New "X-rated" rockets in the fleet

The Art Applewhite Rockets X-Fire (pronounced cross-fire) is a  dual motor bi-copter (i.e. it has two wings).  The X-Fire line has  replaced the Double Helix.  It also uses a tube as the kit's 'backbone',  however, the wings are parallel to this tube instead of being in-line.  Like the Helix/Double Helix, these kits only have a handful of parts,  including the basswood wings and an LOC/precision body tube.  The only tools/materials required are  white glue, a sharp hobby knife, and a ruler.  They go together fast and easy.  I wish flying them would be that easy.  It appears I'll have to wait until June to get them up.  At least that gives me plenty of time to paint them! A full review will follow shortly thereafter.

Project Morpheus: Live via UStream

Via Twitter:

We are now ready to live stream the next test - most likely on Tuesday. http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov/live/. Big thanks to PAO for their help.

The definitive Estes Saturn V build review

Chris Michielssen has started a series of posts on the Estes Saturn V.  Based on his prior review series', if you plan to build one, this will be a must-read.

Project Morpheus: "This is why we test."

Houston, we have a control problem.  Click through to YouTube for the full account.

A dozen 12-meter Orions (plus a lot more) update

R2K turns us on to the work of Damon Moran with 12 Mini-Orions and a detailed diagram of Project Pluto.  I borrowed the prior but direct you to the source for the Pluto, 'full-sized' Orions, a ramjet concept, and more.  Who's up for an Orion atop a Falcon Heavy? Update: Reader R2K point out that the Falcon heavy couldn't lift one of these.  Based on info from Wikipedia and the Space X site, my guess is you'd be lucky to get a thrust to mass ratio of unity.  So, the only thing cool about an Orion on top of a Falcon Heavy would be that the Orion would actually exist.

Sticking a square peg in a round hole (cool transition generation)

Rocketfreak outlines a cool method of making square to round transition sections.  Starts with a nifty online calculator, imports to Google Sketchup with a 3rd party add-on, filddle around a bit, print it, piece it together, and then fold paper.  Peter provides all the details.

A nice 8" MLAS model

The Arizona Rocket Consortium is planning a huge 1/2 scale MLAS model.  They recently built and successfully flew an 8" model.  Unlike my Frankenstein MLAS (also 8" Sonotube-based), theirs featured 4 canted motors, a deparately deployed capsule, and...it actually worked!  Here is a sample photo.  Check out this TRF thread for lots more.

Project Morpheus VTB Flight Complex

Click to see a bigger image.



http://a.yfrog.com/img616/1255/af1gs.jpg

Project Morpheus, morphed from Armadillo's Quad lander (?)

I heard of the Johnson Space Center's Project Morpheus. Here's an excerpt from their web site:

Morpheus is a vertical test bed demonstrating new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. Designed, developed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Morpheus Project represents not only a vehicle to advance technologies, but also an opportunity to try out “lean development” engineering practices.

Morpheus is a NASA-designed vehicle.  It was manufactured and assembled at JSC and Armadillo Aerospace. Morpheus is large enough to carry 1,100 pounds of cargo to the moon – for example, a humanoid robot, a small rover, or a small laboratory to convert moon dust into oxygen – performing all propellant burns after the trans lunar injection.

The similarity to Armadillo's landers is hard to miss and, although it was designed by JSC, it's hard to believe that it wasn't heavily based on Armadillo's work.  What surprised me even more is that JSC has their own, on-site Vertical Test Bed (VTB) Flight Complex. Located off of Saturn Lane, a route I traveled often in my early career.  This location should provide some nice eye candy for locals and from the visitor center.  I wonder if they'll block traffic during the hover tests? (Update: Project Morpheus, via Facebook, told me that the flights should be visible from the rocket park, although the flight times are not firm.  I'd hang out there to catch a glimpse.)

NCR Archer at Great Meadow

Found with a few stray photos on my camera's internal memory.

Saturn 1B's on Baltimore TV

The video should appear below the jump break (in case it acts like the previous embedded video). The full CBS13 article can be found here.

Saturn 1B's on TV - tonight!

