Space Shuttle Concepts

[luke strawwalker]

Elegant space shuttle orbiter model -- can't remember which contractor proposed this design, or if it was strictly a NASA study...

Strange!
The orbiter have the "Nasa worm" on the wing.
Is not from early 70s.
But when the "worm" was approved the definitive Shuttle design was not already chosen?

Maybe the worm logo itself was a proposal at that point, something that the contractor incorporated into their model to make it look "futuristic"... or something the contractor conjured up that NASA later adopted themselves as "futuristic"...

Anybody have definitive history on the worm logo and how it was proposed and adopted?? Stranger things have happened...

Later! OL JR

 

[carmelo]

Back in 1974, after the success of the Mercury and Apollo programs, but before the initiation of the Shuttle Program, NASA was convinced by the National Endowment for the Arts to participate in its “Federal Graphics Improvement Program,” and do what many companies these days do to revive their image: undergo a redesign.

Up until that point, NASA had been primarily using an insignia adapted by James Modarelli, the head of NASA’s Lewis Research Center Reports Division. This logo, created in 1959 and affectionately dubbed “The Meatball,” relied heavily on multiple visual metaphors. According to NASA’s Web site, “the sphere represents a planet, the stars represent space, the red chevron is a wing representing aeronautics (the latest design in hypersonic wings at the time the logo was developed), and then there is an orbiting spacecraft going around the wing.” Although charming in its quirkiness, the meatball proved difficult to reproduce given the printing technology available at the time and the variety of applications it would need to adorn Enter Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn. They were hired to create, in Danne’s words, “a more useful new Logotype.” In a recently completed, yet to be published memoir, Danne describes the streamlined new design as “clean, progressive, could be read from a mile away, and was easy to use in all mediums.” Danne and Blackburn replaced the complex meatball with a stripped-down, modernist interpretation where even the cross stroke of the A’s were removed. During the first design presentation, the proposed system was met with some resistance. Danne remembers NASA’s Administrator, Dr. James Fletcher, and Deputy Administrator, Dr. George Low, having the following exchange:
>Fletcher: “I’m simply not comfortable with those letters, something is missing.”
Low: “Well, yes, the cross stroke is gone from the letter A.”
Fletcher: “Yes, and that bothers me.”
Low: “Why?”
Fletcher: (long pause) “I just don’t feel we are getting our money’s worth!” <blockquote></blockquote>Still, the new program was approved and implemented. Seventeen years later, despite its winning the prestigious “Award of Design Excellence” by The Presidential Design Awards, NASA scrapped the Danne and Blackburn design and re-instated “The Meatball.”

 

[blackstar]

I have heard that somebody is writing a history of the NASA logo. I was told that this is a "book," but I don't know how anybody could write a whole book on this subject. Not even a lengthy article. Somebody could do a monograph (~100 pages) length book on the issue of NASA logos in general, including the mission patches and graphics developed over the years.

I have no more details than that.

 

[circle-5]

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin hated the "worm" logo. When the meatball was re-introduced, he requested the removal of as many worms as possible. I have some NASA display models from Marshall SFC that just have some glue residue where a worm logo once was -- on Goldin's orders.

 

[blackstar]

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin hated the "worm" logo. When the meatball was re-introduced, he requested the removal of as many worms as possible. I have some NASA display models from Marshall SFC that just have some glue residue where a worm logo once was -- on Goldin's orders.

Yeah, he was reportedly angry that when a Hubble servicing mission was launched that the worm logo was still on Hubble. But he was informed that it would be difficult to remove or cover it.

The worm logo is still carved in the external wall at the NASA HQ building. It's not easily visible.

 

[Triton]

I was wondering why NASA retired the "worm" logo in 1992 and went back to using the "meatball" logo. Thanks for the information. Personally, I prefer the "meatball" to the modernist "worm."

 

[Michel Van]

NASA about this

In 1992, Administrator Dan Goldin brought NASA's meatball back from retirement to invoke memories of the one-giant-leap-for-mankind glory days of Apollo and to show that "the magic is back at NASA." Lewis' hangar and publications now reflect this change. But nostalgia has its price.

source:
http://history.nasa.gov/meatball.htm

 

[carmelo]

The "meatball" return was merit of the Astronauts.
The old indsigna come back in late 1983,from STS-9 (together the "worm") on flying suits.
The last mission with "all worm insigna" was STS-8.

