Flying Saucer as a real spacecraft design - pros & cons

I'm curious, what kind of electrical power is required to ensure the flight of 12 people in outer space?

A nuclear reactor with an electric capacity of 37 MW and a mass of 50 tons.
The main consumers on the aircraft shown above are 4 balls with generators of electromagnetic oscillations of unknown frequency. 3 balls with a radius of 1.794 m and a volume of 24.186 m3, consumption of 12 MW each ball
1 ball with a radius of 0.5 m and a volume of 0.524 m3, consumption of 0.262 MW
 
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As the thread title says "...as a real spacecraft design", German/Nazi flying disks and the like
should be out of its scope ... not to mention point 2 of the forum rules !
So, please back to the pros and cons of real flying saucer designs.
;)

 
and what if it is not antigravity but a vacuum as suggested by Victor Schauberger

how will you use vacuum for propulsion??? Even if there would be a black hole in a spacecraft which would suck in air from the front (or the back) side, it wouldn't create any propulsion. The black hole would need to fly in front of the spacecraft to create any lifting force, how will you achieve this? I know, there are some very theoretical ideas of flying with more than lightspeed with such ideas but to me this seems not to be a very practical idea...
 
how will you use vacuum for propulsion??? Even if there would be a black hole in a spacecraft which would suck in air from the front (or the back) side, it wouldn't create any propulsion. The black hole would need to fly in front of the spacecraft to create any lifting force, how will you achieve this? I know, there are some very theoretical ideas of flying with more than lightspeed with such ideas but to me this seems not to be a very practical idea...
Well, you could use a small black hole with reasonable mass (about 100.000-500.000 tons) to accelerate your spacecraft by Hawking radiation, emitted by black hole evaporation. Just use some kind of parabolic reflector to direct the radiation flow.
 
The question is, if this radiation will surpass the gravity forces of a blak hole, but I'm really not an expert in controled flights with black holes...
 
Err... guys? Real spacecraft design pros and cons?

Well, the "pros" of lenticular spacecraft, that you have nice, big flat bottom to work as a blunt body heatshield - while also having aerodynamic form that could actually produce decent lift. I.e. you could re-entry with flat bottom, then change the angle and use lifting force to glide, or even fly (if you have atmospheric motors).
 
and what if it is not antigravity but a vacuum as suggested by Victor Schauberger
When I read "Le Dossier des Soucoupes Volantes" in 1972 I was fascinated by the possibility that the Germans had developed flying saucers during World War II. Since then I have continued researching, for pleasure, and two years ago I published a https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Justo-M...efinements=p_27:Justo+Miranda&s=books&sr=1-21 book on Amazon in which I present my opinions on this subject trying to separate the possible from the improbable. In my opinion, everything that has been published about "Die Glocke" and about the research of Victor Schauberger is meaningless from a scientific point of view.
 

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In my opinion, everything that has been published about "Die Glocke" and about the research of Victor Schauberger is meaningless from a scientific point of view.
From a *physics* point of view, Die Glocke and the like are scientifically meaningless. But from a *psychology* point of view, there's probably a lot of work that can be done to analyze the minds of the True Believers. Perhaps also from a *sociology* point of view... how did society in general, the education system in particular, fail people such that they glom onto patently ridiculous conspiracy theories such as these?
 
There's always the 'fun' that a Coanda-effect saucer gives! Ah... The VTOL! The simplicity! Aaaaand then the wind gets up or you want to fly somewhere and you realise they aren't such a great idea ;)
 
There's always the 'fun' that a Coanda-effect saucer gives! Ah... The VTOL! The simplicity! Aaaaand then the wind gets up or you want to fly somewhere and you realise they aren't such a great idea ;)
On September 26, 1957, the U.S. Army approached Avro with a request for an Air Cushion Effect ‘flying jeep’, by March 1958 the Special Projects Group designed a modest subsonic circular aircraft called Avrocar.

Thrust of their three turbojets were used for turning the Turborotor, a 124 blades fan with 5 ft of diameter, to provide vertical lift. Partial thrust was ducted to periphery flaps and exhaust nozzles which provided stability and control.

