Capsule is 60s design,Spaceplane is modern? WHAT??

[grooble]

Ah the 80s, great movies and cartoons - crap fasion.

 

[drwayne]

I liked the cartoons of the 1960's better - but hey, I have been demonstrated to be weird too...<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[kane007]

Oh god, not the BIG HAIR again.<br /><br />On women and MEN!<br />Mulletts!<br />Rats tails!<br />Shoulder pads!<br />Cyndy Lauper!<br />One handed gloves, white with rhinestones, no..no..no...never again!<br /><br />Though leg warmers on a set of good legs is an excellent proposition. <br /><br />Hang on, how did we get so off topic?

 

[carp]

And De lorean for come back in 1955............

 

[drwayne]

I got involved.<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[kane007]

What about capsules in the 1940s Flash Gordan vien.<br /><br />1st CEV could be dubed "Warship Ajax".

 

[carp]

Sorry boy,ma THAT IS a Spaceplane. http://escena.ya.com/temerario/abriggs.jpg

 

[dobbins]

More like a space zeppelin.<br /><br />1930s and early 1940s Sci-Fi space ships usually looked like zeppelins. Late 1940s and 1950s Sci-Fi space ships either looked like V2s or flying saucers.<br /><br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

"The lifting body was invented in 1921 and first applied to a proposed spaceplane design in the late 1930s. Capsules are... by far the more modern design. "<br /><br /><br />I guess I shouldn't be surprised you are still equating winged propeller airplanes and winged suborbital rocketplanes to wingless orbital lifting bodies. You are wrong. Give it up. Or at least give it a rest.<br /><br />Shortened link

 

[dobbins]

I see you are still avoiding reality to maintain your fantasies. You don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.<br /><br />

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

You guys need to learn how to format your http links.<br />It's easy, check the FAQ, the answer is there.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

And as a quick handy tip, here's the trick:<br /><br />www.space.com]SPACE.com[/url]<br /><br />(I've set the post to display without UBBCode, so you can see the guts of the link.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I guess I shouldn't be surprised you are still equating winged propeller airplanes and winged suborbital rocketplanes to wingless orbital lifting bodies. You are wrong. Give it up. Or at least give it a rest. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Actually, the lifting body concept really does date to 1921, when Texan Vincent J. Burnelli built a prototype. His primary goal was to improve safety and efficiency in airplanes, by increasing available lift. True, he wasn't planning to launch any of them into space. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> But the point remains valid: the concept did not originate with NASA's lifting body program in the 1960s, although NASA certainly did things with the concept that had never been done before.<br /><br />(Note: you are correct that Burnelli's designs did have wings as well. Control is a problem otherwise, and as he was designing many of his aircraft for the civilian market, he wanted his vehicles to have nice smooth rides. It's somewhat churlish to disqualify his designs purely on the basis of them being propeller-driven, though, seeing as how people had yet to invent any other form of useful propulsion for the things.)<br /><br />A vehicle need not be wingless to be a lifting body, and it need not be orbital to be a spaceplane. You are splitting hairs. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

you are correct Calli. The Burnelli lifting fuselage was solely to produce lift. The lifting bodies of the 60s experimented with 'lifting re-entry'.<br />To say that a lifting body space ship was invented in 1921 equals saying the space shuttle was invented when George Cayley's gliders first flew. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>To say that a lifting body space ship was invented in 1921 equals saying the space shuttle was invented when George Cayley's gliders first flew.</i><p>And so far in the thread the only person to say that lifting body space ships were invented in the 1921 is you. Dobbins said that the lifting body was invented in 1921 and that the first proposal to use it for space craft was in the 1930's. The bunt cone reentry vehicle (aka the capsule) dates from the 1950's.</p>

 

[dobbins]

Neither the lifting body nor the capsule shape started out as a maned spacecraft design. The lifting body grew out of aircraft. The blunt reentry vehicle (capsule) grew out of nuclear warheads reentering at the end of a missile's flight. The concepts are both older than manned spacecraft design, and the lifting body concept is the older of the two by 31 years, and was first applied to a proposed maned spaceship, the German Silver Bird bomber, before the blunt reentry concept was developed by the NACA in 1952.<br /><br />The important point here is how inane the argument is of deriding the capsule concept as "old fashioned" while demanding an even older concept be used instead.<br /><br />

