LOST... Old concepts to project never going off paper

[kerbiloid]

1947 world cycling spaceship project

https://www.project1947.com/gr/worldcircling.htm

Spoiler

 

[magnemoe]

On 6/18/2022 at 1:58 AM, tater said:

 

Yes this looks stupid, but the Saturn 1 had 7 tanks segments. Special mention to Proton for cheating us for an radial booster separation 

[tater]

This went off paper at one level, though obviously glide tested:

 

[SunlitZelkova]

20 hours ago, tater said:

This went off paper at one level, though obviously glide tested:

I have seen the V-131-R prototype at the nearby Evergreen Air & Space Museum (Spruce Goose). The one in this picture is V-132. At one time you could get quite up close and personal with V-131-R, as there were no ropes or barriers around it. Even today a lot of their stuff is rather… unguarded.

This project is especially sad because the orbital prototype was 90% complete when it got canceled.

On another note related to canceled projects, the Evergreen Space Museum was built in the late 2000s, but the founder died shortly afterward and unfortunately, the museum got taken over by something of a con man. So to this day, there is a huge panel describing the Constellation Program as “America’s return to the Moon”, as the museum has not had the money to change it.

It’s still a really cool museum though. As far as canceled projects go, they also have a M-1 engine injector intended for the Nova rocket.

EDIT- The museum has since been transferred to proper ownership. I want to make that clear 

Edited July 10, 2022 by SunlitZelkova

[kerbiloid]

Idk, why, but this link embedding doesn't work properly.

https: //www.secretprojects.co.uk

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

Also one can transgoogle the raigap.livejournal.com page, full of nice pictures of abandoned projects, but I'm not linking it directly, because I in no form and to no degree am related or agreed with the author's profile picture and other banners.

 

[Beccab]

Many of you may have seen this 70s concept art of a spaceplane with helicopter blades at some point



Well, it seems that at some point it was, in fact, studied as an option for a reusable space system in the mid 60s:


From https://www.jstor.org/stable/44565035?read-now=1&seq=13#metadata_info_tab_contents, a 1966 paper, featuring also the pics below

[wumpus]

8 hours ago, Beccab said:

Many of you may have seen this 70s concept art of a spaceplane with helicopter blades at some point

Pretty sure those are more "autogyro" (unpowered) than "helicopter" (powered) blades.  Also you know they are "trying everything" when this idea lasted long enough to hand to the artist (probably canceled before he was finished, but a commission is a commission).

I have to wonder if the image (without blade system) would have had a glide ratio worse than 1:1 (the Shuttle's) and how much a parachute would weigh to achieve that "lofty" goal.

Anybody finally find the fuel tanks in that thing? Pretty sure they are those round things near the engines. Whoever designed this was still thinking of aircraft engines with their amazing Isp.  Not rocket engines, full_mass/dry_mass and the rocket equation.

[Beccab]

13 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Pretty sure those are more "autogyro" (unpowered) than "helicopter" (powered) blades.  Also you know they are "trying everything" when this idea lasted long enough to hand to the artist (probably canceled before he was finished, but a commission is a commission).

I have to wonder if the image (without blade system) would have had a glide ratio worse than 1:1 (the Shuttle's) and how much a parachute would weigh to achieve that "lofty" goal.

Anybody finally find the fuel tanks in that thing? Pretty sure they are those round things near the engines. Whoever designed this was still thinking of aircraft engines with their amazing Isp.  Not rocket engines, full_mass/dry_mass and the rocket equation.

Seeing how the aft end is round this is very likely at the top of the actual rocket, with those tanks only being used in orbit and for deorbiting

[tater]

 

 

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

 

Interesting. I didn’t know there were Space Tug competitors, I thought only Boeing proposed one.

[tater]

https://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/station/sld001.htm

 Cool stuff in here as well.

[Beccab]

What happens if you take the Space Shuttle orbiter and continue to add tanks and engines until it becomes an SSTO? The answer is one of the ugliest spaceplanes ever proposed:


From here, featuring a ton of different partially or fully reusable proposals which have been mostly forgotten in the 30 years that have passed since the creation of the study

Edited July 27, 2022 by Beccab

[SunlitZelkova]

48 minutes ago, Beccab said:

What happens if you take the Space Shuttle orbiter and continue to add tanks and engines until it becomes an SSTO? The answer is one of the ugliest spaceplanest ever proposed:


From here, featuring a ton of different partially or fully reusable proposals which have been mostly forgotten in the 30 years that have passed since the creation of the study

This has Super Guppy: Space Shuttle version vibes.