In May 1958, USAF signed contract AF33 (600) 37496 for the construction of the mock-up and one proof-of-concept demonstrator. A second prototype was commissioned in March 1959.

On October 7, 1959 tethered flight tests of the noisy prototype VZ-9AV (59-4975) indicated that one-third of the thrust was being lost to exhaust inefficiencies. This meant the aircraft would be incapable of hovering out the Ground Effect.

With enough power even a brick can fly, but the Avrocar never had the power to do so. Thrust losses required a complete re-design, a costly decision that crippled the entire program.

During the first free flight conducted in May 1959 the Avrocar never exceeded one meter off the ground, but the lack of control flight was its undoing.

It was discovered that the prototype was inherently unstable in forward flight, with rapid and unpredictable swings in pitch and roll axes, a control problem called ‘hub capping’.

The development contract was completed in December 1961 and the project was discontinued.

VZ-9AV technical data

Diameter: 18 ft (5.49 m), thickness: 3.6 ft (1.1 m), height: 7.7 ft (2.34 m), wing surface: 254 sq. ft, estimated top speed: 300 mph (482 km/h), estimated ceiling: 9,840 ft (3,000 m), empty weight: 2,992 lb. (1,360 kg), max weight: 5,639 lb. (2,563 kg), power plant: three Continental J69-T-9 turbojets with 927 lb. static thrust each, estimated range: 25 miles with ten-minutes hovering capability.
 

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Well, the "pros" of lenticular spacecraft, that you have nice, big flat bottom to work as a blunt body heatshield - while also having aerodynamic form that could actually produce decent lift. I.e. you could re-entry with flat bottom, then change the angle and use lifting force to glide, or even fly (if you have atmospheric motors).
It is a "space"craft. What does lift have to do with it?
 
In November 1944, some ground tests carried out with the Messerschmitt Me 262 W.Nr.130015, showed that the internal drag in the air ducts reduced the turbojet thrust by 45 kp for each meter in long.

The German designers were forced to imagine new aerodynamic solutions to reduce the drag coefficient in the air ducts. Twin booms and tailless configurations with short fuselage avoided the loss of thrust associated with the long tail pipe, and the long air duct used with nose air intakes was avoided by the installation of two lateral intakes with short S-shaped ducts. Unfortunately for the Germans, with this configuration the air scoops were placed in the air turbulent zone generated over the wing upper surface by the Coanda Effect, and the loss of performance was estimated between 4 per cent and 14 per cent.

To reduce the drag coefficient at high speeds the designers of the Messerschmitt P.1110 fighter employed two boundary layer suction inlets placed ahead of the lateral air scoops. The turbulent air was sucked by means of a special extractor fan.

The Germans were extremely interested in the research by Henri M. Coanda, the Romanian aeronautical engineer that discovered the Coanda Effect in 1934 and designed the Aerodina Lenticulara flying saucer in 1935. On February 15 and September 27, 1938 Coanda received two French patents about airflow acceleration over the periphery of a concave disc. On May 9, 1939 Coanda patented a new propelling device to increase the wings lift.

During the German occupation of Paris, Coanda was forced to design a 20 m of diameter aerodyne powered by twelve Jumo 004 jet engines mounted in a radial pattern with the exhaust pipes directed towards the external ring, where the Coanda Effect produced six tons of lifting power per square yard. The air sucked through sixty slots (Lüftungs) installed around the cockpit crating a lifting power derived from vacuum effect on the disc upper surface. The air passed a toroidal plenum chamber (Zentraltur-Binenanlage) from where it was sucked by the turbojets and expelled towards the thick peripheral ring. Control was achieved by differential acceleration of the engines.

In 1937, a number of scientists and engineers from the AVA-Göttingen research center started experiments with suction inlets installed in the wing of a Junkers AT. 1 light plane. During the flight tests program an efficiency of 22 per cent was obtained with a 20 hp suction device. In 1940 was achieved a lift coefficient of 5 using a 45 hp suction fan mounted in the engine of a Fieseler Storch AT.2.

Between 1941 and 1943 the Messerschmitt Bf 109 V-24 prototype was fitted with blown flaps to improve low-speed handling. By 1944 some tests were conducted at Daimler-Benz/Stuttgart with one Bf 109 G-6 fitted with a Caudron built aile soufflé and one 9,000 rpm suction-fan blower system built by AVA. But the suction at high transonic speed required a considerable amount of power.