 

[luke strawwalker]

I was wondering why NASA retired the "worm" logo in 1992 and went back to using the "meatball" logo. Thanks for the information. Personally, I prefer the "meatball" to the modernist "worm."

+1... never did like the "worm" logo... too "generic" and VERY dated...

The "meatball" is much more "classical" in appearance and design... It just looks more elegant...

Later! OL JR

 

[DSE]

Storytelling: Early Space Shuttle Program Programmatic Decisions - Nov. 20

Johnson Space Center invites you to view the November session of their Storytelling program on the NASA-JSC USTREAM channel. A panel of five will chronicle "Early Space Shuttle Programmatic Decisions." The program will focus on the Phase A and B concepts that were studied and how NASA arrived at the conceptual baseline that was developed during the subsequent design and development phases; the management/organizational approach used during the development phase; and the effectiveness of that management approach.

Wednesday, Nov. 20, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. EST, NASA-JSC USTREAM Channel

This program is being distributed throughout the NASA-JSC USTREAM channel at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-jsc To provide your feedback on this session, go to the JSC Knowledge Online website at https://knowledge.jsc.nasa.gov and click on the "Storytelling Feedback" button.

 

[hesham]

The Rockwell HLLV.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Enjoy!

 

[Archibald]

From the flight global archive:
From 1978 to 1981 were studies of additional strap-ons (either liquid or solid motors) to boost Shuttle payload into polar orbit (the military wanted 32 000 pounds but the shuttle could barely orbit 28 000 pounds)

Damn, they wanted to add a whole hypergolic power pack (Titan LR87 + propellant tanks) below the external tank and between the SRBs. An alternative was small SRBs stuck to the big SRBs.

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1980/1980%20-%200939.html?search=liquid%20boost

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1980/1980%20-%203174.html?search=liquid%20boost

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1979/1979%20-%201104.html?search=strap-on

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1979/1979%20-%201198.html?search=strap-on (with a picture)

http://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2565&context=space-congress-proceedings

 

[sferrin]

I was wondering why NASA retired the "worm" logo in 1992 and went back to using the "meatball" logo. Thanks for the information. Personally, I prefer the "meatball" to the modernist "worm."

The "worm" logo looks very 70s / Syd Meade to me.

 

[Rhinocrates]

NASA has made the full graphic standards manual of 1976 available online - the "Worm" logo etc plus uniforms, guidelines for stationery etc.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa_graphics_manual_nhb_1430-2_jan_1976.pdf

 

[carmelo]

Meatball forever! B)

 

[The Artist]

I remember reading an article in Graphis Magazine (I think - that was back in 77 or 78) on the new look for NASA and the article included a few pages from that document. I remember thinking at the time that the worm looked too much like a corporate logotype. I was glad to see the return of the Meatball, and I was glad that the proposed Meatball with the worm didn't catch on.

 

[carmelo]

But i think that Astronauts loved the meatball.
Infact meatball returned on flight suits (together the worm) from STS-9.
I think that this was a choice of the astronauts (maybe was a decision of John Young,that was the chief of Astronaut office and the Commander of STS-9).

 

[Triton]

Source:
https://www.farthestreaches.com/spaceprgshuttle3.html#05072017

 

[RAP]

Great find Triton. Here is a Aviation Week blurb on the Grumman proposal.

 

[antigravite]

Very elegant indeed. North American Rockwell, NAR 134-B high cross-range design orbiter circa 1970 by the looks of it. An alternate low cross-range orbiter is shown also.


Referring Jenkins, "Space Shuttle", 1996 edition, pg 89.

Feels like a Carl F. Ehrlich, Jr design.

A.

 

[athpilot]

Boeing Space Freighter​

I really the big space structure shown...

View: https://www.youtube.com/embed/cVYbbWAd2WA

 

[Nik]

#59 sts_a : That's an auto-gyro ? Or an actual pop-up helicopter ??

Shades of the recent pad-lander design that deployed rotor-blades to slow descent: Whatever happened to that ??

 

[Rhinocrates]

#59 sts_a : That's an auto-gyro ? Or an actual pop-up helicopter ??

Shades of the recent pad-lander design that deployed rotor-blades to slow descent: Whatever happened to that ??

Do you mean Roton?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIuGfXp-Ok8&ab_channel=ScottManley

 

[Nik]

Ha ! Yes, that's the beast...

D'uh, given 'spent' stages may now be routinely pad-landed, controlling the ROTON's descent may be less impracticable...

