Apollo spacecraft variant that lands like an X-15

In 1967 the North American Rockwell Corp. applied for an Apollo
variant patent that was granted in 1971. The patent drawings show an
Apollo CSM that has extendable wings and an X-15 like landing gear
with forward nose wheel and rear skids.

Go to the URL below and enter Patent Number 3,576,298.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

Click "SEARCH", then click "IMAGES" to view the full patent.

Here is the text of the patent abstract:

United States Patent 3,576,298
Barnett , et al. April 27, 1971

"AEROSPACE VEHICLE

Abstract

An aerospace vehicle is described comprising a substantially conical
forward crew compartment or command module mated to a substantially
cylindrical rearward service module. Aerodynamic fairings are provided
along the midline on the sides of the cylindrical portion and a
substantial distance aft thereof for providing lift at hypersonic
velocities and approximately vertical fins are provided on the
fairings for aerodynamic stability and control. Wings are mounted
within the aerodynamic fairings at high velocities and pivotably
extended therefrom at lower velocities and altitudes to provide low
speed lift. Upon reentry into the earth's atmosphere hypersonic lift
is provided by the body and the fairings for bringing the vehicle to
the area of a selected landing site and, at lower flight speeds deeper
into the atmosphere, augmented lift is provided by the extended wings
for landing the vehicle on a conventional runway. A rocket engine for
propulsion has a large expansion ratio bell for use in the vacuum of
space. The large ratio bell is jettisonable to give a low expansion
ratio for use of the same engine within the atmosphere. Rear landing
skids are pivotable into and out of the wake of the vehicle to reduce
the requirement for heat shielding. Similarly, reaction control rocket
motors are also pivotable into and out of the wake of the vehicle for
minimizing heat protection requirements. Such a vehicle is readily
adaptable to a broad variety of space missions such as cargo ferry or
satellite recovery, and is reuseable with minimum refurbishment."

Inventors: Barnett; Burton (Los Alamitos, CA), Raymes; Frederick
(Los Angeles, CA), Sackinger; Thomas A. (Hacienda Heights, CA)
Assignee: North American Rockwell Corporation
Appl. No.: 04/682,489
Filed: November 13, 1967



Rusty

On Mar 8, 2:47 pm, "Rusty" wrote:
In 1967 the North American Rockwell Corp. applied for an Apollo
variant patent that was granted in 1971. The patent drawings show an
Apollo CSM that has extendable wings and an X-15 like landing gear
with forward nose wheel and rear skids.

Go to the URL below and enter Patent Number 3,576,298.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

Click "SEARCH", then click "IMAGES" to view the full patent.




You may have to install a TIFF viewer for your
web browser in order to view the Patent drawings.

Go to this URL for instructions on how to download
and install a free TIFF viewer for your web browser.


http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/images.htm



Rusty

"Rusty" wrote in message
ups.com...
In 1967 the North American Rockwell Corp. applied for an Apollo
variant patent that was granted in 1971. The patent drawings show an
Apollo CSM that has extendable wings and an X-15 like landing gear
with forward nose wheel and rear skids.

Go to the URL below and enter Patent Number 3,576,298.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

Click "SEARCH", then click "IMAGES" to view the full patent.

That's goofy looking.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

On Mar 9, 5:32 am, "Jeff Findley" wrote:
"Rusty" wrote in message

ups.com...

In 1967 the North American Rockwell Corp. applied for an Apollo
variant patent that was granted in 1971. The patent drawings show an
Apollo CSM that has extendable wings and an X-15 like landing gear
with forward nose wheel and rear skids.

Go to the URL below and enter Patent Number 3,576,298.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

Click "SEARCH", then click "IMAGES" to view the full patent.

That's goofy looking.



It looks like something from the Thunderbirds. With this
configuration, they are not using the CM's rear heatshield. It looks
like they are using the side of the service module as the main
heatshiel, similar to the belly of the Shuttle.

Rusty

Looks like a lot of thinking went into this one! Would have been cool
to see it fly, (Back when We had a real space port).

Carl

On Mar 9, 11:33 am, "surfduke" wrote:
Looks like a lot of thinking went into this one! Would have been cool
to see it fly, (Back when We had a real space port).

Carl

If anyone can't open the patent, e-mail me and I will send you jpg
screen shots of
the patent drawings and 1st page of patent.

Rusty

Rusty wrote:
If anyone can't open the patent, e-mail me and I will send you jpg
screen shots of
the patent drawings and 1st page of patent.

You can save those patent images BTW, but it's tricky.
I did these by first saving the complete pages to desktop, then opening
the files and looking for the .tiff, renaming it (a.tiff becomes
a1.tiff, the next page's files a.tiff becomes a2.tiff, etc) sliding the
tiffs onto the desktop, and deleting the rest of the files. Then use "MS
Paint" to open them, size them as you want (I did 25%), convert them to
monochrome bitmaps (they are big, and in lime green and black as tiffs.)
and save them.
Here's a direct link to the patent start page: http://tinyurl.com/2bd92j
Those wings look like they are the ends of hockey sticks.
At least on my machine running Windows 98, I found if I go to each of
the illustration pages using the forward button on the patent site,
nothing shows up, but if I then use the back arrow on the top navigation
toolbar after reaching the end of the patent the drawings appear.

Pat

On Mar 9, 5:32 am, "Jeff Findley" wrote:

That's goofy looking.

Jeff


The patent was applied for in 1967, long before NASA started asking
for shuttle proposals in 1970.

Yet, this Apollo variant has a cargo bay (with cargo bay doors), RCS
(oms) pods in the rear, wings, tail and X-15 type landing gear. It
also appears to have a hatch through the CM rear heatshield into the
cargo bay. It launches on a expendable rocket, but is itself
reuseable. It appears to be the missing link between capsules and
shuttles.

North American Aviation / North American Rockwell / Rockwell
International made the X-15, Apollo CSM and Space Shuttle. You can see
the X-15 and shuttle heritage in this vehicle.

Rusty

Rusty wrote:

Yet, this Apollo variant has a cargo bay (with cargo bay doors), RCS
(oms) pods in the rear, wings, tail and X-15 type landing gear. It
also appears to have a hatch through the CM rear heatshield into the
cargo bay. It launches on a expendable rocket, but is itself
reuseable. It appears to be the missing link between capsules and
shuttles.


At least it looks safer to land than that nutty winged Gemini.
Sure doesn't have much propellant storage back in the SM/cargo bay section.

Pat

surfduke wrote:
Looks like a lot of thinking went into this one! Would have been cool
to see it fly, (Back when We had a real space port).

Carl



Hmmm. Wonder if Orion could be fixed up the same way...?