In February 1940, the tailless jet fighter project Lippisch P 01-112 was fitted with a suction device powered by one Bramo/BMW 3302 turbojet. In April 1943, the Arado design team proposed to use the Ar 232 A-05 prototype as flying laboratory fitted with a suction boundary layer control system powered by a cold rocket Walter HWK RI-203.

All these suction devices involved cutting slots (Lüftungs) into an aircraft’s wings, but the first attempts to use multiple slots to increase the suction rate did not achieve satisfactory results. The problem of more efficient suction led the German engineers to new research into porous surfaces with small holes.

At the end of 1944, the German foamed-metallurgy conducted experiments with porous Aluminum/Iron/Bronze alloys using the superplastic-deformation/diffusion-bonding technology. The new porous material, named Luftschwamm by the Göttingen scientist, would allow to eliminate the air scoops of the transonic fighters by delaying 1/10 Mach the apparition of compressibility shockwaves. But the work was discontinued without explanation in 1945.

The mystery was finally solved in April 1963 during the Mach 0.77 tests flights performed by the Northrop X-21A, an experimental prototype fitted with a porous breathing wing with thousands of tiny slots with 0.0035-inch width. The results were doubtful practically, because the obstructions of the slots by insects, dust, rain, and other environmental anomalies.
 

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It is a poor shape for a spacecraft. The saucer shape has too much surface area for the volume it has. Too hard to keep cool or too hard to keep warm. The shape has no redeeming value in space.
 
It is a "space"craft. What does lift have to do with it?
Spacecraft must land occasionally so that pilots can go to the bathroom, to do this they must pass through the atmosphere of a Minsara-type planet, and it is helpful that the spacecraft has an aerodynamic shape and lift capacity.


https://spaceflight101.com/msl/msl-aeroshell-and-heat-shield/

https://spacenews.com/lockheed-martin-pressing-to-simplify-orion-heat-shield/

https://www.google.com/search?q=ree...gaKJ0AY&bih=714&biw=1583#imgrc=S1TI_ljn8I8qwM

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...le-to-withstand-5000-degrees-heat-163984.html

https://exploration.esa.int/web/mars/-/54508-heat-shields-for-the-schiaparelli-capsule
 
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Spacecraft must land occasionally so that pilots can go to the bathroom, to do this they must pass through the atmosphere of a Minsara-type planet, and it is helpful that the spacecraft has an aerodynamic shape and lift capacity.
Not true. It could dock at a space station or land on a planet with no atmosphere.

And "spacecraft" does not mean it has a crew.
 
It is a poor shape for a spacecraft. The saucer shape has too much surface area for the volume it has. Too hard to keep cool or too hard to keep warm. The shape has no redeeming value in space.
It's viable for a reentry vehicle and a STOL/ESTOL/STOVL aircraft. Oh, and viable for a bomber defense missile airframe.
 
yes that is correct or else the forum would be in Russian if the soviet took over that technology if it existed after 1945
 
It's viable for a reentry vehicle and a STOL/ESTOL/STOVL aircraft. Oh, and viable for a bomber defense missile airframe.
Not as an entry vehicle. it can not enter edge first. Reentering in the direction of the axis of symmetry is not flying
 
Not as an entry vehicle. it can not enter edge first. Reentering in the direction of the axis of symmetry is not flying
That is a good thing. You don't want to enter edge first.

The Space Shuttle does not enter edge/nose first, it belly flops into the atmosphere to burn off the worst of the speed and heat, then attempts to glide.
 
It is a "space"craft. What does lift have to do with it?
Sorry, I was kinda unclear here. I meant, that lenticular form have advantages during re-entry of spacecraft into the atmosphere. Its flat bottom serves as geat shield during early phases of high-speed re-entry, and the disk shape produce lift when most velocity is bled away.
 
yes that is correct or else the forum would be in Russian if the soviet took over that technology if it existed after 1945
Erm, USSR never intended for Russian to be a language of "future communist world". Actually switch from Cyrillic to Lathin alphabet was seriously discussed several times in 1930s and 1950s.
 
