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Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 2nd 03, 01:25 PM
Pat Flannery
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

If this was posted before, forgive me, but I just spotted it. Mark Wade
has put up a new section devoted to Wernher von Braun's rocket designs
of the 1950's, such as appeared in the Colliers articles and Disney
programs; and will appear any-year-now in David Sander's "Man Conquers
Space" movie: http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/vonbraun.htm

Pat

  #2  
Old November 2nd 03, 05:30 PM
Scott Lowther
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Pat Flannery wrote:

If this was posted before, forgive me, but I just spotted it. Mark Wade
has put up a new section devoted to Wernher von Braun's rocket designs
of the 1950's, such as appeared in the Colliers articles and Disney
programs; and will appear any-year-now in David Sander's "Man Conquers
Space" movie: http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/vonbraun.htm


Two of the designs there are the A-11 and A-12. I've been tryign to hunt
them down for some years myself, and have coem to this conclusion:
They're bull****.

Actually, I believe that von Braun may have thought about such space
launchers during the war years, but probably never put anythign on
paper. But after the war, while being interrorgated by the US Army,
suddenly he had these concepts for very impressive vehicles... job
insurance. I've been in tought with a few of the remaining Peenemunde
rocketeers over the years, and they have all claimed that the A-11 was
not soemthign that was worked on in Germany.

Specific notes: The 1946 White Sands artwork for a V-2 derived 3-stage
satellite launcher sure looks like Peenemunde design, at least at first.
The third stage is clearly a V-2, the second clearly an A-10, and the
first sure seems to be a related design. Hopwever... note that *all*
*three* stages have their full-sized fins. That's nutty.

And on the A-12: in post war publications, von Braun described the A-12
as being three stage, not four, with the third stage being a winged A-10
carrying Shuttle-class payload.


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
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  #3  
Old November 2nd 03, 05:32 PM
Scott Lowther
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

P.S. Sadly, Mark Wade is continuing the mythology that the A-9/A-10 ICBM
was to be manned. Bah!

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

  #4  
Old November 4th 03, 07:19 AM
Pat Flannery
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Scott Lowther wrote:

Two of the designs there are the A-11 and A-12. I've been tryign to hunt
them down for some years myself, and have coem to this conclusion:
They're bull****.

Actually, I believe that von Braun may have thought about such space
launchers during the war years, but probably never put anythign on
paper.


That's pretty much the the same conclusion I came to- if anything, they
were just some mathematical exercises, not real plans.

But after the war, while being interrorgated by the US Army,
suddenly he had these concepts for very impressive vehicles... job
insurance. I've been in tought with a few of the remaining Peenemunde
rocketeers over the years, and they have all claimed that the A-11 was
not soemthign that was worked on in Germany.

Specific notes: The 1946 White Sands artwork for a V-2 derived 3-stage
satellite launcher sure looks like Peenemunde design, at least at first.
The third stage is clearly a V-2, the second clearly an A-10, and the
first sure seems to be a related design. Hopwever... note that *all*
*three* stages have their full-sized fins. That's nutty.


Yeah, but it made a great Hawk Model Company rocket ship; first they
marketed it as a "Atlas", then a "Saturn" rocket. I particularly liked
the door at the base of the first stage for the crew to board it. (?)


And on the A-12: in post war publications, von Braun described the A-12
as being three stage, not four, with the third stage being a winged A-10
carrying Shuttle-class payload.


That's also what I've read.

Pat

  #5  
Old November 4th 03, 07:31 AM
Pat Flannery
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Scott Lowther wrote:

P.S. Sadly, Mark Wade is continuing the mythology that the A-9/A-10 ICBM
was to be manned. Bah!



