Air Launched Sortie Vehicle from the early 1980s

[Blackstar]

Here is something about an early 1980s USAF proposal for an "Air Launched Sortie Vehicle" that was supposed to be capable of quick response and reusability.  I think they chose the name to deliberately avoid the word "spaceplane."

[meiza]

The long conditioning time of the SSME motivated the change to an RL-10 cluster... This paper is from the P&W guys anyway.

I think some similar launchers have been proposed many times in many different papers, complete with the 747 thrust augmentation...

[Blackstar]

I'd be interested in seeing any other papers on this.

I can see a number of dubious aspects of this proposal.  Separation of the spacecraft from the 747 looks really dicey.  Also, look how the spaceplane is mounted.  That would require a lot of structure inside the tank to hold it up.  Would make the tank heavy.  And a rocket on the back of a 747?  But perhaps the thing that is most weird/unconventional is the idea of pumping the fuel into the tank from the 747 while in flight.

Everything I've been able to gather is that this was a study proposal by one laboratory in the USAF.  It did not stem from a requirement for this capability.

[yinzer]

Pumping the fuel into the tank during flight makes perfect sense - it really reduces the boiloff during flight and the amount of insulation required.  There might also be an effect of reducing the loads that the tank and mounting equipment have to tolerate.

The picture makes the separation look worse than it is; it would happen while in a negative g pushover.  Shouldn't be any worse than the early Shuttle tests.

I'm a bit shocked that they are claiming to be able to increase the thrust-to-weight of the RL10 by nearly a factor of two with minimal modifications.  Granted they cut the area ratio way down by expanding the throat, but still.  A factor of TWO?

[Generic Username]

Everything I've been able to gather is that this was a study proposal by one laboratory in the USAF. 

That particular design was the Boeing response to the USAF Space Sortie requirement. General Dynamics and Rockwell also tendered responses. How serious the USAF was about the concept... shrug.

Many more illustrations of the Space Sortie and related vehicles:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2913.0/highlight,space+sortie.html

[Blackstar]

Pumping the fuel into the tank during flight makes perfect sense - it really reduces the boiloff during flight and the amount of insulation required.  There might also be an effect of reducing the loads that the tank and mounting equipment have to tolerate.

It completely alters the CG of the aircraft while in flight.  And it requires the pumping of cryogenics, while in flight and inside an airplane.

[meiza]

There are countless proposals pretty similar to this.

[yinzer]

Pumping the fuel into the tank during flight makes perfect sense - it really reduces the boiloff during flight and the amount of insulation required.  There might also be an effect of reducing the loads that the tank and mounting equipment have to tolerate.

It completely alters the CG of the aircraft while in flight.  And it requires the pumping of cryogenics, while in flight and inside an airplane.

If the tank in the fuselage is directly underneath the tank in the spacecraft, the CG will not move longitudinally. Thich is no doubt how they'd arrange it.

As for pumping cryogenics, yeah? They have cryogenic tanker trucks so the pumps have to be sort of portable. A 747 is big. Getting the purges right may be tricky, but doesn't seem insoluble.

Pioneer rocketplane was planning to do pretty much the same thing, and appear to have run aground on gross economic issues, not technical ones.   

[Blackstar]

Pioneer rocketplane was planning to do pretty much the same thing, and appear to have run aground on gross economic issues, not technical ones.   

That's not exactly an existence proof.

[Generic Username]

Pioneer rocketplane was planning to do pretty much the same thing, and appear to have run aground on gross economic issues, not technical ones.   

That's not exactly an existence proof.

The Space Shuttle, on the other hand, kinda is. LOX and LH2 are pumped *essentially* from one vehicle (the ET) to another (the Orbiter) while in flight, and the connection is then severed and doors close over the ports. Not exactly the same, of course, but in many ways more difficult.

[meiza]

Couldn't it be pressure pumped? The tank in the plane can be pretty sturdy.