Everyone,

        Balitmore WJZ TV 13 will be running a story on the Saturn 1b's. I don't know why they waited till today before they did something. But we have been told it will be shown between 5:40 and 5:50 and then between 6:30 and 6:40......

         Anyone out there that can record a copy, please do as I don't know many that get that channel.

         Take care.
          Bob Utley

Drag separation on MARS

The Monroe Astronautical Rocket Society (NAR 136) has a nice tutorial on drag separation.  It even has an Excel spreadsheet/calculator.

A cooler, albeit smaller, Big V-2 (flight 3)

_MG_0028.jpg, originally uploaded by Nick DeBrita.

Built to fly! 480 lbs; Predicted alt: 9,000' Motor: 60,000Ns (mid-'P')

PS - 'Smaller' in the title somewhat cryptically refers to my previous post.

Full scale V-2: Built to burn?

One RP reader smells gasoline.

Figuratively, of course, he wasn't there AFAIK. I just find it a shame that people would spend the effort to build such a cool prop and feel they had to burn it up. Not that I don't like fire and explosions. It seems some museum would have liked to keep it.

Project Icarus - 10 articles from Discovery News

Here's the intro to the list of articles presented in Project Icarus: Reaching for Interstellar Space:

Project Icarus is an ambitious five-year study into launching an unmanned spacecraft to an interstellar destination. Headed by the Tau Zero Foundation and the British Interplanetary Society, a non-profit group of scientists dedicated to interstellar spaceflight, Icarus is working to develop a spacecraft that can travel to a nearby star.

The articles discuss Project Icarus (of course), its predecessor Project Daedalus, and even how today's propulsion technologies would fit it. There is one particularly interesting graphic showing a Saturn V next to the Project Daedalus' nozzle. See the left sidebar.

Art Applewhite intoduces the X-Fire (pronounced cross fire)

Kinda like a Double Helix with the wing(s) in the middle.  No separate balance beam required.  X-Fire!

Full scale V-2 model

Rocketry Planet posted an article on a full scale V-2 model that was built for the Classic Fighters Airshow at Omaka Airfiel, New Zealand.  The article describes the V-2 'flight' in the future tense, but the slideshow shows the 'launch'.  One responder indicates that this probably wasn't a flying model but rather was to be erected and then merely spew flame. And that it did.  With the discussion of the failures of actual V-2's, I even wonder if it was intended to incinerate?   I borrowed three of the photos (credited to Keith Allott and Craig Buchanan).

Going to fly a Saturn V? Better read the manual!

The Saturn V Flight Manual SA-503, that is. Not the actual manual, just another nice summary by luke skywalker.  The following provides a nice overview, including all the motors/engines.

Rice U. built the detector that found antihelium-4

I had seen reports that scientists, using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, had discovered antihelium-4, the heaviest antimatter particle found to date. Now I read:

Physicists at Rice University and their collaborators have detected the antimatter partner of the helium nucleus, antihelium-4. This newly observed particle is the heaviest antimatter particle ever detected.

Scientists at Rice's Bonner Lab designed and built the new time-of-flight detector that identified antihelium-4. The $7.5 million detector was built by a U.S.-China collaboration led by Rice, with Chinese scientists contributing $2.5 million to the project. The new detector was installed as part of the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. STAR scientists announced their find today in the journal Nature.

...

The detector is a set of 23,000 sensors that surround STAR, short for Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC. These sensors identify the types of subatomic particles released when heavy nuclei collide. The detector tells researchers how long it takes a particle to travel from its creation to the point it passes through one of the sensors and is accurate to a 10th of a billionth of a second.

The full press release explains more about the discovery and the Rice detector.

Red Glare X on Outdoor Delmarva

I'm hiding the video below the jump break.  The embedded video loads slowly and seems to eat resources so I don't want it loading every time I go to my blog.  However, it is worth viewing so, if you're on my main page, click on through!

Days of Future Passed

OK, that's the new name for my Dyna-Soar based build.  I rejected all my ideas for names that that resembled real rockets (Titan and Saturn variants, etc.). My thanks to Justin, John and Graeme!

