to accept target closing velocities on the order of 4.0 n.m. per second.
As the target azimuth will be known from ephemeris data and the airplane azimuth can be changed to accommodate the radar, a non-scanning radar mount is acceptable. This also allows the possibility of a side looking radar which eases the airplane antenna compatability problem.
...
"ALIAS – nice accronym, CIA. But please : if you really want to photograph a satellite or intercept it, from a C-130: there are better rockets out there, maxing out the Hercules 40 000 pound payload. Things like a 15 000 pound Agena with a solid rocket booster - and plenty payload to orbit: almost one metric ton."
The KGB headquarters
Alan Gordon illegals spy ring had done an even better job than usual. His report sent shivers down the spine of the KGB operatives that digested it; and the Soviet leadership that red the summary thereafters.
The Americans were utterly determined to get a shotgun marriage between a B-58 and a Minuteman; in passing, expanding their production beyond 116 Hustlers and one-thousand missiles.
Alan comprehensive report was far reaching: showing incredible prospects. For a start, the stretched B-58B canned in June 1959 would return; this time with TF30 turbofans, killing the FB-111A with similar engines.
Next, the revamped bomber would air-launch a Minuteman: reaching into space all the way from 65 to 1600 nautical miles high.
This, for General Shoemaker intertwined five core missions: spysat, satellite imaging, interception and destruction; spaceborne ABM.
Modifications to both Hustler and Minuteman would be kept to the minimum, slashing development costs.
From a 2 G pull-up from mach 2.4 level flight at 45,000 foot altitude, the flexible air-launching system could throw a 2000 pound spysat in a 65 nautical miles orbit, single or multiple pass.
While the spacecraft wouldn't last very long, ground resolution would be 3 feet.
...
PROJECT TOWN HALL – AIR LAUNCHED PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE SATELLITE
CONOPS
A-aircraft positions booster in orbital plane;
B-ballistic flight path with apogee at satellite altitude;
C-interception of a satellite is four dimensional : time, height, longitudinal, lateral.
D-boosters interception altitude capabilities
-Skybolt --------------------- 310 n.m
-Minuteman stage 2 - 3----- 510 n.m
-Polaris ---------------------- 930 n.m
-Modified Minuteman------ 1500 n.m
SYSTEM OPERATION
1-Pre-flight alert at Strategic Air Command bases.
2-B-58 prepared for flight
3-Missile guidance aligned and trimmed
4-Initial ephemeris and trajectory loaded
5-System check-out
6-System ground aligned and checked out
7-Missile guidance navigates self B-58 to launch area; pre-computed course.
8-Updated ephemeris entered
9-Launch command
10-Launch with precise velocity & vertical; position azimuth not critical
11-Launch point determined by guidance computer
12-Boost guidance by inertial measurements
13-Thrust termination not critical
14-Stellar fix for position & azimuth correction
15-Booster burns out with velocity in orbit plane
16-Interceptor separates from booster
17-Terminal phase
18-Interceptor, searches expected area
19-Target acquired at-50-80 n.mi.
20-Line-of-sight (LOS), relative bearing angular rate establighed
21-Interceptor yawed 90 degree from line of sight
22-Engine ignited to thrust toward orbit
23-When LOS rates zero vehicle yawed to thrust along los on colligion course
24-Warhead deployed on range to target basis
25-Vernier engine used for orbit adjustment or orbit transfer
26-Multiple pass capability enhanced by virtue of in-orbit
27-Trajectory adjust and de-orbit- re-entry vernier correction
...
CONCLUSION
ADO-40 – now called Project 437 - and various covert reconnaissance systems are being studied and evaluated by separate contractor and USAF groups. This dual separate approach may well result in choice of two systems: optimum for each mission, but entirely different in hardware items. The mobile launch concept is competitive for each mission and should be evaluated simultaneously by usaf personnel cognizant of both missions. Choice of mobile launch concept could lead to greatly reduced development costs, operational costs and reliability improvements through adoption of 2 standard boost: vehicle for dual purpose use.
FOOTNOTE
Project TOWN HALL as it presently stands already has incredibly disruptive potential. Yet consideration is given to add a Lockheed Agena to the baseline. This could make TOWN HALL even more groundbreaking: vastly improving performance and linking it to many space military vehicles.
...
AIR LAUNCHED INTELLIGENCE ACQUISITION SYSTEM (ALIAS)
CONOPS
-Align platforms
-Update ephemeris
-Turn across orbit plane
-Intercept altitude selectable between 90 and 150 n. mi - crossing velocity not exceeding 3000 fps.
-Eject missile from C-130 cargo hold
-Fire missile - 2 stage, 2 cluster - Terrier I sustainer
-Aircraft acquires target
-First-stage & fairings separate
-First-stage soft lands
-ALIAS vehicle acquires target
-Vehicle attitude adjusted
-Terminal correction motor fires
-Vehicle re-acquires target
-Photographic sequence
-Apogee.
-Flat-spin initiated
-Flat-spin stopped
-Recovery chute deployed.
-C-130 recovers ALIAS vehicle
...
The function to be performed by the Air Launched Intelligence Acquisition System (ALIAS) guidance system is the positioning of the payload at the offset distance from the satellite trajectory which is compatible with the chosen sensor capabilities. For a desired 1 inch resolution capability, 5401 film, a 1 percent image motion compensation error, and a 7.5" diameter, 40" focal length optical system, the desired offset distance is 3000 ft and the allowable one sigma guidance error is 1500 ft. The selection of the intercept region along the satellite trajectory will be based on ephemeris data.
A C-130 Hercules is to be modified as below.
-sealed launch duct for rearward extraction at 35,000 ft altitude.
-HF radio for latest SPADATS 66 data.
-AN/ASN-59 Litton Stellar inertial navigation system aboard aircraft, (or Nortronics NAS-14).
-AN-APS-96 airborne radar (similar to the E-2B Hawkeye) modified to match satellite tracking and C-130 aircraft installation requirements;
-Northrop - ALOTS optical tracking system.
-All American Engineering model 90 recovery equipment for rear door pickup from C-130.
-Recovery intercept computer.
AIRBORNE EARLY WARNING RADAR - PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS
The existing airborne early warning and tracking radars of most interest to ALIAS are the APS-70, APS-96 and APS-111. The APS-96 Airborne Early Waring (AEW) radar has the desired performance capability and appears to be most readily available. The APS-96 acquisition range for a 10m2 target is 90% probability of detection at about 200 n.m. if the search is restricted to a particular azimuth.
The Cosmos class satellite radar cross section has been observed to range from 1 to 600 m2 at UHF frequencies.
The major APS-96 modifications which would be required to make this AEW radar compatible with the ALIAS mission are first the tilting of the antenna to acquire satellites 90-150 n.m. in attitude at a slant range of about 200 n.m. and, second, the modification of the radar receiver to accept target closing velocities on the order of 4.0 n.m. per second.
As the target azimuth will be known from ephemeris data and the airplane azimuth can be changed to accommodate the radar, a non-scanning radar mount is acceptable. This also allows the possibility of a side looking radar which eases the airplane antenna compatability problem.
...
"ALIAS – nice accronym, CIA. But please : if you really want to photograph a satellite or intercept it, from a C-130: there are better rockets out there, maxing out the Hercules 40 000 pound payload. Things like a 15 000 pound Agena with a solid rocket booster - and plenty payload to orbit: almost one metric ton."
