Military missions for Nova

[Orionblamblam]

In 1963 General Dynamics put a few charts in front of NASA showing the sort of military payloads that Nova - with about a million pounds payload - would be capable of. This included chucking infantry and "police" forces, 3,500 ABM satellites, 10,000 megatons worth of nuclear weapons, enough chemical weaposn to kill 1,000 sq. miles, enough bioweapons to kill 1,000,000 sq. miles. Details are lean; like as not this was not much more than thinking out loud.

http://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/?p=1159

 

[Michel Van]

reading the post, my reaction on Cold war logic was some thing like this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I


but the spartans, eeh Us Military hang a long thine on those concepts until Vietnam,
and US aerospace company offer the DoD various carrier like Ithacus by Douglas
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4577.0.html
hell, even von braun look for that concept for Juno and Saturn I as was under US Army control (but that was more "i try to get justification for my Rocket R&D financing")
new to me is this "Continental Air Strike force" payload of 200,000. lbs, is that launchich a Aircraft in Aeroshell to target or a landing Capsule with Aircraft hangar on board ?


but was is more interesting in GE paper is mention of Ballistic missile boost Intersept = BAMBI
the paper say 14 could be launch with NOVA, make around 71000 lbs = 32 metric Tons per unit, means BAMBI must be a huge weapon platform.

 

[Orionblamblam]

new to me is this "Continental Air Strike force" payload of 200,000. lbs, is that launchich a Aircraft in Aeroshell to target or a landing Capsule with Aircraft hangar on board ?

Sadly, no further data. However, in context it would seem to indicate the idea was to throw aircraft directly into combat; landing them first and then launching from the ground would be a waste of time.

I can only speculate that the aircraft in question would be all-new hypersonic aircraft, perhaps akin to Dyna Soar or HYWARDS in configuration, probably equipped with airbreathing propulsion systems. I can't see how conventional aircraft could have been safely tossed.

but was is more interesting in GE paper is mention of Ballistic missile boost Intersept = BAMBI
the paper say 14 could be launch with NOVA, make around 71000 lbs = 32 metric Tons per unit,

I don't agree with your math. The chart says that the "System Weight" of BAMBI was 14 MILLION POUNDS, with a "Unit Weight" of 4 THOUSAND POUNDS. This means that the entire set of BAMBI payloads would be 14,000,000 lbs, with each satellite weighing 4,000 lbs; if you disregard the weight of the carrying structures, this means that 14M/4K = 3,500 satellites would be launched by approximately 14 Nova rockets, each carrying 1,000,000 pounds of payload, or about 250 satellites per launch.

 

[Graham1973]

Sadly, no further data. However, in context it would seem to indicate the idea was to throw aircraft directly into combat; landing them first and then launching from the ground would be a waste of time.

I can only speculate that the aircraft in question would be all-new hypersonic aircraft, perhaps akin to Dyna Soar or HYWARDS in configuration, probably equipped with airbreathing propulsion systems. I can't see how conventional aircraft could have been safely tossed.

Given the time frame could this have been the launch vehicle for that 'space fighter' design that was discussed on the forum back in Feburary '12.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14547.0.html


and that you later wrote an article about.

http://www.aiaahouston.org/Horizons/Horizons_2012_05_and_06.pdf

 

[Michel Van]

I don't agree with your math. The chart says that the "System Weight" of BAMBI was 14 MILLION POUNDS, with a "Unit Weight" of 4 THOUSAND POUNDS. This means that the entire set of BAMBI payloads would be 14,000,000 lbs, with each satellite weighing 4,000 lbs; if you disregard the weight of the carrying structures, this means that 14M/4K = 3,500 satellites would be launched by approximately 14 Nova rockets, each carrying 1,000,000 pounds of payload, or about 250 satellites per launch.

your absolute right: i was so wrong :-[

 

[Orionblamblam]

Given the time frame could this have been the launch vehicle for that 'space fighter' design that was discussed on the forum back in Feburary '12.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14547.0.html


and that you later wrote an article about.

http://www.aiaahouston.org/Horizons/Horizons_2012_05_and_06.pdf

That makes sense. As originally describe it came with its own booster, but they could presumably be clustered. When I wrote about the "space fighter" before I speculated that it might have been meant to go along with ICARUS, which wouldn't make a whole lot of sense since my speculation was that the fighter was a Convair design and ICARUS was Douglas. But sinse Convair was speculating about tossing aircraft across the planet atop their own Nova boosters, it suddenly seems to make a lot more sense.

Time to fire up the ol' AutoCAD...