Daedalus static build

I haven't seen any sport rocketry activity from Steve Neill and Hostile Projectiles for some time (here are reviews of my HP builds: V-2, Delta X-15).  Most of his recent blog activity has been dedicated to large, complex, sci-fi static models with no apparent sport rocketry applicability.  However, this evening he posted about the build of a (Star Trek?) Daedalus spacecraft model.  This is also static but it might provide ideas that could be carried over to odd-roc/sci-fi flying models.  I swiped one sample pic to whet your appetite.  Watch Steve's blog for follow on posts.

Even more NASA report summaries

As you regulars may have noticed, I have been posing a lot about the NASA technical report summaries by luke skywalker over on YORF's scale forum. I pretty much would post here whenever anything caught my eye. I'll point out that a bunch of the these summaries didn't catch my eye. Not because they weren't interesting but rather because my "eye's" haven't been watching closely of late.  If you liked my subject posts, I invite you to go directly to the YORF forum and see what I missed.

An unknown rocket with a Dyna-Soar on the end

I attached the SRBs to my latest project (still un-named) and rigged up a harness to allow the top section to come down parallel to the ground.  As you'll see below, it is not perfectly parallel.  I decided just a skosh of up-angle would be good.  I still have to attach the shock cords to the upper and lower Kevlar leaders.  The current CG is about at 26", which gives an unloaded margin of ~3.7 and ~1.8 with a D12.  The 'chutes will reside around that point so I doubt they will affect the margin much.  I still have to put in some 'chutes, weigh it and do a final assessment of stability, speed off the rod, etc.  My gut says it is heavier than planned, which may mean reloads will be required.

And, retiring the Shuttle was a good idea, because?

A few weeks ago, in the shadow of Discovery's final flight, we heard the cost of Soyuz seats was going up.  I don't think anyone was surprised.  But, I felt better when NASA noted that the increase was in line with inflation. [Please comment if my facts are off.]  Today, Keith Cowling  posts about a report that the Russians won't allow private US spacecraft from docking with the ISS until they are satisfied that the new ships confirm to safety standards.  Keith notes:

What a great way to continue a monopoly on access to the ISS. Curiously, the "digital" Soyuz was allowed to dock despite its ongoing problems.

I am all for proving the new-space craft are safe before carrying people much less docking with the ISS.  The rub, of course, is that I'm not sure all the involved US factions have a consensus of what 'proof' should consist of, much less what the Russians may want. While my positive side wants to believe that the Russian position may merely be that they want a reasonable amount of visibility into the safety process, the negative side thinks we might as well turn the keys over now. Maybe that's the cold medication talkin'.

Saturn I Block II, Saturn IB, and Saturn V, in "EXCRUCIATING detail"

luke skywalker provides a summary of "Apollo Systems Description Vol. 2 Saturn Launch Vehicles". To gauge what 'excruciating' means, check out the following diagram of the Saturn V S-IC.

Red Glare X is coming to a TV near you

Bob Utley just announced that WBOC-16 will be featuring Red Glare X on the next episode of Outdoor Delmarva.  The show will air this coming Saturday at 7:30PM.  Those of us who don't reside on the Eastern Shore will be able to view it on-line at the link above..

New photo galleries - RG-X and Saturn 1B

I see ROCKETS Magazine has a Saturn 1B launch day gallery and that MDRA's Red Glare-X photo album is being populated.

Tupolev Tu-143

R2K posted these photos of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-143 reconnaissance drone.  His post has some particulars plus the source link.

Fire on the mountain, as seen from the McDonald Obervatory

The University of Texas' McDonald Observatory, located West Texas' Davis Mountains, was closed last week due to wildfires. This photo, taken by Frank Cianciolo, shows the controlled burns that were performed on the 17th. Very surreal.

More rocket aero-philately (rocket mail)

Via Artimi, here is a clearer presentation of the link I previously posted.  There are a lot of rocket mail images, but these include other space fan art too.

http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_2.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_3.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_4.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_5.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_6.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_7.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_8.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_9.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_10.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_11.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_12.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_13.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_14.htm
http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/zubakin_15.htm
http://magnus-z.livejournal.com/68809.html?view=257225#t257225

The author is the same chap whose link you posted already. But it presented in more systematic way and there may be actually more information and pictures in there. The site itself is dedicated to Soviet and Russian Sci-Fi and in fact is a very good recourse assuming one knows Russian. Here is an article with a lot of interesting illustrations. http://www.fandom.ru/about_fan/koltchitsky_1.htm

Full Saturn 1B coverage from Rocketry LIVE!

