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

[farmerben]

The spacemaster shuttle design is truly worthy to build in KSP

[magnemoe]

They did not do an boost back burn, we know you want to do that ASAP after separation. Yes an smaller than that F9 first stage as that first stage could fly not fall but you still need an boost back burn. 
Also low payload on the shuttle but you could drop disposable upper stages or recover the engines at an space station by an shuttle. 

[AZZlyTheAZZome]

So some time ago I was browsing on a twitter front-end only to discover this:

https://imgur.com/a/lV7jZ4h (Link won't embed idk why)

It has the nose of a Space Shuttle and the body of a SSTO. Very Cursed and very Kerbal.

Does anyone have more info about this thing? I'm curious to find the document from which it originates.

[DDE]

3 hours ago, AZZlyTheAZZome said:

So some time ago I was browsing on a twitter front-end only to discover this:

https://imgur.com/a/lV7jZ4h (Link won't embed idk why)

It has the nose of a Space Shuttle and the body of a SSTO. Very Cursed and very Kerbal.

Does anyone have more info about this thing? I'm curious to find the document from which it originates.

You need to open it as an image to get a .png link.

Also, I disagree it's cursed. Honestly, I might just not care enough about the Shuttle - my space nerddom was basically stuck in Soviet past until mid-2010s - to see a familiar shape being "violated".

Yandex search by "SPS HLLV" quickly turned up the source document: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/1981-NASA-SPS-Space-Transportation.pdf (image on page 1-30)

Edited October 1, 2023 by DDE

[AZZlyTheAZZome]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

You need to open it as an image to get a .png link.

Also, I disagree it's cursed. Honestly, I might just not care enough about the Shuttle - my space nerddom was basically stuck in Soviet past until mid-2010s - to see a familiar shape being "violated".

Yandex search by "SPS HLLV" quickly turned up the source document: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/1981-NASA-SPS-Space-Transportation.pdf (image on page 1-30)

Thank you very much!

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

You need to open it as an image to get a .png link.

Also, I disagree it's cursed. Honestly, I might just not care enough about the Shuttle - my space nerddom was basically stuck in Soviet past until mid-2010s - to see a familiar shape being "violated".

Yandex search by "SPS HLLV" quickly turned up the source document: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/1981-NASA-SPS-Space-Transportation.pdf (image on page 1-30)

I assume this used an first stage rocket plane as many of the early shuttle designs had, might have worked as least as well as the shuttle. 
Downside is that huge hypersonic planes are very expensive to design and build, and imagine the size of the first stage here. 

Rockets are so much easier.  

[tater]

Today on the hazegrayart thread... lol

Only issue is that they should have a more substantial habitat pre-landed (the Altair-like thing is too small), and they would be scouring the heck out of anything they landed that close to.

Edited October 7, 2023 by tater

[DDE]

26 minutes ago, tater said:

Today on the hazegrayart thread

Mark Watney disliked that

[Blufor878]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:07 AM, tater said:

Today on the hazegrayart thread... lol

Only issue is that they should have a more substantial habitat pre-landed (the Altair-like thing is too small), and they would be scouring the heck out of anything they landed that close to.

 

On 10/7/2023 at 10:33 AM, DDE said:

Mark Watney disliked that

Jebediah Kerman loved that

Edited October 9, 2023 by Blufor878

[Blufor878]

On 3/31/2023 at 8:56 AM, tater said:

 

So I actually got to ride Mission Space in Epcot over the weekend with my brother. Maybe it's just me but I swear that the spacecraft from the ride kinda reminded me of this concept. The last part even has you landing the spacecraft airplane/glider style. Perhaps someone at Disney World/Epcot is a low-key spaceflight nerd?

Edited October 16, 2023 by Blufor878

[tater]

15 minutes ago, Blufor878 said:

So I actually got to ride Mission Space in Epcot over the weekend with my brother. Maybe it's just me but I swear that the spacecraft from the ride kinda reminded me of this concept. The last part even has you landing the spacecraft airplane/glider style. Perhaps someone at Disney World/Epcot is a low-key spaceflight nerd?

Could it be the Bonestell art that he did with von Braun (who also worked with Disney)?

The rocket left of the winged part was the nose of the winged vehicle, then it is disconnected and set upright as the ascent vehicle.

[Blufor878]

16 hours ago, tater said:

Could it be the Bonestell art that he did with von Braun (who also worked with Disney)?

The rocket left of the winged part was the nose of the winged vehicle, then it is disconnected and set upright as the ascent vehicle.

The rocket used in Mission Space has a different overall design, but oddly enough the colors and pattern are oddly similar.
 

[Kerballlistic07]

One concept is to fly a Soyuz spacecraft around the Moon. While there have been many concepts to do this, the one I was thinking of was this: a Soyuz spacecraft is launched aboard a Soyuz rocket, and a separate Zenit rocket carries a Fregat upper stage to LEO. The Soyuz meets up with the Fregat and docks. Then, the Fregat does a TLI which puts the Soyuz on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. This was conceptualized by Space Adventures, and it would have flown with one Russian Cosmonaut and 2 tourists. It is known that one tourist payed for the trip, but who knows if it will ever actually fly. It will not fly with that plan for certain because the Zenit rocket is no longer flying. The Fregat would have to be launched on another vehicle. The Soyuz rocket doesn’t have enough energy to launch both the Fregat and Soyuz spacecraft. Russian launch vehicles are incredibly limited right now, so it would probably have to fly aboard another Soyuz rocket or an Angara. But let’s be real: it’s the Russian space program. It’s probably not going to happen… This could probably be done in Kerbal fairly easily. Soyuz parts exist in the stock game, and Zenit booster wouldn’t be hard to recreate. What are your thoughts about this mission?