TOWN HALL and ALIAS were OTL projects of the Air Force and CIA, respectively. TOWN HALL has long been the basis of my fictional HIGH TOWN, but ALIAS came as a complete surprise : browsing the CIA online archive.
Long story short, imagine a C-130 turned E-2 Hawkeye, same APS-96 and rotodome, except modified to scan 200 nautical miles vertically - into space, rather than horizontally, scanning airspace for F-14 Tomcats.
Then the same C-130 would have a torpedo-like launch tube stuck in its cargo hold and through the doors. Once the APS-96 radar has pinned down a Soviet satellite, the rocket would be expelled, pop a parachute, then launch on a suborbital trajectory : just passing by, with tremendous closing velocities. It would snap a few pictures of the commie sat and then reenter for recovery of the camera and film.
You may ask, why the hassle ? Why not just co-orbit... SAINT / ASAT style ? Well, the CIA being the CIA I presume they wanted plausible denial if the Soviet got pissed.
"So we can't have Hercules flying below your satellites orbital tracks... oh, really ?"
Weird business, really. Then again - it's the CIA and it's ALIAS, we are talking about.
en.wikipedia.org
Long story short, imagine a C-130 turned E-2 Hawkeye, same APS-96 and rotodome, except modified to scan 200 nautical miles vertically - into space, rather than horizontally, scanning airspace for F-14 Tomcats.
Then the same C-130 would have a torpedo-like launch tube stuck in its cargo hold and through the doors. Once the APS-96 radar has pinned down a Soviet satellite, the rocket would be expelled, pop a parachute, then launch on a suborbital trajectory : just passing by, with tremendous closing velocities. It would snap a few pictures of the commie sat and then reenter for recovery of the camera and film.
You may ask, why the hassle ? Why not just co-orbit... SAINT / ASAT style ? Well, the CIA being the CIA I presume they wanted plausible denial if the Soviet got pissed.
"So we can't have Hercules flying below your satellites orbital tracks... oh, really ?"
Weird business, really. Then again - it's the CIA and it's ALIAS, we are talking about.
Alias (TV series) - Wikipedia
"Aerospaceplane was the ultimate objective: single-stage-to-orbit, right off a runway. But present technological state-of-the-art won't allow us to built that. Still I was looking at the B-70 Valkyrie and got a profound realization.
"We need to build a partially reusable Aerospaceplane; but that's not enough. It needs a national priority mission; preferably one that launches a lot of satellites. There, TOWN HALL put me on the right track, albeit something was still missing. That something is the Agena, because it anchors my hypothetical RLV to one key mission: the National Reconnaissance Program.
"One might object that present Agena spysats are riding expendable rockets to orbit, and doing very well that way. Fair enough, but the story doesn't stop there.
"The final element in the puzzle is RHEINBERRY. A mix of suborbital flight; near real time, crisis reconnaissance; and air-launch. Way to go: I had found my RLV anchor mission."
"We need to build a partially reusable Aerospaceplane; but that's not enough. It needs a national priority mission; preferably one that launches a lot of satellites. There, TOWN HALL put me on the right track, albeit something was still missing. That something is the Agena, because it anchors my hypothetical RLV to one key mission: the National Reconnaissance Program.
"One might object that present Agena spysats are riding expendable rockets to orbit, and doing very well that way. Fair enough, but the story doesn't stop there.
"The final element in the puzzle is RHEINBERRY. A mix of suborbital flight; near real time, crisis reconnaissance; and air-launch. Way to go: I had found my RLV anchor mission."
This document is the closest Lockheed came from my fictional HIGH TOWN system. A-12, Polaris and CORONA : all of them Lockheed. Agena is mentionned a few times (page 24, 25 and 51), but only at components level : not the full stage.
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martinbayer
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I am highly wary of the potential impact of even semi external payloads on B-70 maximum Mach performance.
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Check that huge belly fairing. TBH I wonder, too, how much impact it would have had on performance.
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Scott Kenny
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It was apparently designed to pack a pair of Skybolts under each wing.
martinbayer
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Live and learn... - I was always weary of those B-70/X-15 combos, because I thought the B-70 had to be aerodynamically clean for its specified speed performance, but I may have been too pessimistic...
Nope, for the X-15 you are right : it doesn't made any sense, for so many reasons.
- For example, it was mounted the exact same way as the D-21 drone on its SR-71, and in July 1966 it ended very badly.
- More generally, the X-15 not being an airbreather (ramjet, scramjet) really didn't needed the B-70 extra performance.
On the other hand, if that big belly fairing is streamlined enough to preserve Mach 3 (and that's a big if) then the B-70 could really become a major Mach 3 carrier for all kind of interesting aerospace vehicles. The Valkyrie had it all : the huge size and weight, and the velocity.
- For example, it was mounted the exact same way as the D-21 drone on its SR-71, and in July 1966 it ended very badly.
- More generally, the X-15 not being an airbreather (ramjet, scramjet) really didn't needed the B-70 extra performance.
On the other hand, if that big belly fairing is streamlined enough to preserve Mach 3 (and that's a big if) then the B-70 could really become a major Mach 3 carrier for all kind of interesting aerospace vehicles. The Valkyrie had it all : the huge size and weight, and the velocity.
On the scale of the Milky Way, the Moon was a pretty insignificant target.
This fact however was evenly balanced by its age – 4 billion years.
Which statistically ensured that Earth satellite had been, once in a while, impacted by all kind of interesting stuff. Things like Mars and Venus rocks, Chicxulub debris, metallic asteroids, cometary water...
This fact however was evenly balanced by its age – 4 billion years.
Which statistically ensured that Earth satellite had been, once in a while, impacted by all kind of interesting stuff. Things like Mars and Venus rocks, Chicxulub debris, metallic asteroids, cometary water...
Today I learned about this.
en.wikipedia.org
40 million chinese living semi-underground : well, somewhat like hobbits LMAO. We should really draw lessons from yaodongs for Moon and Mars lava tube colonies.
Does anybody knows of similar examples in other countries ?
Yaodong - Wikipedia
40 million chinese living semi-underground : well, somewhat like hobbits LMAO. We should really draw lessons from yaodongs for Moon and Mars lava tube colonies.
Does anybody knows of similar examples in other countries ?
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Australia has a number of underground mining towns, I believe.
Scott Kenny
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There are some archaeological examples in Turkey, IIRC. Derinkuyu or Elengubu. IIRC Derinkuyu is the name of the area now, the historical city's name is Elengubu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_cityToday I learned about this.
Yaodong - Wikipedia
40 million chinese living semi-underground : well, somewhat like hobbits LMAO. We should really draw lessons from yaodongs for Moon and Mars lava tube colonies.
Does anybody knows of similar examples in other countries ?
Ok so for more than a decade I've wondered what to do of Elon Musk in my alternate space history. After all he was born a few months before the Space Shuttle, in June 1971.
As I grew more and more baffled about him; and considering, eeeerhm, some recent suicidal tendencies of the man; I realized the best way to deal with him should be brief - and funny. A fate related to that man many lunacies.
So,
(...drums rolling...)
...
"A few years ago billionaire Elmo Trusk launched an agressive buyout of Boeing space division. After a brutal fight he managed to gets his hands on their Space Freighter design: 900 000 pounds to orbit and hopefully: to Mars.
In passing, he also grabbed a mighty rocket engine design from Rocketdyne, to power the monster.
Bad news however. Last week he was watching early tests of that engine, and in typical Trusk behaviour he sat uncomfortably close from the test stand.
