Astrorocket, Saturn-derived & Apollo documents +sale

Orionblamblam

ACCESS: USAP
Top Contributor
Senior Member
Joined
5 April 2006
Messages
11,735
Reaction score
9,143
Website
www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com
Six new aerospace history document sets are now available on PDF/CD-ROM.

These include:
Astrorocket Progress Report
Manned Space Laboratory Requirements and Conceptual Designs
Saturn S-IVB Sketches
Saturn I with solid first stages (156 & n260 inch)
Saturn S-II stage with 260-inch solid first stage
Five Apollo CSM operations handbooks

Also, three photo sets are on sale for a limited time.

Check them all out here:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocsale.htm
 
order placed, :),
can i ask, is the Orion model in the photoset, the fabled Orion 'space battleship' model, purportedly shown to to JFK, and then which subsequently disappeared?

cheers,
Robin.
 
robunos said:
order placed, :),
can i ask, is the Orion model in the photoset, the fabled Orion 'space battleship' model, purportedly shown to to JFK, and then which subsequently disappeared?

Sadly, no. The "Corvette-sized" Orion remains deeply buried in the same warehlouse that holds the Lost Ark.
 
I place my order

in 2008, I will try buy every month
PDF, eAPR Abo, Drawings
gona be Xmas's every month for Me ;D
 
I received my CD today...wow! ::)

I vote for docs every month too....and more sales will help an US Bomber Projects earlier publication ;)
 
I should point out, though, that I am attempting to try to re-create it based on conversations with actual Orioneers.
[/quote]

that _will_ be interesting to see, on a related subject, do you have any info on the 'casaba-howitzer' weapon that the Orion 'space battleship' was supposed to be armed with? i have an idea of how it's supposed to work, but any further information would be most welcome.

cheers,
Robin.
 
robunos said:
on a related subject, do you have any info on the 'casaba-howitzer'

Let me put it this way: the only official bibliography of Casaba Howitzer I've ever seen compiled was itself classified.

CH was, in effect, a modified atomic bomb. The likelihood of *ever* seeing anything remotely accurate about it declassified is extremely low. The original Orion pulse units were simply meant to be conventioan (albeit small) A-Bombs in a carfeully designed shell to help give some direction to the bombs blast; CH was a specially designed a-bomb meant to provide a directional blast right from its basic design. And those simple pulse units themselves are impressively classified: I have a few reports on them, and all the pages that might prove enlightening are blanked out.

Pure speculation on my part would have the CH bombs looking not much unlike a household garbage can. Consequently, to be used as weapons onboard an Orion spacecraft, they'd have to be either cannon- or rocket-launched. You couldn't simply set one off right next to the ship.
 
that Casaba Howitzer

I heard of a nuclear howitzer of 1950s
massive steel hull tube open at one side.
inside that hole is ammo and small nuclear bomb
the nuke goes off catapult the ammo with 32 km/sec out be for the steel tube vaporise

sound more like a nuke trigger Plasma canon or X-ray laser to me

off course the guy of "Popular Mechanic" get it wrong (again)
as they publish in 1980s the Casaba Howitzer as SDI weapon that "fires" Scrap metal to enemy Bomber and ICBM ::)

befor we "Nuke" this thread about Astrorocket, Saturn-derived & Apollo documents +sale
let move to this to Secret Space Program new Thread called "Orion"
 
Orionblamblam said:
robunos said:
on a related subject, do you have any info on the 'casaba-howitzer'

Let me put it this way: the only official bibliography of Casaba Howitzer I've ever seen compiled was itself classified.

i understand the continued secrecy surrounding CH, i believe it's still considered a viable weapon.

CH was, in effect, a modified atomic bomb. The likelihood of *ever* seeing anything remotely accurate about it declassified is extremely low. The original Orion pulse units were simply meant to be conventioan (albeit small) A-Bombs in a carfeully designed shell to help give some direction to the bombs blast; CH was a specially designed a-bomb meant to provide a directional blast right from its basic design. And those simple pulse units themselves are impressively classified: I have a few reports on them, and all the pages that might prove enlightening are blanked out.

my understanding has proved to be incorrect. in his book 'project orion', george dyson says that CH worked 'like an orion pulse unit backwards'. now my understanding of the working of the orion pulse unit is that the nuclear detonation vaporises the propellant slab incorporated into the pulse unit by means of the _radiation_, like the way the primary in a H-bomb ignites the fusion component. furthermore, it's the shape of this propellant slab that determines the behaviour of the expanding plasma cloud. in the case of an orion pulse unit, the propellant is shaped to give a comparitively gently expanding cloud, which impinges on the pusher plate, and drives the orion vehicle forward. from this, i inferred that the propellant in the CH was shaped in order to produce a high energy jet, not unlike a hollow-charge anti-tank warhead. it didn't occur to me that the nuclear device itself could be engineered to produce a directional blast.

Pure speculation on my part would have the CH bombs looking not much unlike a household garbage can. Consequently, to be used as weapons onboard an Orion spacecraft, they'd have to be either cannon- or rocket-launched. You couldn't simply set one off right next to the ship.
i appreciate that, i know the orion was to be strongly built, like a submarine hull, but even they aren't nuke proof,(not that we know of, ;D)
 
Robunos,

Do you have G. Dyson's "Project Orion" book. Do you recommend it?. I'm interested on knowing more about that project and was considering to order it from amazon. Are the Battleship Orion versions described on that book?.

Thanks in advance,

Antonio
 
robunos said:
it didn't occur to me that the nuclear device itself could be engineered to produce a directional blast.