 

[martinbayer]

Remember that the original Roton concept was intended to not just only use the rotors for descent and landing, but also for takeoff and ascent as well, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket. I still fondly recall the 1999 Space Daily headline "Roton Sweeps the Runway", see https://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-99z.html, about their Sikorsky S-58 rotor head based Atmospheric Test Vehicle (ATV) from back in the heady days when numerous noisy upstarts threatened to blacken the skies with LEO broadband comsats Elon style...

 

[Archibald]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBL_UJyN88Y


I downloaded that gorgeous video and then put that music as background, using some free tools found on the Web.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfyhL-pFFMw


I can testify, Airwolf theme fits to that Roton CGI - like a glove.

 

[publiusr]

Boeing Space Freighter​

I really the big space structure shown...

View: https://www.youtube.com/embed/cVYbbWAd2WA

Space Freighter is most similar to Elon’s Starship/SuperHeavy of course…but the wings bog you down.

SLS solids are strong… could heavy solids support a bogie wing system?

The solids are re-enforced and have wheels.. wings. Something like SuperHeavy ignites, and the solids get you going as the sled…the LV pulls up…and the heavy weight of steel solids, wings and landing gear detach.

Then what you have is the rest of Starship/SuperHeavy as is.

The sled omits the pad and the solids’ thrust authority and wings prevent a powerslide. Once the LV stack is free and clear…it should have less problems.

Doable?

 

[Byeman]

Boeing Space Freighter​

I really the big space structure shown...

View: https://www.youtube.com/embed/cVYbbWAd2WA

Space Freighter is most similar to Elon’s Starship/SuperHeavy of course…but the wings bog you down.

SLS solids are strong… could heavy solids support a bogie wing system?

The solids are re-enforced and have wheels.. wings. Something like SuperHeavy ignites, and the solids get you going as the sled…the LV pulls up…and the heavy weight of steel solids, wings and landing gear detach.

Then what you have is the rest of Starship/SuperHeavy as is.

The sled omits the pad and the solids’ thrust authority and wings prevent a powerslide. Once the LV stack is free and clear…it should have less problems.

Doable?

no. Solid are too heavy for wheels or wings. SS/SH can't be horizontal fueled

 

[publiusr]

There can always be modifications.

 

[Byeman]

There can always be modifications.

no, physics don't support the concept.

 

[RAP]

Couple of pages from a 1983 study for possible evolution of the space shutte.

 

[publiusr]

I’ve not seen the fully recoverable stack in the upper right section of your first photo.

Perhaps it was thought the ET—-with no orbiter to weigh it down…would lend itself to recovery with less wing loading?

A wing for it obscured by that of the orbiter?

 

[Forest Green]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbklYfuXEBo

 

[Byeman]

I’ve not seen the fully recoverable stack in the upper right section of your first photo.

Perhaps it was thought the ET—-with no orbiter to weigh it down…would lend itself to recovery with less wing loading?

A wing for it obscured by that of the orbiter?

no, the ET is not recovered in any of the concepts.

 

[klem]

Rockwells space shuttle with jet engines.(https://www.popsci.com/science/spac...=Bundle&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=Bundle)

 

[Stargazer]

We already have two topics on Boeing TSTO designs, but this is neither the 1960s "Boomerang" nor the early 1980s Model 896. These photos by Angela Coyne appear in the National Archives and were taken on 18 October 1990. They are simply labeled "BOEING NASA TEAM AND TSTO MOD" and show four different models of various sizes. The T-tailed models are the carrier aircraft, while the smaller ones are the shuttles they are supposed to carry underneath.

Original photos (uncropped and unenhanced) can be found HERE.

 

[southwestforests]

Rockwells space shuttle with jet engines

The job of attaching those pylons for the twin engines looks like a grand opportunity to damage the carbon parts of the shuttle wing leading edge.

 

[southwestforests]

These photos by Angela Coyne appear in the National Archives and were taken on 18 October 1990. They are simply labeled "BOEING NASA TEAM AND TSTO MOD" and show four different models of various sizes.

Concept models like these pretty much always get my attention.
Plans and art are informative and cool but there's nothing like seeing an idea in three-dimensional solidity.

 

[Archibald]

The thread title is hopeless... "Reusable Launch Vehicle concepts" would be better.

Space Shuttle is strictly 1968 (August 10, Mueller speech) - 1972 (January 5 : Nixon greenlight the project).