The proverbial Silicon Valley bravado: move fast, break things to fix them.
Well, the engine did break... right into Trusk face. All that was retrieved of him was a singed strand of transplanted hair."
...
This little excerpt borrows from Marshall Nedeline death, October 24, 1960 "all that was ever found of him were the - melted - metal bars of his military medals"
And also from Despicable Me 2, El Macho spectacular but fake death.
As translated in the french dub "On a rien retrouvé d'El Macho, à part une grosse touffe de poils de torse brûlés !"
This solves a whole lot of issues besides the Musk case, things like Boeing enshittification.
As I grew more and more baffled about him; and considering, eeeerhm, some recent suicidal tendencies of the man; I realized the best way to deal with him should be brief - and funny. A fate related to that man many lunacies.
So,
(...drums rolling...)
...
"A few years ago billionaire Elmo Trusk launched an agressive buyout of Boeing space division. After a brutal fight he managed to gets his hands on their Space Freighter design: 900 000 pounds to orbit and hopefully: to Mars.
In passing, he also grabbed a mighty rocket engine design from Rocketdyne, to power the monster.
Bad news however. Last week he was watching early tests of that engine, and in typical Trusk behaviour he sat uncomfortably close from the test stand.
The proverbial Silicon Valley bravado: move fast, break things to fix them.
Well, the engine did break... right into Trusk face. All that was retrieved of him was a singed strand of transplanted hair."
...
This little excerpt borrows from Marshall Nedeline death, October 24, 1960 "all that was ever found of him were the - melted - metal bars of his military medals"
And also from Despicable Me 2, El Macho spectacular but fake death.
As translated in the french dub "On a rien retrouvé d'El Macho, à part une grosse touffe de poils de torse brûlés !"
This solves a whole lot of issues besides the Musk case, things like Boeing enshittification.
martinbayer
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You wish...
martinbayer
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Coober Pedy comes to mind, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy
martinbayer
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The caves of Cappadocia are another example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-cut_architecture_of_Cappadocia
That thing has long ballooned out of control: it is just gargantuan, hundreds and hundreds of pages. I intend to publish it someday, through Amazon and PublishDrive. But it needs severe trimming first !
So I've started to list all the ideas in it, one after another according to the story chronology. The list goes into a separate file. This will become a new "spine", with each idea being allocated one page of writting: perhaps two. But NOT more.
Well - surprise surprise, I have a lot on my plate. Sweet geez. It's like Sisyphus and his rock. The only good news is that the work goes smoothly and doesn't drives me crazy. I've done 1956 to 1963 so far, and the "ideas list" stands at... 131.
EDIT first book finished. 213 ideas, 125 pages trimmed. It works.
So I've started to list all the ideas in it, one after another according to the story chronology. The list goes into a separate file. This will become a new "spine", with each idea being allocated one page of writting: perhaps two. But NOT more.
Well - surprise surprise, I have a lot on my plate. Sweet geez. It's like Sisyphus and his rock. The only good news is that the work goes smoothly and doesn't drives me crazy. I've done 1956 to 1963 so far, and the "ideas list" stands at... 131.
EDIT first book finished. 213 ideas, 125 pages trimmed. It works.
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I've just watched that gem. Miyazaki penultimate movie. Visually beautiful, awe-inspiring.
en.wikipedia.org
The Wind Rises - Wikipedia
So here I am, mapping one idea after another and nuking hundred and hundred pages of blah blah blah techno-babble. It's like Sisyphus and his goddamn rock.
Last victim of the trimming is 1972, a gargantuan chapter, way too long. Will probably extract the whole damn thing into a separate file, keep some few bits and nuke everything else into oblivion.
Main problem is that NASA has way too much options on its plate, and if each one is detailed, the whole thing balloons out of control.
So, without fanfare...
January 1972
With the Shuttle miserable demise the last bit of Mueller and Paine Space Task Group, Integrated Program Plan was dead and buried. But Nixon needed California aerospace workers votes for the coming presidential election, so early 1972 he lit a fire under NASA ass to start anew – and quickly. He made clear it would be manned spaceflight last chance. Mercifully for the space agency George Low, then James Beggs, got the message and produced a blueprint by July 1972.
It was like a blizzard. A series of contractor bidding wars raged: for rockets, manned spaceships, space tugs, space station designs. The new blueprint had also to take into account present and future lunar exploration; an hypothetical reborn space shuttle; and leave enough money for big space science missions: Hubble, Viking, HEAO, Grand Tour.
At the end of the day, the new NASA long range plan, presented to Nixon on July 4, 1972 focused on a modular space station as its centerpiece; supported by Big Gemini crew taxi, Apollo lifeboat, and Agena logistic vehicles. Truth was, the space station program was calibrated to keep the Shuttle and the Moon afloat.
The Shuttle, because a rematch was bound to happen... someday: to make the Space Station logistics more affordable; even if the case for a Shuttle II was troubling... and precarious.
The Moon: because nobody could figure what the fuck were the Soviets were doing there. So better to keep lunar exploration alive, with or without Apollo: just in case.
...
NASA got Big Gemini on Titan IIIM, with support from the Air Force. To apease North American Rockwell, Apollo would survive: as a space station lifeboat. The ubiquitous Agena got the space tug job and also unmanned logistics to complete Big Gemini – rebranded Helios - with a common pressurized module. The remaining stock of Saturn IB would be expanded, and so would the last Saturn Vs, to lift a modular space station.
The said station used S-IVB and S-II hulls, dry-workshop style. Overall shape was of a four blade propeller: S-II as the hub, S-IVB as the blades. The station would de facto provide a colossal volume to its crew: Skylab, cubed. Skylab B was to be dismantled: its workshop turned into a ground based mockup, its ATM dispatched to the new space station.
The Air Force and NASA accepted to study a merge-up of Saturn IB and Titan IIIM in the shape of the SATAN launcher: SRMs with S-IVB on top, eventually with a more powerful engine than old J-2. It would be complementary of the hypothetical Shuttle II, both using a XLR-129 which was de facto funded: as was the F-1A.
And thus...
S-IC survived, on Saturn V and perhaps as the Shuttle II booster; gaining the F-1A in the process;
S-II survived, on Saturn V and as a space station dry workshop module;
S-IVB survived, as a space station dry workshop module and upper stage with the XLR-129;
Apollo survived, as the space station lifeboat;
And some bit of the LM also survived, as the Apollo Telescope Mount.
Last victim of the trimming is 1972, a gargantuan chapter, way too long. Will probably extract the whole damn thing into a separate file, keep some few bits and nuke everything else into oblivion.
Main problem is that NASA has way too much options on its plate, and if each one is detailed, the whole thing balloons out of control.
So, without fanfare...
January 1972
With the Shuttle miserable demise the last bit of Mueller and Paine Space Task Group, Integrated Program Plan was dead and buried. But Nixon needed California aerospace workers votes for the coming presidential election, so early 1972 he lit a fire under NASA ass to start anew – and quickly. He made clear it would be manned spaceflight last chance. Mercifully for the space agency George Low, then James Beggs, got the message and produced a blueprint by July 1972.
It was like a blizzard. A series of contractor bidding wars raged: for rockets, manned spaceships, space tugs, space station designs. The new blueprint had also to take into account present and future lunar exploration; an hypothetical reborn space shuttle; and leave enough money for big space science missions: Hubble, Viking, HEAO, Grand Tour.