Photos, prep Videos, and Flight Videos

More videos of the Saturn 1B's

Results were as previously reported.  Steve's didn't stage but recovered.  Vern's drag separated.  Wish I could have been there.

Initial teaser Saturn 1B videos from Rocketry LIVE!

It sounds like Steve's didn't stage but recovered intact (mostly?) but Vern's bit the dust.  This is only the 2nd set of evidence I've seen.  More later.

Steve or Vern?

_MG_0553.jpg, originally uploaded by Nick DeBrita.

It looks like Steve Eves' and Vern Hoag's Saturn 1B's flew today. Nick's Flickr album is the first evidence I've seen. I don't even know which one this is.

More later. Click through to see his entire album.

Cluster-up that Saturn 1B, boy!

luke skywalker reviews "Orbital Launch Potential Saturn IB using SRMs."

Red Glare X, Day 2 and 3 via Rocketry Live

All three days of Red Glare X photos and videos are now up on Rocketry Live! In the name of news coverage, here are a few samples:

Before

After

Warthog's Big Starfighter

Hump day hodgepodge post

• Houstonians and some ex-Houstonians can't believe JSC isn't getting a Shuttle
• Parabolic Arc presents The All-Female Symbolic Crew (via Mars500 and Yuri’s Night).  A virtual crew still qualifies for an actual rocket girl post.
•  The weather is looking iffy for this coming weekend's Saturn 1B launches, but the Eastern Shore's weather can defy prediction.  The MDRA page should convey any formal announcements.
• Scott Lowther discusses the Martin “RENOVA” (IIRC, from REusable NOVA)

The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) music video

The IEEE Spectrum reports on the Navy's X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS). This drone reportedly is so autonomous that you won't even need experience with R/C planes to fly it.

Water rocket CATO at 250psi

Attached is a summary video from Air Commands's Launch Day 103.  The rocket scientist in you will like the description of their new side deploy mechanism, which is controlled by custom electronics.  The rest of us will like the slow-motion CATO footage.

Tuesday Missile-any

• I see Loki Research will be sold to an employee and will live on.
• Dr. Frank Kosdon passed away last week at age 70.  RP has a nice article on his legacy.
• Hope the weather holds for the Saturn 1B launch next weekend.
• The MiniSugarShot-2 launch is set for Saturday, May 7th, with a backup on June 4th.
• I have missed any news in Armadillo's STIG launch.  I hope WSMR doesn't impose such extreme limitations once Spaceport America is operational.
• Brett Keller has some RG-X coverage.

Another RG X album

_MG_0363.jpg, originally uploaded by Nick DeBrita.

Click through to see Nick's entire album.

Monday Miscellany

• Reader Artemi sent me another link from Russia. I haven't had time to fully explore it but it looks like it has a lot of rocket aero-philately (rocket mail) related posts.  I didn't run the link through Google Translate for you this time.
• For all the space cadets who grew up in the '60's, ARA Press will be offering two new books: Lost in Space Design: “No Place to Hide” By Robert Rowe and the "Jupiter 2 Technical Guide"
  By Christopher Krieg, et al.  You can find the details and pre-order on arapress.com.
• Chris Taylor announced that he OD'ed on rocket photos and video this past weekend.  He can't keep up with the post processing so the coverage of MDRA's Red Glare X, days 2 and 3 will be far from live. I'm sure it will be worth the wait!  He also reminds us that he'll be back at Price this coming weekend for the launch of the big Saturn 1Bs.

Random MDRA Red Glare X

MDRA Red Glare X, originally uploaded by BrianWh.

Click thru for the rest of the series.

Red Glare X, Day 1 via Rocketry Live

Red Glare X, Day 1, Page 1

More Saturn V derivatives

No time to read...check out this post. Makes you wish NASA had practiced their Saturn-calculus even more...(silly pun of the word 'derivative')

Kpop rocket girls

With a hat tip to Darrell, allkpop, and the group Dal Shabet.