It's viable for a reentry vehicle and a STOL/ESTOL/STOVL aircraft. Oh, and viable for a bomber defense missile airframe.
Scale it up big enough and it can have a useful fuel load...or Bono would not have proposed it even in jest...even if his aim was just to show how simple ROOST was.

His saucer wasn't a razor thin vinyl record, but bulbous, no? So the interior volume doesn't take that big of a hit.

But a real flying saucer need not be a rocket...perhaps a HAVOK/Powell airship From orbit/LOFTID combo.

Inflate like Echo, solar electric propulsion...slow into Venus atmosphere over time.

Then you can use that lifter/ion wind propulsion in atmosphere.

For more hardy solid craft...I imagine a saucer might be better for a lithobraking slide-out than a tube that's just going to roll into rocks and dent itself all over as opposed to a saucer that only takes damage on its underbelly that can serve as crush space.

Now that wide saucer can double as a landing pad when flattened...or a big communication dish... something that opens up like a lady's compact.

Slide several of those in a Moon crater, and you have FAST.
 
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Scale it up big enough and it can have a useful fuel load...or Bono would not have proposed it even in jest...

He did not propose it AT ALL. He illustrated it to show that it wasn't a good idea. Nobody serious seems to have *ever* proposed a lenticular launch vehicle, and nor should they... it provides no advantages, many disadvantages.

It's *DUMB*.
 
ok a lot of people think that victor schauberger doesn't have much to do with science than what he supposedly did. But still his machines especially repulsion worked on some form of cavitation of water which then split into hydrogen and oxygen and used hydrogen for combustion.

Provide evidence.

On the other hand, we have the theory that the Nazis asked Nikola Tesla for some kind of anti-magnetic drive

Evidence?
And it is possible that the Nazis got something from him that would later be transformed into a Bell in Poland

Evidence (especially since there was no "Bell in Poland")?

But they had another theory that the Nazis were trying to copy the Vimana from the Indian epics, where some mercury engines are mentioned while mercury it was placed in...

Blahblabla. Evidence?

That whole post gave me a sinus infection.
 
Sorry, I was kinda unclear here. I meant, that lenticular form have advantages during re-entry of spacecraft into the atmosphere. Its flat bottom serves as geat shield during early phases of high-speed re-entry, and the disk shape produce lift when most velocity is bled away.

If you have a super duper powerful power source and antigravity or whatever propulsion you’re not going to care about reentry heating. You don’t need to use drag to slow down.
 
If you have a super duper powerful power source and antigravity or whatever propulsion you’re not going to care about reentry heating. You don’t need to use drag to slow down.
The thread title is "Flying Saucer as a real spacecraft design"

I don't even grant fusion rockets with the kind of oomph necessary to put a hubcap into orbit.
 
If you have a super duper powerful power source and antigravity or whatever propulsion you’re not going to care about reentry heating. You don’t need to use drag to slow down.
The term Non-sequitur comes to mind.
Reentry heating is totally independent of propulsion method, as evidenced by things which have no propulsion whatsoever suffering reentry, or entry, heating when entering Earth's atmosphere.
Reentry heating exists in and of itself as a standalone thing caused by the physical friction of an object moving at high velocity through atmospheric particles.
By what means you are moving through said atmosphere is irrelevant - the movement itself is the cause.

And yes you will care - your moving craft has to DO something with that heating.
And has to be built to take it to begin with.

Thanks to orbital mechanics, there is no way to get around heating during atmospheric entry.
You Will Heat.
Whether you want to or not.

Dec 31, 2023 Do Spacecraft Really Have To Endure The Hazards of Reentry
An extended answer to a question I keep seeing - can spacecraft avoid the furious heat of reentry by slowing down before reaching the atmosphere, or, but flying above it until slow enough to avoid it.The footage is from the Artemis 1 mission reentry.

 
That is a good thing. You don't want to enter edge first.

The Space Shuttle does not enter edge/nose first, it belly flops into the atmosphere to burn off the worst of the speed and heat, then attempts to glide.
Not really, it is only a 40 degree AOA. So, it is technically flying. Nowhere close to 80-90 degrees for the bodies.
 

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