At the end of the day, the new NASA long range plan, presented to Nixon on July 4, 1972 focused on a modular space station as its centerpiece; supported by Big Gemini crew taxi, Apollo lifeboat, and Agena logistic vehicles. Truth was, the space station program was calibrated to keep the Shuttle and the Moon afloat.
The Shuttle, because a rematch was bound to happen... someday: to make the Space Station logistics more affordable; even if the case for a Shuttle II was troubling... and precarious.
The Moon: because nobody could figure what the fuck were the Soviets were doing there. So better to keep lunar exploration alive, with or without Apollo: just in case.
...
NASA got Big Gemini on Titan IIIM, with support from the Air Force. To apease North American Rockwell, Apollo would survive: as a space station lifeboat. The ubiquitous Agena got the space tug job and also unmanned logistics to complete Big Gemini – rebranded Helios - with a common pressurized module. The remaining stock of Saturn IB would be expanded, and so would the last Saturn Vs, to lift a modular space station.
The said station used S-IVB and S-II hulls, dry-workshop style. Overall shape was of a four blade propeller: S-II as the hub, S-IVB as the blades. The station would de facto provide a colossal volume to its crew: Skylab, cubed. Skylab B was to be dismantled: its workshop turned into a ground based mockup, its ATM dispatched to the new space station.
The Air Force and NASA accepted to study a merge-up of Saturn IB and Titan IIIM in the shape of the SATAN launcher: SRMs with S-IVB on top, eventually with a more powerful engine than old J-2. It would be complementary of the hypothetical Shuttle II, both using a XLR-129 which was de facto funded: as was the F-1A.
And thus...
S-IC survived, on Saturn V and perhaps as the Shuttle II booster; gaining the F-1A in the process;
S-II survived, on Saturn V and as a space station dry workshop module;
S-IVB survived, as a space station dry workshop module and upper stage with the XLR-129;
Apollo survived, as the space station lifeboat;
And some bit of the LM also survived, as the Apollo Telescope Mount.
HOW TO BUILD A MODULAR SPACE STATION WITHOUT A SPACE SHUTTLE
-Douglas - Manned Orbital Research Laboratory (MORL) NAS 1-3612, September, 1964.
-Douglas - Early Orbital Space Station (EOSS), NAS 8-21064, November, 1967.
-General Dynamics - Basic Subsystem Module (BSM), NAS 9-6796, October, 1967
-Workshop cost estimates based on EOSS, MORL and BSM costs. Bellcomm, 1968
- An alternate AAP for Earth orbit: the SLA workshop. Bellcomm, January 17, 1968
-Selected comments on Agena and Titan III family stages. Bellcomm, March 26, 1968
-Guidelines for Intermediate Space Station (ISS) payloads, Bellcomm, July 3,1968
-A Titan IIIM launched space station program. Bellcomm, July 23, 1968
-Spirit of '76, North American Rockwell Space Division (August 1970)
-An International Space Station Program (ISS) - George W. Morgenthaler, 1970
-Study of an evolutionary interim earth orbit program, April 6, 1971
-Skylab II Study, Phase I Study. March 27, 1970.
-Memo for the Record: Skylab B. George Hardy. Aug 10, 1970
-Skylab planning status briefing to Dale Myers, Subject Skylab B, Phase I Study, 9/18/70
-Post Skylab missions study, February 24, 1971, MSC
-Second Skylab mission presentation, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co.
-Skylab Advanced Configurations. George V. Butler/McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co.
-Second Skylab - 1972 NASA Authorization Hearings.
-Possibilities for Skylab-A reuse.
-US/USSR Cooperative Space Laboratory (Skylab/Salyut), McDonnell Douglas, 23 June 1972
-Leveraging existing Apollo assets for delivery of crew and cargo to the 1980 Space Station
-Douglas - Manned Orbital Research Laboratory (MORL) NAS 1-3612, September, 1964.
-Douglas - Early Orbital Space Station (EOSS), NAS 8-21064, November, 1967.
-General Dynamics - Basic Subsystem Module (BSM), NAS 9-6796, October, 1967
-Workshop cost estimates based on EOSS, MORL and BSM costs. Bellcomm, 1968
- An alternate AAP for Earth orbit: the SLA workshop. Bellcomm, January 17, 1968
-Selected comments on Agena and Titan III family stages. Bellcomm, March 26, 1968
-Guidelines for Intermediate Space Station (ISS) payloads, Bellcomm, July 3,1968
-A Titan IIIM launched space station program. Bellcomm, July 23, 1968
-Spirit of '76, North American Rockwell Space Division (August 1970)
-An International Space Station Program (ISS) - George W. Morgenthaler, 1970
-Study of an evolutionary interim earth orbit program, April 6, 1971
-Skylab II Study, Phase I Study. March 27, 1970.
-Memo for the Record: Skylab B. George Hardy. Aug 10, 1970
-Skylab planning status briefing to Dale Myers, Subject Skylab B, Phase I Study, 9/18/70
-Post Skylab missions study, February 24, 1971, MSC
-Second Skylab mission presentation, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co.
-Skylab Advanced Configurations. George V. Butler/McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co.
-Second Skylab - 1972 NASA Authorization Hearings.
-Possibilities for Skylab-A reuse.
-US/USSR Cooperative Space Laboratory (Skylab/Salyut), McDonnell Douglas, 23 June 1972
-Leveraging existing Apollo assets for delivery of crew and cargo to the 1980 Space Station
Took me a very long time to collect them (or just the titles) from many sources. Yet now they are all together, side by side.
Basically all the space station alternatives, 1965-1975 : no constraints from the Shuttle as per the ISS; not AAP wet workshop, nor Skylab-A; and Skylab-B varied options.
Basically all the space station alternatives, 1965-1975 : no constraints from the Shuttle as per the ISS; not AAP wet workshop, nor Skylab-A; and Skylab-B varied options.
I had so much bloated blah blah cumulated over the 1972 and 1973 chapters, I had to take radical measures.
I literally extracted them to a separate file, then sorted the blah blah from some valuable stuff.
It was a tedious, major PITA, but I trimmed immense amounts of unuseful stuff, just focusing on a few important bits.
I literally extracted them to a separate file, then sorted the blah blah from some valuable stuff.
It was a tedious, major PITA, but I trimmed immense amounts of unuseful stuff, just focusing on a few important bits.
This is a Godsend (or, put otherwise: absolute aviation porn !)
theaviationgeekclub.com
www.flickr.com
The one and only time XB-70, YF-12, X-15, RB-57F and U-2 met. Plus a whole lot of "classics", including the complete inventory of (operational) Century fighters, Phantom and F-5 with them. And a Thor rocket, for good measure.
If I ever time travel, this is the moment and place I want to be.
(alas, the YF-12 serial 934 and the second XB-70 present that day both died a few weeks later, summer 1966: making that gathering even more unique ) http://www.habu.org/yf-12/06934.html
The Only Public Air Show in XB-70 Valkyrie History Featured some of the Coolest Aircraft Ever Built - The Aviation Geek Club
The Only Public Air Show in XB-70 Valkyrie History Featured some of the Coolest Aircraft Ever Built
theaviationgeekclub.com
1966 Carswell AFB Airshow
1966 Carswell AFB, Air Force Association Airshow - Scanned from the collection of John Williams, posted with permission.
www.flickr.com
The one and only time XB-70, YF-12, X-15, RB-57F and U-2 met. Plus a whole lot of "classics", including the complete inventory of (operational) Century fighters, Phantom and F-5 with them. And a Thor rocket, for good measure.