It's a bit surprising how difficult some people see this, as if it would somehow be an important issue?

[Gene DiGennaro]

I think I remember seeing this in either Avweek or Popular Mechanics in the immediate post Challenger years.

[Blackstar]

Here's two more.  One is a General Dynamics paper on the ALSV.  The other is an Air Force description of an "Air Force Sortie Space System" from 1980.  I'm not sure if the latter is a USAF description of the work that was underway by contractors, or if it was what initiated the work.  I still haven't sorted all of this out.

[Blackout]

Maybe instead of on top of a 747 we put it underneath.  Then instead of a 747 lets use a Mach 3 capable carrier that can reach 70,000ft.

Oh wait a sec...
 

[Blackstar]

Maybe instead of on top of a 747 we put it underneath.  Then instead of a 747 lets use a Mach 3 capable carrier that can reach 70,000ft.

Oh wait a sec...
 

I'm thinking that ALSV may have been more real.

By the way, the author of the Aviation Week cover story on Blackstar did this interview 2.5 years ago:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0702.html

It dates from April 2007.  In it Scott states:

"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

So that was over two years ago.  He hasn't released these photos anywhere.

[vt_hokie]

If it exists, it seems insane that we have this technology hidden while NASA struggles to develop a capsule and we're looking at a significant gap in US human spaceflight.  Strange times...

[Blackstar]

You can say the same thing about UFOs, or top secret aircraft in general.  Simply put: "Where are they?"

In the 1990s there was a lot of speculation about all kinds of top secret aircraft being tested out in Area 51.  Some pretty incredible claims.  You would think that if these things were successful, by now--12+ years later--they would be incorporated into the Air Force and would be in operational use.  (Like the Blackbird and later the F-117.)  In other words, we would know about them.  But they haven't appeared.  This leads to a few tentative conclusions: a) these claims were almost all wildly speculative and exaggerated, and b) much of what has been tested is not necessarily in the form of new aircraft, but in the form of things like electronics and missiles that have since entered operational use.

Back to the ALSV: this appears to be a marginal technological solution in search of a problem.  What exactly was the requirement?  Quick reaction launch of relatively small payloads was apparently not a high demand back then.  And there were (are) better ways of achieving it.

[Namechange User]

You can say the same thing about UFOs, or top secret aircraft in general.  Simply put: "Where are they?"

In the 1990s there was a lot of speculation about all kinds of top secret aircraft being tested out in Area 51.  Some pretty incredible claims.  You would think that if these things were successful, by now--12+ years later--they would be incorporated into the Air Force and would be in operational use.  (Like the Blackbird and later the F-117.)  In other words, we would know about them.  But they haven't appeared.  This leads to a few tentative conclusions: a) these claims were almost all wildly speculative and exaggerated, and b) much of what has been tested is not necessarily in the form of new aircraft, but in the form of things like electronics and missiles that have since entered operational use.

Back to the ALSV: this appears to be a marginal technological solution in search of a problem.  What exactly was the requirement?  Quick reaction launch of relatively small payloads was apparently not a high demand back then.  And there were (are) better ways of achieving it.

Or they want to keep it a secret still for other reasons.  For example, the rumors about the TR-3B, if true, are a sea change in technology and capabilities. 

[Blackstar]

Or they want to keep it a secret still for other reasons.  For example, the rumors about the TR-3B, if true, are a sea change in technology and capabilities. 

It seems highly unlikely that a secret aircraft could enter extensive operational use and remain totally unknown/unseen.  Once it starts flying regularly, and is based somewhere closer to the target, it will be seen.  One or two, yes.  A bunch?  No.

Certainly there were other secret aircraft developed there that remain secret.  But they were most likely prototypes.  And it is hard to believe that there were a lot of prototypes.  Why build a lot of secret prototypes and then never put them into production?

[Matt32]

TR-3B?

Of course it exists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_TR3B