The British Interplanetary Society wants your ideas for huge space ships

Call for Papers – World Ships: The Long Journey to the Stars

Rocketry Live may cover Red Glare X and the Eves/Hoag Saturn 1B extravaganza

Rocketry Live, the sister site to NARAM Live, may feature photos and video from both events.  While 'may' doesn't sound exciting, it'll only cost you a mouse click to check.

• Red Glare X, April 8-10 (also watch the MDRA photo album, TRF, and RP for photos and reports)
• Steve Eves' and Vern Hoag's big Saturn 1B's, April 16 (watch the same links as above and also ROCKETS Magazine's official page; I will most certainly post some photos and video...eventually)

SRB-Boosted Ground-Launched Saturn V upper stage

The latest document summary from YORF's luke skywalker discusses "Selected Methods for Uprating Saturn Vehicles" (circa 1966).  He points out that the coolest thing in this report is the SRB-Boosted Ground-Launched Saturn V upper stage. Basically, it's a Saturn V second stage with four 120 inch Titan III-C SRMs.  This would be your basic parallel-staged rocket with the frist stage being the SRMs and the upper stage being from the Saturn V. 

OPEL ROCKET BIKE

OPEL ROCKET BIKE, originally uploaded by Thomas Brodowski.

Rocket bike!

New Odd'l products announced

Chris Michielssen announces three new products from his modroc company, Odd'l:

• The Cyclone is a mini-motor-powered rocket that utilizes 'mapleseed' helicopter recovery.
• The Up! Cup, is made from, well, a styrofoam cup.
• And finally, the Adeptor is an accessory that attaches to a standard camera tripod, allowing you to use it as a low-power pad.

You can read more about these items on the Odd'l site, but you can only buy them from jonrocket.com.

Falcon Heavy formally announced

Earlier today, Elon Musk officially unveiled the Falcon Heavy. With over 3.8M lb-thrust (17 MN) at liftoff, the Falcon Heavy will lift over twice its closest competitor_*.  As expected, it will essentially consist of three Falcon 9 cores bolted together.  The first unit will be delivered to Vandenberg by the end of next year, with liftoff to follow "soon thereafter". The first launch from the Cape is planned for late 2013 or 2014.  The following table shows how the Falcon Heavy compares to other vehicles.  It would be interesting to see a more comprehensive comparison, to include cost (which is reportedly half that of the Delta 4 Heavy), payload size and volume, payload to GEO, etc.  Also,  I wonder what the Delta IV Heavy can lift to the lower 200 km orbit.  Although I'm mildly interested, I have no motivation to research these facts and figures.

VEHICLE	INCLINATION	ORBIT	PAYLOAD TO LEO *
Falcon Heavy	28.5 degrees	200 km	53,000 kg
Space Shuttle	28.5 degrees	200 km	24,400 kg
Delta IV Heavy	28.5 degrees	407 km	22,980 kg
Titan IV-B	28.5 degrees	150 km x175 km	21,680 kg
Proton M	51.6 degrees	200 km	21,000 kg
Ariane 5 ES	51.6 degrees	407 km	20,000 kg
Atlas V 551	28.5 degrees	200 km	18,810 kg
Japan H2B	30.4 degrees	300 km	16,500 kg
China LM3B	28.5 degrees	200 km	11,200 kg

Clark Lindsey has a big-list-o-links.

Convair B-58 Ejection Capsule

Convair B-58 Ejection Capsule, originally uploaded by james.gordon6108.

Rocket sled!

Tale of Cosmonaut's death "rife with errors"

Last month, I posted about npr's review of the book Starman, which tells the story of the tragic death of Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov in 1967.  Shortly after I posted, there were indications that the facts, as stated, may have been in error.  Today, Space.com outlines the inaccuracies in great detail.  (Just shows to go you that, just because you read it in the Dungeon, it isn't necessarily true.)

Anybody recognize this?

Scott Lowther is thinking big this morning, and has a question for you.  (Look carefully at the 'little things' in the middle of the image.)