If I ever time travel, this is the moment and place I want to be.
(alas, the YF-12 serial 934 and the second XB-70 present that day both died a few weeks later, summer 1966: making that gathering even more unique ) http://www.habu.org/yf-12/06934.html
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Scott Kenny
ACCESS: USAP
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XB-70, YF-12, the entire Century series, F-111, B-58, B-52...
Oh, yes, totally aviation porn!!!
OF EUGENE SANGER AND IRENE BREDT. As of 1928 ballistics were well understood, obviously because artillery and shells. The highest and fastest man-made object at the time was the 1918 Paris Gun shell. It was already known rockets would fly mostly similar trajectories, and of course Goddard was at work there. Meanwhile aircraft were flying... horizontally: low and slow.
Sanger and Bredt wondered whether variations of ballistic trajectories existed that could bridge the gap: mixing ballistics and aerodynamic lift. This is how boost-glide and skip-glide were discovered, the end result being Silbervogel - and its sinister WWII incarnations. Boost-glide and skip-glide start the same way: rockets accelerate the vehicle to at least 6 km/s, after what they diverge, according to their names: one just glide smoothly, the other bounce off the atmosphere.
This is where things stood in the early 1950's, when Bell started their string of spaceplane studies: ROBO, BOMI, Brass bell. Soon NACA Langley was on that case, with A. J. Eggers finding a key difference between boost-glide and skip-glide, related to lift-to-drag ratio (short: L/D). At low L/D skip-glide had a range edge, but it quickly vanished and at the end of the day, boost-glide was superior. It was also much smoother, as far as g-forces and heatshields were concerned.
And there is more.
Back in the day Sanger and Bredt explored skip-glide and boost-glide trajectories for an all important reason: still pertinent today. They saw vertically-launching, ballistic rockets as expendable as artillery shells, and they didn't liked it. They wanted a space plane, and that included horizontal launching. As a result the many Silbervogel incarnations would launch from a rail track with the help of a rocket-powered sled.
Nowadays we are, somewhat, returning to Sanger and Bredt dream of an horizontally launching, boost-or-skip glide rocketplane. More precisely: we picked boost-glide, and added a trick around 6 km/s: an oxidizer transfer by a twin rocketplane, to help with the final push to orbit. Things are coming full circle...
Sanger and Bredt wondered whether variations of ballistic trajectories existed that could bridge the gap: mixing ballistics and aerodynamic lift. This is how boost-glide and skip-glide were discovered, the end result being Silbervogel - and its sinister WWII incarnations. Boost-glide and skip-glide start the same way: rockets accelerate the vehicle to at least 6 km/s, after what they diverge, according to their names: one just glide smoothly, the other bounce off the atmosphere.
This is where things stood in the early 1950's, when Bell started their string of spaceplane studies: ROBO, BOMI, Brass bell. Soon NACA Langley was on that case, with A. J. Eggers finding a key difference between boost-glide and skip-glide, related to lift-to-drag ratio (short: L/D). At low L/D skip-glide had a range edge, but it quickly vanished and at the end of the day, boost-glide was superior. It was also much smoother, as far as g-forces and heatshields were concerned.
And there is more.
Back in the day Sanger and Bredt explored skip-glide and boost-glide trajectories for an all important reason: still pertinent today. They saw vertically-launching, ballistic rockets as expendable as artillery shells, and they didn't liked it. They wanted a space plane, and that included horizontal launching. As a result the many Silbervogel incarnations would launch from a rail track with the help of a rocket-powered sled.
Nowadays we are, somewhat, returning to Sanger and Bredt dream of an horizontally launching, boost-or-skip glide rocketplane. More precisely: we picked boost-glide, and added a trick around 6 km/s: an oxidizer transfer by a twin rocketplane, to help with the final push to orbit. Things are coming full circle...
The attached document is a gem. It compares ballistic, skip-glide and boost-glide trajectories. Dated 1955 it stands at the crossroads between Sanger-Bredt (1928 - 1944 - post war); early studies of DynaSoar by Bell (ROBO / BOMI / Hywards / Brass Bell) ; and the coming ICBM & space race (1957).
I have tracked down a whole lot of similar documents, centered on Eggers, A. J, Jr. - a NASA engineer who reviewed and expanded Sanger & Bredt work, leading to DynaSoar.
Well - this very gentleman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_J._Eggers
I have tracked down a whole lot of similar documents, centered on Eggers, A. J, Jr. - a NASA engineer who reviewed and expanded Sanger & Bredt work, leading to DynaSoar.
Well - this very gentleman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_J._Eggers
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The year 1957 saw the space race, ballistic satellites and DynaSoar go their separate ways. But they all had roots five years earlier: IRMBs and ICBMs of course - ballistic rockets throwing (nuclear) reentry capsules - but not only.
At Bell Dornberger was bringing back the A4b concept: the one and only realistic nazi winged rocket project. Just put wings on a V2 to extend its range via supersonic gliding. Far more realistic than both Silbervogel and A9/A10 ! While it wouldn't have won the war for the nazis, with a range of 750 km rather than 300 km it could have rained devastation across southern Great Britain.
So Dornberger had Bell working on winged hypersonic rockets as early as 1952, called successively BOMI, ROBO, Hywards and Brass Bell. Dornberger even tried to hire Sanger and his wife Irene Bredt, but they declined for family reasons. What might have been ! But don't forget Bell lost their magic touch around 1953: with the X-2, which killed two pilots, and then they lost the X-15 to North American and the X-20 – DynaSoar ! - to Boeing.
One fascinating consequence of Dornberger & Bell rocketplane studies was that they picked attention of NACA right off 1954, hence three years before the space race began. We all know how Mercury came into being – a byproduct of ballistic rockets throwing (nuclear) reentry capsules. Yet in the days of Dornberger, Bell and NACA the very concept of Mercury – ballistic rocket, blunt body capsule - was far from obvious.
And there, enter Alfred Eggers at NACA Ames research center. What Eggers did was to compare ballistic, skip-glide and boost-glide trajectories and theoretical vehicles; this, a few years before the space race, satellites, Mercury and Dynasoar. Eggers ranked the trajectories theoretical efficiencies as follow: 1-boost-glide; 2-ballistic and 3-skip-glide. Put otherwise: DynaSoar, Mercury, Sanger. See where this is going ? Boost glide was leading the pack... before history accelerated: Sputnik, Gagarin, Mercury and Gemini; Max Faget win, Dynasoar gets canned for Gemini. After what Kennedy's Apollo cements the victory of ballistic capsules riding expendable rockets.
Now, what if boost-glide had survived or even stayed ahead of the race ? Dynasoar, to be honest, was doing it the wrong way; not enough spaceplane, too much expendable Titan rocket ! That's the exact reason it got canned. It ended squeezed between NASA Gemini - two men in space for 14 days out of a Titan II; and the same Gemini adapted to the MOL. But how about an improved Silbervogel, ditching Sanger unpractical skip-glide (discredited by Eggers) in favor of boost-glide ?
This bring us back to Bell and Dornberger extensive work. Could Bomi have been made to work, be practical, and survives Sputnik, Gagarin, and Mercury ? Probably not, making it to orbit fully reusable would have been insanely hard and expensive, if only compared to Max Faget's Gemini riding an Atlas to orbit. Boost-glide lost to history as much as state-of-the-art.