 

[tomnackid]

last time I looked balloons, gliders, airships, helicopters, prop and jet planes all share the skies here in the early 21st century. (You can even throw in the odd auto-gyro every now and then). Why would space travel be any different? NASA doesn't NEED a spaceplane for VSE. That doesn't mean we will never have one (again). All the data from decades of aerospace research into lifting bodies, spaceplanes, even more exotic things like waveriders and scramjets is still available and still being generated today. When we have a significant amount of men and cargo going to and from orbit on a regular basis then NASA or someone else will once again build a spaceplane that can land on a runway (and hopefully take off from one too!) The point is it will be one that can actually pay its own way--or at least a good portion of it. <br /><br />The Space Shuttle--awesome as it is-- is really a technology demonstrator that has been pressed into service as an all purpose launch vehicle. It uses only a small fraction of its capabilities and is therefore expensive to operate. Imagine if the only vehicle you had for your personal use was a tractor trailer. Sure it might be handy on the few occasions when you need to help a friend move, but would you want to drive one to work everyday? (Ok, that actually might be pretty cool! But the point is would you want to PAY the COST of driving one to work everyday!)

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>last time I looked balloons, gliders, airships, helicopters, prop and jet planes all share the skies here in the early 21st century. (You can even throw in the odd auto-gyro every now and then).<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />You certainly can. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> My uncle even has a used auto-gyro that he's reconditioning to fly. So far he's just gone up and down the street with it. It's got a little more work to do before he can fly it.<br /><br />It is quite true that "old" designs can continue to make a contribution. Youth is not a good argument for a design; you pick the design that will do the job best within a given budget, allowing for certain practicalities. DC-3s are still very popular airplanes even though they've been out of production so long the only place for spares is boneyards and the cannibalization of working aircraft. There are still Guppies in service, and these are made from the long-discontinued Lockheed Constellation. (For that matter, there are even still a few Connies in service.) Dirigibles are still very popular, although mainly for advertising purposes, but rigid airships appear ready to make a comeback. The military is already considering lighter-than-air UAVs for their unparalleled ability to remain over an area for long periods of time. The venerable C-130 turboprop-driven cargo plane is one of the most popular cargo planes in the world for its rugged durability. Talking of rugged, the turbofan-drive A-10 Thunderbolt (aka Warthog) is so successful it endures repeated efforts by the USAF to get rid of it. Some of the more exotic concepts from the early days of aviation have had comparatively limited success, such as the flying wing (essentially the other extreme form of lifting body; some of Burnelli's designs could be accurately described as early flying wing concepts), but they persist all the same, especially in the B-2, which exploits the concept to p <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

"A vehicle need not be wingless to be a lifting body, and it need not be orbital to be a spaceplane. You are splitting hairs. "<br /><br />I disagree. In the context of spacecraft or reentry vehicles the term lifting body is very specific and very different from the Burnelli so-called lifting body. The only similarity between the two radically different vehicles is use of the english word "lifting body".<br /><br />Burnelli was clearly on the path of the flying wing. His aircraft had a fully conventional wing size and structure. The only difference his aircraft had was an attempt to give the fuselage more lift than a coventional one.<br /><br />The Dale Reed lifting body spacecraft program was an attempt to add lift to a blunt body wingless orbital reentry vehicle.<br /><br />"The Lifting Body program grew out of Reed's confidence that a wingless, low lift-to-drag craft could serve as an orbiting vehicle equipped to re-enter earth's atmosphere and land safely. In the Lifting Body concept, the entire vehicle becomes a controllable airfoil, eliminating the need for wings."<br /><br />This information was taken from Dale Reed's NASA obituary, he died this year on March 18.<br /><br />http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2005/05-13.html<br /><br />The original blunt body wingless lifting body shape was developed by scientist Al Eggers at the Ames Research Center.<br /><br />http://trc.dfrc.nasa.gov/History/Speeches/lifting_bodies/lifting-1.html<br /><br />These Americans deserve the credit for the lifting body space vehicle concept. And I think Dobbins splits hairs when he claims NASA is wrong and that Burnelli and Saenger deserve the credit instead. <br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[dobbins]