Legos, they aren't just for rocketry anymore

More Saturn Orion

Scott Lowther is continuing work on his book on the Orion nuclear pulse rocket(s).  Today he gave a glimpse of the last “official” Orion designs.  The Philco Mars landers might have been launched by a modified Saturn 1C.  Once suborbital, the nuclear pulse engine would take the landers into Mars bound trajectory.  Fascinating stuff!

Build progress...woohooo!

It broke 80 degrees today and was relatively calm, so I flung paint.  I have some more decoration to do on the vast whiteness of the body tubes and am leaning towards installing the SRBs as planned.  No progress on finding a name.

Spring flowers (and rockets)

"Poppies on Castner Range" by Oneida Val - Castner Range is a decommissioned firing range that is now owned by the city of El Paso. Not strictly a rocket range but it saw its share of small ones.



This one isn't embeddable, but it isn't spring without Texas Bluebonnets! (and it features actual rockets)

Massive rocket indecision

OK, so I now have my still un-named rocket primed. Progress! Well, not so fast!  As I was pondering my recent posts about 'what-if' Saturn variants, I noticed the similarity my SRBs have to the UA-1205 boosters proposed for the MLV-Saturn V-4(S)-A-3 (as shown in the center figure here).  And, said Saturn looks a lot like the Skylab Saturn V that Dr. Zooch sells. The Skylab version is shorter and has no SRBs, but I have BT-60 and the strap-ons. Did I mention that the BT-5 SRBs will be close-enough-for-sport-scale when mated with a BT-60 Saturn?  Well, they will.  All these observations make me wonder if I even want to use them on my current build.  Or, should I build my Dyna-Soar booster sans SRB's and buy a Dr. Zooch kit?  Ah well, I'm going to have zero time for rockets for a couple of weeks so I have time to think about the situation. Plus, I ain't paying for shipping and want that MDRA discount...so that means I'll have even more time to decide.

PS - This makes me feel like NASA...or is that Congress...or both?

A glimpse into the Eastern Test Range

The Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex, north of West Palm Beach, is operated by Computer Services Raytheon. (William Laakkonen, Martin County Amateur Radio Association)

The Bayourat spotted a Florida Today article (not FF4 compatible?) on the USAF's  Eastern Test Range. Despite being, at one time, familiar with NASA's tracking assets around the Cape (and the world for that matter), I really don't recollect ever seeing many details about what constituted the Eastern Test Range.  I mostly seem to remember various interface circuits.  This hole in my memory has tweaked my curiosity and I now wish I had saved some documents from those days. But, I didn't, so I'll settle for the FT article...and a Google search:

• Johnathan-Dickinson Tracking Annex - Globalsecurity
• Jonathan-Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex - Wikimapia
• Eastern Range - Wikipedia

Saturn V ∧ Orion

With all the summaries of old heavy lift launcher concepts floating around, I thought I'd re-post a couple of diagrams of the Saturn V with Orion nuclear pulse propulsion modules.  Detailed references can be found here.

Saturn V ∧ (NERVA ∨ SRBs) (updated)

luke skywalker's latest NASA report summary is of the "Modified Launch Vehicle (MLV) Saturn V Improvement Study Composite Summary Report" from July 1965.  Here are figures showing configurations with 1) a NERVA nuclear upper stage, and 2) four strap-on 120 inch SRBs.  Muahahaha!

Since my original post, luke added a lot more material, including the following digram, which is an 'orphan' from an unknown source. Not the option for strap ons AND a NERVA upper stage.

Fire Eater

Fire Eater, originally uploaded by Erik Charlton.

How could you not love this shot? (The rocket's owner need not respond.)  Click through to see another photo taken a second later.

Direct Flight Apollo Study: Two Man Apollo Spacecraft

This post is a summary of  another of luke skywalker's NASA report summaries (except this time it's on TRF): Direct Flight Apollo Study: Two Man Apollo Spacecraft.  This study looked at using modified Gemini and 2-person Apollo capsules to land directly on the moon.  Well, I guess this isn't much of a summary of the summary, you'll have to follow the link for more info.  Instead, I'll settle for cross posting two figures.