And that's where we are today. Eggers and his colleagues at Ames and Langley however left us with an intriguing aspect of boost-glide. They noted that past 6 km/s centrifugal lift carries a growing percentage of the rocketplane weight, rather than aerodynamic lift: and in turn, this greatly extend the range at little expense.
And thus, at the end of the day...
Boost-glide wins over ballistic because it is a flatter and much more efficient trajectory.
Boost-glide wins over skip-glide because it much smoother in accelerations and heating.
Boost-glide wins over hypersonics because it goes into space and thus escape the heat barrier.
This victory however is for suborbital flight only: point-to-point transportation to the other side of the world. Unfortunately (and as usual), whatever boost-glide strengths it still fails going to orbit on the cheap with a large payload: mass fraction and specific impulse, the usual deadly combination.
Now, back to boost-glide and centrifugal lift and 6 km/s: what if we found some smart trick right there ?
At Bell Dornberger was bringing back the A4b concept: the one and only realistic nazi winged rocket project. Just put wings on a V2 to extend its range via supersonic gliding. Far more realistic than both Silbervogel and A9/A10 ! While it wouldn't have won the war for the nazis, with a range of 750 km rather than 300 km it could have rained devastation across southern Great Britain.
So Dornberger had Bell working on winged hypersonic rockets as early as 1952, called successively BOMI, ROBO, Hywards and Brass Bell. Dornberger even tried to hire Sanger and his wife Irene Bredt, but they declined for family reasons. What might have been ! But don't forget Bell lost their magic touch around 1953: with the X-2, which killed two pilots, and then they lost the X-15 to North American and the X-20 – DynaSoar ! - to Boeing.
One fascinating consequence of Dornberger & Bell rocketplane studies was that they picked attention of NACA right off 1954, hence three years before the space race began. We all know how Mercury came into being – a byproduct of ballistic rockets throwing (nuclear) reentry capsules. Yet in the days of Dornberger, Bell and NACA the very concept of Mercury – ballistic rocket, blunt body capsule - was far from obvious.
And there, enter Alfred Eggers at NACA Ames research center. What Eggers did was to compare ballistic, skip-glide and boost-glide trajectories and theoretical vehicles; this, a few years before the space race, satellites, Mercury and Dynasoar. Eggers ranked the trajectories theoretical efficiencies as follow: 1-boost-glide; 2-ballistic and 3-skip-glide. Put otherwise: DynaSoar, Mercury, Sanger. See where this is going ? Boost glide was leading the pack... before history accelerated: Sputnik, Gagarin, Mercury and Gemini; Max Faget win, Dynasoar gets canned for Gemini. After what Kennedy's Apollo cements the victory of ballistic capsules riding expendable rockets.
Now, what if boost-glide had survived or even stayed ahead of the race ? Dynasoar, to be honest, was doing it the wrong way; not enough spaceplane, too much expendable Titan rocket ! That's the exact reason it got canned. It ended squeezed between NASA Gemini - two men in space for 14 days out of a Titan II; and the same Gemini adapted to the MOL. But how about an improved Silbervogel, ditching Sanger unpractical skip-glide (discredited by Eggers) in favor of boost-glide ?
This bring us back to Bell and Dornberger extensive work. Could Bomi have been made to work, be practical, and survives Sputnik, Gagarin, and Mercury ? Probably not, making it to orbit fully reusable would have been insanely hard and expensive, if only compared to Max Faget's Gemini riding an Atlas to orbit. Boost-glide lost to history as much as state-of-the-art.
And that's where we are today. Eggers and his colleagues at Ames and Langley however left us with an intriguing aspect of boost-glide. They noted that past 6 km/s centrifugal lift carries a growing percentage of the rocketplane weight, rather than aerodynamic lift: and in turn, this greatly extend the range at little expense.
And thus, at the end of the day...
Boost-glide wins over ballistic because it is a flatter and much more efficient trajectory.
Boost-glide wins over skip-glide because it much smoother in accelerations and heating.
Boost-glide wins over hypersonics because it goes into space and thus escape the heat barrier.
This victory however is for suborbital flight only: point-to-point transportation to the other side of the world. Unfortunately (and as usual), whatever boost-glide strengths it still fails going to orbit on the cheap with a large payload: mass fraction and specific impulse, the usual deadly combination.
Now, back to boost-glide and centrifugal lift and 6 km/s: what if we found some smart trick right there ?
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, 1968
"You have to see Krafft Ehricke excitation when he learned about that Lunar Orbiter 5 discovery in the Marius Hills. Ehricke joyfully reminded us how he once said, if God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a Moon.
He then got a little laugh, and spontaneously added "well, time to update that quote: how about - if God wanted mankind to build a moon base, he would have created those colossal lava tubes. On a personal note, this will make building my Selenopolis lunar colony so much easier !"
Pasadena, 1968
"You have to see Krafft Ehricke excitation when he learned about that Lunar Orbiter 5 discovery in the Marius Hills. Ehricke joyfully reminded us how he once said, if God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a Moon.
He then got a little laugh, and spontaneously added "well, time to update that quote: how about - if God wanted mankind to build a moon base, he would have created those colossal lava tubes. On a personal note, this will make building my Selenopolis lunar colony so much easier !"
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Sunnyvale, California
January 1982
"DynaSoar may be long gone, boost-glide is still out there, going strongly." Story England was smiling. "Heard of SWERVE and LORAINE, Owen ?"
"Let me guess. More hypersonics, for strike ? Like the old BGRV in the 1960's... or Silbervogel 50 years ago ?"
"Nope. For interception of Soviet bomber packages. As in, the Navy Outer Air Battle.
"What do you mean ? Ain't AEGIS and Tomcats / Hawkeyes taking care of that ?
"Actually, it is the next step beyond them. A missile with an hypersonic glider at the tip.
"Do they plan a nuclear warhead ? Because otherwise, guidance will be a nightmare.
"No nuclear warhead. They are confident they can handle the guidance issues. If true, this could bring a revolution to the perenial issue of bomber interceptions: after guns, jet aircraft, SAGE and guided missiles of every kind: AEGIS, Phoenix."
"So at the end of the day, unlike Aegis and Tomcats those... boost-gliders would attack Soviet bombers from above: from space. Accelerating to extremely high mach numbers and altitude.
"And distance too. Which is the key parameter of Outer Air Battle."
...
In 1977, DoD began a program known as BIM - Ballistic Intercept Missile - to develop wide area target acquisition and engagement using ballistic missile propulsion concepts.
By 1982, DoD had chosen a maneuvering reentry vehicle known as SWERVE as the vehicle, and conducted studies to develop sensor subsystems.
By 1985, three successful sensor tests had been conducted with the SWERVE vehicle.
...
Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment (SWERVE) is not a DARPA program; it is a DoE technology program that DARPA has taken advantage of in its efforts to design a Ballistic Intercept Missile (BIM Program: FY 1979-1984) and to develop a conformal X-band array seeker (LORAINE Program: FY 1985-1987).
Over the last three years, both Navy and Air Force studies highlighted the need for SWERVE technology for fleet air defense and Air Defence Initiative missions. NASA sees SWERVE spinoffs for the National Aerospace Plane program, hypersonic research and for Mars missions, too.
...
This Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle (TAV) aerodynamic design uses a 4.4 degree half angle biconic cone and is similar in geometry to the Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiments (SWERVE) conducted during the mid 1980s. Four wedge shaped hypersonic control surfaces are located around the vehicle's boat-tail at 90 degree intervals.