 

[Graham1973]

Given the time frame could this have been the launch vehicle for that 'space fighter' design that was discussed on the forum back in Feburary '12.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14547.0.html


and that you later wrote an article about.

http://www.aiaahouston.org/Horizons/Horizons_2012_05_and_06.pdf

That makes sense. As originally describe it came with its own booster, but they could presumably be clustered. When I wrote about the "space fighter" before I speculated that it might have been meant to go along with ICARUS, which wouldn't make a whole lot of sense since my speculation was that the fighter was a Convair design and ICARUS was Douglas. But sinse Convair was speculating about tossing aircraft across the planet atop their own Nova boosters, it suddenly seems to make a lot more sense.

Time to fire up the ol' AutoCAD...

That custom booster, looked a little small to put the 'space fighter' into orbit, although without any details on it, that's pure speculation on my part. Doing a 'quick and dirty' calculation gives a throw weight of 125 'space fighters' and there's clearly not enough room atop a NOVA to fit that many even with a hammerhead payload shroud.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Note that the "Continental Air Strike Force" had a payload weight of 200,000 pounds. The "space fighters" weighed 20,000 pounds. The math is conveninetly easy... 10 fighters. This is far below even low-end Nova payload capability; whether this means Nova would launch with only a partial fuel load, or whether this means that the 200K lbs is *only* the fighters and not a bunch of other stuff that went with 'em, I can't say.

Note that the 200K is also per day. So maybe that indicates Nova *wouldn't* be used here; Nova would launch the logistics capsules, and the aircraft would be sent some other way.

 

[OM]

In 1963 General Dynamics put a few charts in front of NASA showing the sort of military payloads that Nova - with about a million pounds payload - would be capable of. This included chucking infantry and "police" forces, 3,500 ABM satellites, 10,000 megatons worth of nuclear weapons, enough chemical weaposn to kill 1,000 sq. miles, enough bioweapons to kill 1,000,000 sq. miles.

...Along with one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings.


Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

 

[pedal]

I never ever post... But that's Damn funny!!!

 

[Michel Van]

this man is very "excited" about the potential of Military Nova booster ;D


back to topic
that is a General Dynamic proposal, so we could consider those desgin as potential for Military Use ?

NOVA
GD-B http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdb.htm
GD-E http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagde.htm
GD-F http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdf.htm
GD-H http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdh.htm
GD-J http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdj.htm
on the J design i have my doubt. because some source say it would use Nerva type engine in Second stage.

by the way, how much ABC had General Dynamic on Nova booster proposal ?

 

[OM]

I never ever post... But that's Damn funny!!!

...Thank you, sir. I know there's *two* egotists on here who probably filed a complaint about the post just on the grounds that they have no sense of humor, but if Michael Van loved it, frack'em

 

[Michel Van]

...Thank you, sir. I know there's *two* egotists on here who probably filed a complaint about the post just on the grounds that they have no sense of humor, but if Michael Van loved it, frack'em

sorry that i start in this topic with black humor, but if you read some Cold War proposal like Orion nuclear plus engine Battleship, Doomsday weapons like SLAM, Nuclear power Bomber
and now Nova launch vehicle as "Mother of all ICBM and mass destruction weapon delivery system"


stuff like "THIS IS SPARTA" or Dr. Strangelove come in mind. you can only deal with black Humor on those things...


yep Stanley Kubrik, broth the cold war madness to one point statement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0

 

[Byeman]

...Thank you, sir. I know there's *two* egotists on here who probably filed a complaint about the post just on the grounds that they have no sense of humor, but if Michael Van loved it, frack'em

There first has to be humor before one can sense it.

 

[RGClark]

...
NOVA
GD-B http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdb.htm
GD-E http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagde.htm
GD-F http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdf.htm
GD-H http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdh.htm
GD-J http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/novagdj.htm
on the J design i have my doubt. because some source say it would use Nerva type engine in Second stage.
...

Considering the size of the payload and number of F-1 engines used, it might have been doable by clustering 3 Saturn V's, though it has never been done to cluster an entire multistage rocket. This would require all three first stages to fire together and stop together, the same for the second, and also for the third.
Usually though it's only the first stage that is clustered. We might be able to get comparable performance by just clustering the first stage. This is because you would use the more efficient staging method where the two outside first stages would burn out and be discarded first while the middle stage continued on. Also, being three staged you might not need the middle stage to be as massive as the second stage is in the Nova proposals.
Another method to get such high payload to LEO would be Robert Truax's Sea Dragon proposal:

Sea Dragon.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm

The development of the rocket itself might be cheaper than the Nova because it only used cheaper pressure-fed engines. The high performance turbo-pump engines are very expensive compared to simple pressure-fed ones.
However, because the rocket was so heavy Truax proposed launching it at sea. This would have increased significantly the operational costs.


Bob Clark

 

[OM]

There first has to be humor before one can sense it.

...It's there. If your sense of humor is discombobulated and conbefuddled, that's not *my* fault.