[DDE]

7 hours ago, Beccab said:

What happens if you take the Space Shuttle orbiter and continue to add tanks and engines until it becomes an SSTO? The answer is one of the ugliest spaceplanes ever proposed:


From here, featuring a ton of different partially or fully reusable proposals which have been mostly forgotten in the 30 years that have passed since the creation of the study

It's all fone so long as you looknat it from above.

Also, I was half-expecting the "hump" to feature fold-out main wings.

[Beccab]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Also, I was half-expecting the "hump" to feature fold-out main wings.

Honestly I would have almost preferred that compared to a cargo bay that is something like 30 meters from the passenger compartment. This thing really has no reason to have people on it, there's no way to put a docking port on it and 90% of an EVA would be spent going tethered from the cockpit to the payload

[Beccab]

https://jaxa.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=41107&item_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=21

JAXA H-II reusability concepts from the mid '90s



Is there anyone here speaking Japanese that explain a bit more about the concept? Like, is it actually proposing to land three boosters attached together?

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, Beccab said:

Is there anyone here speaking Japanese that explain a bit more about the concept? Like, is it actually proposing to land three boosters attached together?

It appears so. There is nothing specifically mentioning them all landing together, but the image comparing it to an AV-8B and F-14 has a triangle apparently connecting them, and only a single landing pad is proposed for construction at Tanegashima.

The proposal describes the reasoning for reusability, the technical specifications (including reusable and expendable profiles), and the potential future that this technology would unlock. It was expected to evolve into a DC-X like TSTO by 2010, and significantly lower the cost of launching, unlocking a variety of new opportunities in space (which they compare to the Gold Rush in the US).

I don’t have time write now, but I can go into it more in a few hours.

[tater]

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

Is there anyone here speaking Japanese that explain a bit more about the concept? Like, is it actually proposing to land three boosters attached together?

All I know is when I glanced at this before I left for home I saw the F-14, and assumed they were making a Veritech Valkyrie

 

 

[SunlitZelkova]

Ok, here’s some detail. Some of it is repeated from the images in the post in case it isn’t clear-

The booster itself is called the H-Delta.

Performance- 9 tons to 500km LEO in reusable configuration, 15 tons in expendable configuration

It uses 85% thrust during reusable missions with 70% fuel load, and 100% thrust and 100% fuel load during expendable missions. I can’t find a description of why the AV-8B and F-14 are shown off, it may be to compare a rocket that lands to the only other vehicles with powerful engines that land. A rocket doing a powered landing was hitherto unheard of after all.

The cost of one H-Delta would be ¥18 billion or so. In 2022 dollars that’s $136 million roughly. In comparison, when this was proposed a pair of boosters for the H-II cost ¥3 billion or so, so six missions would need to be flown for it to become profitable. Only six missions were expected to be flown with each booster before it was used in expendable mode during the seventh.

The project was expected to be losing money for 2-3 years before a return would be seen. 2-3 commercial launches would occur each year, with one JAXA launch a year (I think, I am not too familiar with the terminology used here).

The launch cost was aimed to be around ¥9 billion ($68 million), at the time (1992~) on par with the Ariane IV (according to the document). It was only if this was achieved that regular orders were expected.

As mentioned above, following the initiation of semi-reusable H-II launches in 2000, the technology was expected to evolve into a 450 ton TSTO putting 10 tons into a 500km orbit by 2010. The cost would be halved, at ¥5-5.5 billion, or $37 million.

The upper stage of the TSTO was also considered for some form of reuse by refueling in orbit and using it as an OTV, allowing it to reach “celestial bodies” (presumably Moon-Mars etc.).

The TSTO would utilize 8x of the LE-7 engine, carrying the payload in the middle with the engines forming a skirt of sorts, with the fuel tanks being an aerodynamic shell over the upper stage (inner stage?). The lower reusable stage would fly quite high, having to flip, reenter the atmosphere like a ballistic missile warhead, and then flip before lighting the engines and landing.

The document also has a section going over how reusability would lead to increased access to space, mentioning upper stage reuse and orbital propellant depots. This limited reuse (some boosters serving as OTVs and booster recovery) would hopefully lead to advances in technology that would permit the construction of an SSTO, although an SSTO is not described as being immediately necessary. The usual hullabaloo about space economy is mentioned, with raw materials mining and space based solar power being potential projects resulting from increased space access. The potential future is compared to the history of the New World/economy of the Americas following their discovery in terms of resources.

The proposal ends by saying something to the effect that international cooperation is necessary to create more efficient access to space, and that a Japanese reusable space transportation system would be a necessary (vital) part of that.

[Beccab]

28 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Ok, here’s some detail. Some of it is repeated from the images in the post in case it isn’t clear-

The booster itself is called the H-Delta.