...
SWERVE Flight Test Experience
Sandia designed, developed, and conducted three flight tests of a slender hypersonic vehicle called SWERVE. The first flight test occurred in 1979 and the last in 1985. All vehicles flown were spherically blunted conical vehicles. The cone half-angle in all cases was 5.25° and the third vehicle was a little over 100-in. long. The nose tip radius to base radius ratio was about 0.07. Small wings and elevons were used to increase lift and provide control. The heat shield and nose tip were ablative materials.
The vehicle was flown out of the Kauai Test Facility and, in the case of the third flight, reentered near Johnston Island. Extensive wind tunnel testing produced a large database on this shape. The SWERVE maneuver from the third flight included a -10° angle of attack, Mach 12, high-altitude pull out at 20 sec, requiring control deflections of 4°; followed by a return to 0°-angle of attack at 60 sec at about Mach 8.
...
A DARPA program known as LORAINE (Long-Range Intercept Experiment) seeks to demonstrate that maneuverable reentry vehicles can destroy airbreathing targets at extremely long ranges. Anthony Tether, director of DARPA's strategic technology office, said that LORAINE is using as a test bed a vehicle called SWERVE. LORAINE involves adding a "conformal" radar array - one that does not disrupt the vehicle's aerodynamics - to the SWERVE, along with a high-speed signal processing system that uses the Sandac computer.
LORAINE, if successful, will make SWERVE autonomous, capable of zeroing in on moving targets without any external command. Tether said that such a weapon could be used to strike bombers and surveillance planes.
...
PROJECT DESCRIPTIVE This effort in the Long Range Interceptor Experiment (LORAINE) Focus of the LORAINE program has been on development of technology for a non-nuclear very long range anti-aircraft weapon. The development is intended primarily for Battle group and Continental United States (CONUS) air defense applications.
By virtue of its speed the LORAINE could attack in a matter of minutes. By having a large search area the LORAINE minimizes the need for accurate pretargeting information, and coupled with its speed of reaction eliminates the need for update information in most scenarios. It is ideally suited to complement long range surveillance systems such as Over-the-Horizon (OTH) Radar and Space Infrared (IR) systems. These latter systems can be used to cue the LORAINE.
LORAINE can also be used to provide the outer air defense for the Battle Group. In short, the LORAINE is the ultimate long range intercept weapon. The baseline reentry vehicle was developed by the Sandia National Laboratory.
...
At the most ambitious level, the outer air battle attempts to integrate all available fleet air defense assets to destroy Soviet bombers before they can launch their weapons. The requirement was first stated about 1983, and at least two generations of studies have been conducted, with work by several contractors carried out during 1986.
Throughout, the question has been the extent to which a new ship-launched missile should share the outer fringes of the battle group with long-range fighters. In the past, any such sharing has been avoided because of limitations inherent in both IFF (identification, friend or foe) and in maintaining aircraft tracks. On the other hand, particularly after they have been fitted with vertical launchers, surface ships have an enormous missile capacity, compared to airborne fighters. In 1986 there were reports of LORAINE, a long-range antiaircraft missile developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
...
The United States Navy created their own system, the AN/TPS-71 ROTHR (Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar), which covers a 64-degree wedge-shaped area at ranges from 500 to 1,600 nautical miles (925 to 3,000 km). ROTHR was originally intended to monitor ship and aircraft movement over the Pacific, and thus allow coordinated fleet movements well in advance of an engagement. A prototype ROTHR system was installed on the isolated Aleutian Island of Amchitka, Alaska, monitoring the eastern coast of Russia.
...
Another proposal was to use technology then under development for a maneuvering re-entry vehicle for ballistic missiles. Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar defined a series of resolution cells (each quite large); it could only say whether a bomber was or was not in each cell. Normally a cell would be far too large for a missile's active seeker to search, which was why ROTHR was considered a surveillance tool rather than a fire control sensor. However, a sensor on board a missile approaching the bomber stream from above, ie from space, might view the entire resolution cell. It turned out that a ballistic missile, LORAINE, could be fired from a standard vertical launcher cell, and plans called for equipping its manoevering re-entry vehicle with a millimetre-wave radar. The weapon would dive so fast that the bomber would have little chance of escaping. The space aspect of the system would have been the high-capacity link betwee ROTHR and the firing ship.
...
"The only air defense system that utilized a ballistic missile I can think of is the Ballistic Intercept Missile (BIM) that the Navy is studying for application in their Outer Air Battle plan.
Even with systems like Phoenix/AWG-9/APG-71 and AEGIS/Standard Missile, the USN thinks that their air defense capability would be insufficient against massed Soviet bomber formations that they thought the USSR would utilize in a potential conflict.
So the USN began investigating a air defense system that would look down on Soviet bomber formations from above to destroy them, rather than a standard air defense system where the air defense system looks up to find the bombers, and this became BIM.
BIM was a ballistic missile that would launched from a containerized launcher and would release the SWERVE vehicle in a high lofted trajectory. From its high lofted hypersonic trajectory, the SWERVE would look downwards searching for Soviet bomber streams with its powerful LORAINE active seeker, and if it found any, would maneuver to destroy the bombers."
...
"Damn interesting stuff; you guess I was wondering how rocketplanes would fit into this. Seems pretty obvious that the Air Force could use ROLS as a SWERVE carrier. Takeoff, accelerates to Mach 3+ on the jets, then go suborbital. Once safely out of the atmosphere, roll on the back, open the payload bay doors, and release a number of SWERVE missiles. Reentering the atmosphere and boost-gliding to hypersonic velocity, they will use their LORAINE seeker to home on Soviet Naval Aviation bombers and wipe them out of the sky; thinning their ranks to help AEGIS and Tomcats in the fight for the Outer Air Battle. Ain't that an exciting mission ??!!!"
"Of course it is. By the way, if SWERVE is to be AEGIS sidekick the missiles will have to be sized for the Mk.41 VLS launcher: small and compact. Compare that to ROLS payload bay: it could carry a big numbers of SWERVEs."
"Holly cow. We could decimate entire squadrons of Tu-22M Backfires from space, long before the Outer Air Battle planned beginning. We could put AEGIS, Tomcats and Hawkeyes to retirement. I'm wondering whether my beloved NF-104Bs could play any testing role in that."
January 1982
"DynaSoar may be long gone, boost-glide is still out there, going strongly." Story England was smiling. "Heard of SWERVE and LORAINE, Owen ?"
"Let me guess. More hypersonics, for strike ? Like the old BGRV in the 1960's... or Silbervogel 50 years ago ?"
"Nope. For interception of Soviet bomber packages. As in, the Navy Outer Air Battle.
"What do you mean ? Ain't AEGIS and Tomcats / Hawkeyes taking care of that ?
"Actually, it is the next step beyond them. A missile with an hypersonic glider at the tip.
"Do they plan a nuclear warhead ? Because otherwise, guidance will be a nightmare.
"No nuclear warhead. They are confident they can handle the guidance issues. If true, this could bring a revolution to the perenial issue of bomber interceptions: after guns, jet aircraft, SAGE and guided missiles of every kind: AEGIS, Phoenix."
"So at the end of the day, unlike Aegis and Tomcats those... boost-gliders would attack Soviet bombers from above: from space. Accelerating to extremely high mach numbers and altitude.
"And distance too. Which is the key parameter of Outer Air Battle."