Ted Taylor himself had an article in Scientific American in the 1980's describing possibilities for next-generation nuclear bombs. In it he shows in *very* general principles how to build a "nuclear shaped charge."
 
pometablava said:
Robunos,

Do you have G. Dyson's "Project Orion" book. Do you recommend it?. I'm interested on knowing more about that project and was considering to order it from amazon. Are the Battleship Orion versions described on that book?.

It's very definitely worth having. The battleship versions are described in very vague terms... the best terms currently available in the declassified world.
 
Orionblamblam said:
pometablava said:
Robunos,

Do you have G. Dyson's "Project Orion" book. Do you recommend it?. I'm interested on knowing more about that project and was considering to order it from amazon. Are the Battleship Orion versions described on that book?.

It's very definitely worth having. The battleship versions are described in very vague terms... the best terms currently available in the declassified world.

i second that, the best info so far.

cheers,
Robin.
 
Thanks a lot Orion and Robunos.

There are extreme diferences in price I can't understand for this book at amazon: 38$ to 140$

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/002-1831596-0624044?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=project+orion&x=0&y=0

So I think I can order that at 38$.
 
Orionblamblam said:
robunos said:
it didn't occur to me that the nuclear device itself could be engineered to produce a directional blast.

Ted Taylor himself had an article in Scientific American in the 1980's describing possibilities for next-generation nuclear bombs. In it he shows in *very* general principles how to build a "nuclear shaped charge."

I wonder if there are any similarities to the late 80's X-ray lasers. Sure, one is channeling radiation and the other the blast itself but it does make one wonder.
 
pometablava said:
There are extreme diferences in price I can't understand for this book at amazon: 38$ to 140$

Amazons prices for out-of-print books can get pretty wacky. Behold:
$14 and up: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=project+orion&x=0&y=0
$24 and up: http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?title=project+orion
 
Orionblamblam said:
pometablava said:
Robunos,

Do you have G. Dyson's "Project Orion" book. Do you recommend it?. I'm interested on knowing more about that project and was considering to order it from amazon. Are the Battleship Orion versions described on that book?.

It's very definitely worth having. The battleship versions are described in very vague terms... the best terms currently available in the declassified world.

and having taken alook at up-ship.com, i see that the orion stuff is due to be in the next few eAPRs, now i really can't wait..... ;D

cheers,
Robin.
 
robunos said:
and having taken alook at up-ship.com, i see that the orion stuff is due to be in the next few eAPRs, now i really can't wait..... ;D

It will be in at least the next *4* issues of APR. I'm reshuffling everything into something a bit more sensible than the original series of articles, incorporating all the stuff I've found since then. Issue V1N4 will cover the original design concept, including Putt-Putt and other testing and safety issues; V1N5 will cover the USAF and NASA 10-meter (and 8- and 12-meter designs). N6 will cover the 1-meter lunar logistics and 20-meter designs; V2N1 will cover the LARGE Orion designs. Some future issue - possibly V2N2 - will cover post-Orion descendants such as Medusa, Daedalus and the Enzmann starship.
 

Attachments

  • aprv1n4.jpg
    aprv1n4.jpg
    192.7 KB · Views: 124
  • aprv1n5.jpg
    aprv1n5.jpg
    179.4 KB · Views: 111
sferrin said:
I wonder if there are any similarities to the late 80's X-ray lasers.

Hard to tell. They were not identical by any stretch of the imagination... the X-Ray laser was supposed to work by nuking very fine wires of zinc (IIRC) encased within long tungsten rods, while the CH somehow fucussed the yield of the bomb (neutrons, gamma rays, bomb bits and all) into a narrow plasma stream. Exactly *how* is of course classified, but CH was studied extensively during the SDI days. The X-Ray laser would fire at the speed of light, and could - in principle - target dozens of separate targets simultaneously. The CH was a one-shot, one-target weapon, the pulse of which travelled at less than c. But even one percent c is pretty damned fast, and having several kilotons yield worth of blast smack into the side of your spacecraft, warhead or even comet would be a hell of a bang.
 
Progress progresses on issue V1N4. I wish I was one of those authors who could bang out 20 pages of award-winning prose in a day, but I ain't. What I lack in speed, though, I make up for in quantity... and hopefully quality.

Oh, and profanity.
 

Attachments

  • v1n4 1.jpg
    v1n4 1.jpg
    129.2 KB · Views: 101
  • v1n4 2.jpg
    v1n4 2.jpg
    174.7 KB · Views: 97
Ted Taylor actually started to talk about shaped-charge A-bomb in the immense (it's from 1972...) "The Curve of Binding Energy"... a must have, IMHO
 
oh my god how longer i have to wait until V1N4. => V1N8 come out :'(

I have book "Project Orion" by George Dyson (son of Freeman Dyson)
ISBN 0-140-27732-3

you dint have it ? Buy it ! fast !!

i open a new Thread in Secret Space Program call "Orion: Open question"
 
Thanks for the link Scott

$14 and up: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=project+orion&x=0&y=0

Received my "Project Orion" by George Dyson today from abebooks.

Regards,

Antonio
 
Final layout for V1N4. Cover needs work, a few other bits of tinkering, but all the articles finally done. Hoping to have it ready to go by Wednesday or thereabouts.
 

Attachments

  • ev1n4layout.jpg
    ev1n4layout.jpg
    267.6 KB · Views: 112
I didn't know where else to put this. Customs document for Apollo 11 crew. No alien life forms were imported :D
 

Attachments

  • Apollo-11-Immigration-02.jpg
    Apollo-11-Immigration-02.jpg
    115.8 KB · Views: 22

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom