Nuclear Shuttle

[Triton]

Does anyone know much about the Nuclear Shuttle? Is this also known as the Nuclear Orbit Transfer Stage? Was this expected to be powered by a NERVA nuclear rocket engine and placed into low Earth orbit by the Apollo INT 21 rocket? Or powered by NERVA 2? How many were they expecting to manufacture? Was the first flight of this vehicle expected in the timeframe of 1978-to-1981? Anyone have details?

 

[Michel Van]

placed into low Earth orbit by the Apollo INT 21 rocket ?

no, because they too big
see Boeing IMIS 1968 and Von Braun 1968 Mars Mission Proposal
Primary Propulsion Module aka Nuclear Shuttles
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/z/zmisf06.gif
total mass 245600 kg (541400 lb) !
empty weight 71000 kg

Boeing proposed a uprated Saturn V-25(S)U with 4 Solid Booster on S-IC
4 booster in size of Shuttle Solid Booster !

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/imis1968.htm
http://jpcolliat.free.fr/lune/nerva_1.htm

 

[Triton]

placed into low Earth orbit by the Apollo INT 21 rocket ?

no, because they too big
see Boeing IMIS 1968 and Von Braun 1968 Mars Mission Proposal
Primary Propulsion Module aka Nuclear Shuttles
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/z/zmisf06.gif
total mass 245600 kg (541400 lb) !
empty weight 71000 kg

Boeing proposed a uprated Saturn V-25(S)U with 4 Solid Booster on S-IC
4 booster in size of Shuttle Solid Booster !

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/imis1968.htm
http://jpcolliat.free.fr/lune/nerva_1.htm

Wow, the Saturn V-25(S)U with the four solid boosters is huge. The differences in size makes me think of the size differences between Saturn and Nova.

I presume that a new Vehicle Assembly Building would have had to be built and launch pad 39 would have had to be modified to launch this beast? Would they have built a third pad for it: Pad 39C?

 

[Michel Van]

yes
they had to rise dam Roof of VAB for Saturn with Primary Propulsion Module
because its 143 meter or 470 ft high

for Manned mars mission launches they needed a Pad 39C (and maybe a Pad 39D !) build north of Pad 39 A&B
the solid booster are mounted on after the Saturn V core & Primary Propulsion Module arrived on Launch Pad

for more on that
buy the complet IMIS Report here:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocspacesaturn.htm
and look for
Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft Concept Definition

its PDF for $7 to $11

***** (5 of 5 Stars)

 

[Triton]

yes
they had to rise dam Roof of VAB for Saturn with Primary Propulsion Module
because its 143 meter or 470 ft high

for Manned mars mission launches they needed a Pad 39C (and maybe a Pad 39D !) build north of Pad 39 A&B
the solid booster are mounted on after the Saturn V core & Primary Propulsion Module arrived on Launch Pad

for more on that
buy the complet IMIS Report here:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/drawndocspacesaturn.htm
and look for
Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft Concept Definition

its PDF for $7 to $11

***** (5 of 5 Stars)

Thanks for the information. I understand that they looked at White Sands New Mexico as a possible place to launch the space shuttle and then we have Vandenberg.

It surprises me that they had such an emphasis of re-usuable components that the heavy lifting would be performed by a Saturn-derived vehicle. I presume that the solid rocket boosters would be recovered for re-use. I am surprised that NASA has never been interested in Bono-type SSTO.

 

[Michel Van]

I am surprised that NASA has never been interested in Bono-type SSTO.

why put billions of dollars to develop new SSTO.
wen you have already the Saturn V ?

at NASA they had the argument, its cheaper to uprated the Saturn V

 

[Triton]

I am surprised that NASA has never been interested in Bono-type SSTO.

why put billions of dollars to develop new SSTO.
wen you have already the Saturn V ?

at NASA they had the argument, its cheaper to uprated the Saturn V

Oh, it's so much bigger it doesn't look like the same rocket. Would this design have used the Rocketdyne F-1A motor? Probably with the engineering changes it would have been a Saturn V-derived rocket.

Additional question, were the four solid rocket boosters the same as the Morton-Thiokol boosters on the space shuttle using the same O-rings?

 

[saturncanuck]

Anyone remember "Project Orion"? It was supposed to be anuclear powered rocket/launcher. They built some tests but it got canned due to the 1963 ban on testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere.

 

[Lauge]

Anyone remember "Project Orion"? It was supposed to be anuclear powered rocket/launcher. They built some tests but it got canned due to the 1963 ban on testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere.

Try searching for "Orion" + "nuclear" or "Orion" + "pulse" on this site

Regards & all, and enjoy the incoming weekend,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark

 

[Antonio]

Are you asking about Project Orion?

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,6175.0/topicseen.html

 

[Triton]

Does anyone have a line drawing of the Saturn V-25(S)U? What did it look like?

 

[Michel Van]

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/z/zmisf03.gif
http://www.astronautix.com/nails/s/satv156.jpg

 

[OM]

Wow, the Saturn V-25(S)U with the four solid boosters is huge. The differences in size makes me think of the size differences between Saturn and Nova.

...Keep in mind that by the time Von Braun's team had refined the Saturn C-5 concept, the only real difference between that and the Nova variants running around at the time was about three F-1 engines on the first stage. The height and width were pretty much fixed by the necessity to make sure the stack could get in and out of the VAB - the ideas of erecting on the pad for Nova didn't really come into bloom until the REALLY HUGE NOVA CONCEPTS that started surfacing in the late 60's - early 70's. If you already haven't checked out Mark Wade's Ultimate Saturns and Ultimate Nova pages, you need to. Those two series of articles will pretty much tell you everything you need to know about both programs, especially if you read between the lines.

 

[Triton]

Does anyone know how the cargo modules, crew modules, and LM-B landers would have been attacked to the front of the Nuclear Shuttle? Would they have been guided into place by the mechanical arms of the space tug and were there docking latches at the front of the Nuclear Shuttle? I have seen no drawings of the front of the Nuclear Shuttle, so this is presumption on my part. Can anyone verify that this how it would have actually worked?

 

[Michel Van]

guided into place by tug like that

there not much info on the docking system used on this
i even think they had no Idea back in 1968 and had to develop it after Program start.

 

[Triton]

Nuclear Shuttle System Definition Study. Volume 1 - Executive summary, Phase III Final Report , McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, Huntington Beach, CA 1971
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19710018484_1971018484.pdf

Nuclear Shuttle System Definition Study. Phase III, Volume 2: Concept and Feasibility analysis. Part A: Class 1 Hybrid RNS. Book 1: System Analysis and Operations McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, Huntington Beach, CA 1971
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770068980_1977068980.pdf

Nuclear Shuttle System Definition Study. Phase III, volume 2: Concept and Feasibility Analysis. Part A: Class 1 Hybrid RNS. Book 2: System Definition McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, Huntington Beach, CA 1971
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770070117_1977070117.pdf