...
In 1977, DoD began a program known as BIM - Ballistic Intercept Missile - to develop wide area target acquisition and engagement using ballistic missile propulsion concepts.
By 1982, DoD had chosen a maneuvering reentry vehicle known as SWERVE as the vehicle, and conducted studies to develop sensor subsystems.
By 1985, three successful sensor tests had been conducted with the SWERVE vehicle.
...
Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment (SWERVE) is not a DARPA program; it is a DoE technology program that DARPA has taken advantage of in its efforts to design a Ballistic Intercept Missile (BIM Program: FY 1979-1984) and to develop a conformal X-band array seeker (LORAINE Program: FY 1985-1987).
Over the last three years, both Navy and Air Force studies highlighted the need for SWERVE technology for fleet air defense and Air Defence Initiative missions. NASA sees SWERVE spinoffs for the National Aerospace Plane program, hypersonic research and for Mars missions, too.
...
This Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle (TAV) aerodynamic design uses a 4.4 degree half angle biconic cone and is similar in geometry to the Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiments (SWERVE) conducted during the mid 1980s. Four wedge shaped hypersonic control surfaces are located around the vehicle's boat-tail at 90 degree intervals.
...
SWERVE Flight Test Experience
Sandia designed, developed, and conducted three flight tests of a slender hypersonic vehicle called SWERVE. The first flight test occurred in 1979 and the last in 1985. All vehicles flown were spherically blunted conical vehicles. The cone half-angle in all cases was 5.25° and the third vehicle was a little over 100-in. long. The nose tip radius to base radius ratio was about 0.07. Small wings and elevons were used to increase lift and provide control. The heat shield and nose tip were ablative materials.
The vehicle was flown out of the Kauai Test Facility and, in the case of the third flight, reentered near Johnston Island. Extensive wind tunnel testing produced a large database on this shape. The SWERVE maneuver from the third flight included a -10° angle of attack, Mach 12, high-altitude pull out at 20 sec, requiring control deflections of 4°; followed by a return to 0°-angle of attack at 60 sec at about Mach 8.
...
A DARPA program known as LORAINE (Long-Range Intercept Experiment) seeks to demonstrate that maneuverable reentry vehicles can destroy airbreathing targets at extremely long ranges. Anthony Tether, director of DARPA's strategic technology office, said that LORAINE is using as a test bed a vehicle called SWERVE. LORAINE involves adding a "conformal" radar array - one that does not disrupt the vehicle's aerodynamics - to the SWERVE, along with a high-speed signal processing system that uses the Sandac computer.
LORAINE, if successful, will make SWERVE autonomous, capable of zeroing in on moving targets without any external command. Tether said that such a weapon could be used to strike bombers and surveillance planes.
...
PROJECT DESCRIPTIVE This effort in the Long Range Interceptor Experiment (LORAINE) Focus of the LORAINE program has been on development of technology for a non-nuclear very long range anti-aircraft weapon. The development is intended primarily for Battle group and Continental United States (CONUS) air defense applications.
By virtue of its speed the LORAINE could attack in a matter of minutes. By having a large search area the LORAINE minimizes the need for accurate pretargeting information, and coupled with its speed of reaction eliminates the need for update information in most scenarios. It is ideally suited to complement long range surveillance systems such as Over-the-Horizon (OTH) Radar and Space Infrared (IR) systems. These latter systems can be used to cue the LORAINE.
LORAINE can also be used to provide the outer air defense for the Battle Group. In short, the LORAINE is the ultimate long range intercept weapon. The baseline reentry vehicle was developed by the Sandia National Laboratory.
...
At the most ambitious level, the outer air battle attempts to integrate all available fleet air defense assets to destroy Soviet bombers before they can launch their weapons. The requirement was first stated about 1983, and at least two generations of studies have been conducted, with work by several contractors carried out during 1986.
Throughout, the question has been the extent to which a new ship-launched missile should share the outer fringes of the battle group with long-range fighters. In the past, any such sharing has been avoided because of limitations inherent in both IFF (identification, friend or foe) and in maintaining aircraft tracks. On the other hand, particularly after they have been fitted with vertical launchers, surface ships have an enormous missile capacity, compared to airborne fighters. In 1986 there were reports of LORAINE, a long-range antiaircraft missile developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
...
The United States Navy created their own system, the AN/TPS-71 ROTHR (Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar), which covers a 64-degree wedge-shaped area at ranges from 500 to 1,600 nautical miles (925 to 3,000 km). ROTHR was originally intended to monitor ship and aircraft movement over the Pacific, and thus allow coordinated fleet movements well in advance of an engagement. A prototype ROTHR system was installed on the isolated Aleutian Island of Amchitka, Alaska, monitoring the eastern coast of Russia.
...
Another proposal was to use technology then under development for a maneuvering re-entry vehicle for ballistic missiles. Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar defined a series of resolution cells (each quite large); it could only say whether a bomber was or was not in each cell. Normally a cell would be far too large for a missile's active seeker to search, which was why ROTHR was considered a surveillance tool rather than a fire control sensor. However, a sensor on board a missile approaching the bomber stream from above, ie from space, might view the entire resolution cell. It turned out that a ballistic missile, LORAINE, could be fired from a standard vertical launcher cell, and plans called for equipping its manoevering re-entry vehicle with a millimetre-wave radar. The weapon would dive so fast that the bomber would have little chance of escaping. The space aspect of the system would have been the high-capacity link betwee ROTHR and the firing ship.
...
"The only air defense system that utilized a ballistic missile I can think of is the Ballistic Intercept Missile (BIM) that the Navy is studying for application in their Outer Air Battle plan.
Even with systems like Phoenix/AWG-9/APG-71 and AEGIS/Standard Missile, the USN thinks that their air defense capability would be insufficient against massed Soviet bomber formations that they thought the USSR would utilize in a potential conflict.
So the USN began investigating a air defense system that would look down on Soviet bomber formations from above to destroy them, rather than a standard air defense system where the air defense system looks up to find the bombers, and this became BIM.
BIM was a ballistic missile that would launched from a containerized launcher and would release the SWERVE vehicle in a high lofted trajectory. From its high lofted hypersonic trajectory, the SWERVE would look downwards searching for Soviet bomber streams with its powerful LORAINE active seeker, and if it found any, would maneuver to destroy the bombers."
...
"Damn interesting stuff; you guess I was wondering how rocketplanes would fit into this. Seems pretty obvious that the Air Force could use ROLS as a SWERVE carrier. Takeoff, accelerates to Mach 3+ on the jets, then go suborbital. Once safely out of the atmosphere, roll on the back, open the payload bay doors, and release a number of SWERVE missiles. Reentering the atmosphere and boost-gliding to hypersonic velocity, they will use their LORAINE seeker to home on Soviet Naval Aviation bombers and wipe them out of the sky; thinning their ranks to help AEGIS and Tomcats in the fight for the Outer Air Battle. Ain't that an exciting mission ??!!!"
"Of course it is. By the way, if SWERVE is to be AEGIS sidekick the missiles will have to be sized for the Mk.41 VLS launcher: small and compact. Compare that to ROLS payload bay: it could carry a big numbers of SWERVEs."
"Holly cow. We could decimate entire squadrons of Tu-22M Backfires from space, long before the Outer Air Battle planned beginning. We could put AEGIS, Tomcats and Hawkeyes to retirement. I'm wondering whether my beloved NF-104Bs could play any testing role in that."
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