Avoiding reality seems to be one of your favorite past times.<br /><br />NASA was working with lifting bodies before it became NASA, heres a paper from 1937 when it was still the NACA that deals with a lifting body and which mentions Burnelli by name.<br /><br />BTW, Burnelli was an American, why are you trying to rob him of credit?<br /><br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

" heres a paper from 1937 when it was still the NACA that deals with a lifting body and which mentions Burnelli by name."<br /><br />You need to edit your post. There is no text or link from any '1937 paper'. <br /><br /><br /><br />"NASA was working with lifting bodies before it became NASA,"<br /><br />Wingless spacecraft? In 1937? I eagerly await your evidence.<br /><br />heh<br /><br />Update:<br /><br />Just as I suspected the 1937 paper has nothing to do with spacecraft or wingless vehicles. It's nothing more than a study of Burnelli style fuselage/wing interaction compared to coventional fuselage/wing interaction. Some evidence.<br /><br />On the other hand Dobbins was right about Burnelli being an American. I went and checked. It always pays to check when it comes to Dobbins' assertions. <br />

 

[dobbins]

http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/digidoc/report/wr/09/NACA-WR-L-509.PDF

 

[najab]

><i>I went and checked. It always pays to check when it comes to Dobbins' assertions. </i><p>Actually, it wasn't an assertion, it was a correction of your original mistatement.</p>

 

[dobbins]

This is amusing, it's like watching a Creationist trying to explain away fossils.<br /><br />Did you know that NASA invented the wheel? At least by G&R's "logic". When they placed wheels on the Space shuttle it had to be a new invention because no one had ever put wheels on a space ship before! They can't possibly be related to the use of wheels for thousands of years before the Shuttle was developed!!<br /><br />"The X-20A Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soarer) was a single-pilot manned reusable spaceplane, really the earliest American manned space project to result in development contracts. Cancellation in December 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1966.<br /><br />It evolved from the German Saenger-Bredt Silverbird intercontinental skip-glide rocket bomber. Walter Dornberger, former head of Peendmuende, was at Bell Aircraft in the 1950's and developed the Sanger-Bredt concept through various iterations (Bomi and Robo). In typical Pentagon fashion the final development contract went instead to Boeing. Politics resulted in its primary purpose changing during its life (manned space bomber, high speed test vehicle, reconnaissance platform), with the launch vehicles at various times including Titan I, Titan II, and finally Titan IIIC. Cancellation in December 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1966."<br />http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.htm<br /><br />The NACA was involved in the project, starting in the fall of 1956.<br /><br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

http://trc.dfrc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/FactSheets/FS-011-DFRC.html<br /><br />As this history makes clear the origin of the lifting body spacecraft came from original research on reentry vehicles, not cribbing from Burnelli airplanes or Saenger rocketplanes. Dobbins references to the X-20 dynasoar is irrelevant since the X-20 is not a lifting body.<br /><br /> <br /><br />"The original idea of lifting bodies was conceived about 1957 by Dr. Alfred J. Eggers Jr., then the assistant director for Research and Development Analysis and Planning at what later became the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.(then called the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory)."<br /><br />"NASA had earlier been investigating the problems associated with reentry of missile nose cones. H. Julian Allen, another Ames engineer, determined that a blunt nose cone was a desirable shape to survive the aerodynamic heating associated with reentry from space. Eggers found that by slightly modifying a symmetrical nose cone shape, aerodynamic lift could be produced. This lift would enable the modified shape to fly back from space rather than plunge to earth in a ballistic trajectory."<br /><br />"These studies by Eggers, Allen, and their associates led to the design known as the M-2, a modified half-cone, rounded on the bottom and flat on top, with a blunt, rounded nose and twin tail-fins. This configuration and those of the later lifting bodies allowed them to be maneuvered both in a lateral and a longitudinal direction so they could be landed on a runway rather than simply parachuting into the ocean as did the contemporary ballistic capsules used in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs." <br /><br /><br />