Space Adventures link to “circumlunar mission”: https://spaceadventures.com/experiences/circumlunar-mission/

Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Adventures

[SunlitZelkova]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:33 PM, Kerballlistic07 said:

One concept is to fly a Soyuz spacecraft around the Moon. While there have been many concepts to do this, the one I was thinking of was this: a Soyuz spacecraft is launched aboard a Soyuz rocket, and a separate Zenit rocket carries a Fregat upper stage to LEO. The Soyuz meets up with the Fregat and docks. Then, the Fregat does a TLI which puts the Soyuz on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. This was conceptualized by Space Adventures, and it would have flown with one Russian Cosmonaut and 2 tourists. It is known that one tourist payed for the trip, but who knows if it will ever actually fly. It will not fly with that plan for certain because the Zenit rocket is no longer flying. The Fregat would have to be launched on another vehicle. The Soyuz rocket doesn’t have enough energy to launch both the Fregat and Soyuz spacecraft. Russian launch vehicles are incredibly limited right now, so it would probably have to fly aboard another Soyuz rocket or an Angara. But let’s be real: it’s the Russian space program. It’s probably not going to happen… This could probably be done in Kerbal fairly easily. Soyuz parts exist in the stock game, and Zenit booster wouldn’t be hard to recreate. What are your thoughts about this mission?

Space Adventures link to “circumlunar mission”: https://spaceadventures.com/experiences/circumlunar-mission/

Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Adventures

I’m skeptical they could beef up the heat shield and still have the ability to carry three crew.

It’s definitely a cool concept though.

But, I’m also not sure if the Soyuz is truly lunar mission capable. When Zond 5 returned to Earth, the turtles that were riding aboard suffered something like 8 gs. Their eyeballs popped out.

[DerekL1963]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:32 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

But, I’m also not sure if the Soyuz is truly lunar mission capable. When Zond 5 returned to Earth, the turtles that were riding aboard suffered something like 8 gs. Their eyeballs popped out.

The G levels experienced are a factor of trajectory more than anything else...  That being said, over the decades Soyuz has been optimized to be a space station taxi, so I share your doubts.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, DerekL1963 said:

The G levels experienced are a factor of trajectory more than anything else...  That being said, over the decades Soyuz has been optimized to be a space station taxi, so I share your doubts.

Agree, they might simply add more g to get an more accurate landing. You probably experienced this in KSP 1 using mechjeb or other atmospheric re-entry predictions. If you  do an Pe at 50 km its way less accurate than if Pe is -50. 
And they might want data for this and nobody thought about the turtles. If they flew an manned moon mission, then launch another test capsule  with an high Pe return and compare. 
A bit why I think the two FH boosters came back with the delay was trajectory optimization testing. 
Weather would be the same so only trajectory matter, yes the weather differences at attitude, but way more similar than two falcon 9 launches a week apart with different payload masses 
 

[DerekL1963]

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Agree, they might simply add more g to get an more accurate landing. You probably experienced this in KSP 1 using mechjeb or other atmospheric re-entry predictions. If you  do an Pe at 50 km its way less accurate than if Pe is -50. 

KSP aerodynamics are...  different from the real world.  And KSP spacecraft don't use dynamic lift to control their landing point the way Soyuz does.  In fact, Soyuz ballistic landings (high G landings) are less accurate than lower G trajectories with dynamic lift.

[tater]

 

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, tater said:

 

That was some serious big landers. it looked like they dropped drop tanks after lunar injection burns but I assume most here return to leo or lands? 
And pretty kerbal looking with all the engines and small tanks. 
And yes that 3 stage spaceplane design would be way to small to get parts for something like this into orbit. 

[tater]

 

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[DDE]

A random XB-70 buzzing my feed

[tater]

 

 

 

[AckSed]

Stumbled on some minor forgotten lore regarding LOX-cooled rocket engines.

The Russians were really good at this, though the only one I know of for sure is the American Launcher Space's (now Vast's) E-2 kerelox staged-combustion engine... which had a Russian designer on the team.

The US, though, seemed to take it as read that you just shouldn't use LOX to cool. But it seems that didn't stop NASA experimenting. I found a photo in an archive of a small, LOX-cooled engine chamber and nozzle: https://nara.getarchive.net/media/lox-liquid-oxygen-cooled-engine-jet-at-the-rocket-engine-test-facility-retf-8c2f44

The photo was taken in 1979. Some more digging indicated a 1980 experiment where kerelox was introduced: https://nara.getarchive.net/media/liquid-oxygen-cooled-lox-rp-1-rocket-engine-48d37b

Aaaand that's where my trail ends. I can't even find a paper. So far as I know, the experiment was small enough that it didn't make any waves and rocket engineers continued to declaim LOX for cooling.