Performance- 9 tons to 500km LEO in reusable configuration, 15 tons in expendable configuration

It uses 85% thrust during reusable missions with 70% fuel load, and 100% thrust and 100% fuel load during expendable missions. I can’t find a description of why the AV-8B and F-14 are shown off, it may be to compare a rocket that lands to the only other vehicles with powerful engines that land. A rocket doing a powered landing was hitherto unheard of after all.

The cost of one H-Delta would be ¥18 billion or so. In 2022 dollars that’s $136 million roughly. In comparison, when this was proposed a pair of boosters for the H-II cost ¥3 billion or so, so six missions would need to be flown for it to become profitable. Only six missions were expected to be flown with each booster before it was used in expendable mode during the seventh.

The project was expected to be losing money for 2-3 years before a return would be seen. 2-3 commercial launches would occur each year, with one JAXA launch a year (I think, I am not too familiar with the terminology used here).

The launch cost was aimed to be around ¥9 billion ($68 million), at the time (1992~) on par with the Ariane IV (according to the document). It was only if this was achieved that regular orders were expected.

As mentioned above, following the initiation of semi-reusable H-II launches in 2000, the technology was expected to evolve into a 450 ton TSTO putting 10 tons into a 500km orbit by 2010. The cost would be halved, at ¥5-5.5 billion, or $37 million.

The upper stage of the TSTO was also considered for some form of reuse by refueling in orbit and using it as an OTV, allowing it to reach “celestial bodies” (presumably Moon-Mars etc.).

The TSTO would utilize 8x of the LE-7 engine, carrying the payload in the middle with the engines forming a skirt of sorts, with the fuel tanks being an aerodynamic shell over the upper stage (inner stage?). The lower reusable stage would fly quite high, having to flip, reenter the atmosphere like a ballistic missile warhead, and then flip before lighting the engines and landing.

The document also has a section going over how reusability would lead to increased access to space, mentioning upper stage reuse and orbital propellant depots. This limited reuse (some boosters serving as OTVs and booster recovery) would hopefully lead to advances in technology that would permit the construction of an SSTO, although an SSTO is not described as being immediately necessary. The usual hullabaloo about space economy is mentioned, with raw materials mining and space based solar power being potential projects resulting from increased space access. The potential future is compared to the history of the New World/economy of the Americas following their discovery in terms of resources.

The proposal ends by saying something to the effect that international cooperation is necessary to create more efficient access to space, and that a Japanese reusable space transportation system would be a necessary (vital) part of that.

Thank you! About the 2010 TSTO, is that upper stage the same as the H-II one or newly developed as well?

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, Beccab said:

Thank you! About the 2010 TSTO, is that upper stage the same as the H-II one or newly developed as well?

Not much detail is given but we may be able to assume so.

In the diagram describing all three launch options, it mentions that each of these vehicles are all capable of lifting 10 tons to orbit, and the way the diagram is structured- in fact, the way entire proposal is structured, all focused on the first stage- implies the upper stages will remain identical, as no mention is made of upper stage development requirements apart from refueling potential- implying the stock H-II upper stage would continually be used. In contrast various estimates for the development of the first stage/boosters are given.

Also just comparing the two figures, the upper stages appear similar in size. Both are 5 meters or so in diameter, and have a similar appearance.

Looking at it for awhile makes me think the diagram showing all three is actually to scale.

As I went over it again I noticed some more details that may be of use-

1. The H-Delta reaches a maximum altitude of 35km, while the TSTO would fly all the way to 200km before falling back to Earth.

2. The TSTO would use tiles, presumably similar to the Shuttle. I suppose this is rather obvious but some reusable concepts have still considered the use of ablative heat shields.

[GuessingEveryDay]

Here's a picture of what they would look like with the H-II booster. It's ridiculously cursed.

[wumpus]

3 hours ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

Here's a picture of what they would look like with the H-II booster. It's ridiculously cursed.

 

So instead of leaning during launch, they are doing the "gravity turn" via side boosters?

Initial designs of rockets were controversial in Japan thanks to similarity with ICBMs.  So early rockets lacked guidance systems and relied on a specific lean of the rocket for orbit.  Extremely Kerbal design (I like my rockets to lean in KSP).

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

So instead of leaning during launch, they are doing the "gravity turn" via side boosters?

Initial designs of rockets were controversial in Japan thanks to similarity with ICBMs.  So early rockets lacked guidance systems and relied on a specific lean of the rocket for orbit.  Extremely Kerbal design (I like my rockets to lean in KSP).

Not with this. The H-II (including the reusable proposal) features a guidance system, only most solid fuel launchers lack one.

Presumably launching would look somewhat similar to the Atlas V variants with one booster or the Shuttle.