It would be interesting to know how they intended to get it within a
hundred miles of either New York City or Washington D.C. with their
then-current guidance technology, particularly given the effect of winds
on the A9's gliding descent; the only thing I could come up with is that
an agent was supposed to put some sort of homing beacon at the target
for the missile to seek out; or two U-boats were supposed to surface at
night and transmit coded and crossed radio beams, ala theground-based
system used by the German Luftwaffe against the British...the A9 would
glide down one of the beams under automatic control till it was crossed
by the other- then dive onto the target.

Pat

  #6  
Old November 4th 03, 09:35 AM
Scott Lowther
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Pat Flannery wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

P.S. Sadly, Mark Wade is continuing the mythology that the A-9/A-10 ICBM
was to be manned. Bah!



It would be interesting to know how they intended to get it within a
hundred miles of either New York City or Washington D.C. with their
then-current guidance technology,


Sheer luck, and hard work. That was acknowledged as one of the problems
with the concept. And the fact is, Hitler (oddly) had a serious distaste
for Kamikaze weapons, right up to the end of the war, when he finally
okayed manned Fi-103 (V-1 buzzbombs). The notion that he would have
given the okay for a manned V-2 weapons system anytime prior to late 44
is laughable.

The A-9/A-10 would have simply been fired many times in hope of nailing
something interesting in Manhattan. They might have gotten away with it
had they kept France and control of the eastern Atlantic, as the launch
sites were in France and the splashdown sites for the recoverable and
reusable (!) A-10 stages was a few hundred miles offshore.

--
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  #7  
Old November 4th 03, 05:12 PM
Pat Flannery
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Scott Lowther wrote:

The notion that he would have
given the okay for a manned V-2 weapons system anytime prior to late 44
is laughable.

Of course that's just when the A9/A10 program gets restarted, so
maybe... the jet stream is going to have a deleterious affect on the
A9's range heading westward; and they still didn't have a clue about
reentry heating, although the W.W. II cutaway of the manned
rocket/ramjet driven A9 variant seems to suggest some sort of cooling of
the wing leading edge via the vehicle's propellants. The other thing
they never addressed was how to keep the A9 stable during the
exo-atmospheric part of the flight after motor burnout.



The A-9/A-10 would have simply been fired many times in hope of nailing
something interesting in Manhattan. They might have gotten away with it
had they kept France and control of the eastern Atlantic, as the launch
sites were in France


I thought they were supposed to be in Spain.

Pat

  #8  
Old November 4th 03, 05:35 PM
Scott Lowther
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Pat Flannery wrote:

Scott Lowther wrote:

The notion that he would have
given the okay for a manned V-2 weapons system anytime prior to late 44
is laughable.

Of course that's just when the A9/A10 program gets restarted,


The A-10 never really got restarted. The A-4b (A-9) did get a go, but it
was single stage.

the W.W. II cutaway of the manned
rocket/ramjet driven A9 variant seems to suggest some sort of cooling of
the wing leading edge via the vehicle's propellants.


Erm... no. It had leading edge flaps.


The other thing
they never addressed was how to keep the A9 stable during the
exo-atmospheric part of the flight after motor burnout.


Probably the same way the V-2 was to be kept stable exoatmospherically:
it wasn't.

launch
sites were in France


I thought they were supposed to be in Spain.


Nope. That would have required a conquest of Spain... certainly the
Nazis thought they could do it, but one more headache. The A-9/10
actually had some launch sites under construction in France, IIRC.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
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  #9  
Old November 5th 03, 01:20 AM
Derek Lyons
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Scott Lowther wrote:

P.S. Sadly, Mark Wade is continuing the mythology that the A-9/A-10 ICBM
was to be manned. Bah!


Mark's accuracy in many matters is questionable.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
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  #10  
Old November 5th 03, 02:51 AM
Pat Flannery
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Default Von Braun rockets on Encyclopedia Astronautica

Scott Lowther wrote:



the W.W. II cutaway of the manned
rocket/ramjet driven A9 variant seems to suggest some sort of cooling of
the wing leading edge via the vehicle's propellants.



Erm... no. It had leading edge flaps.


The original perspective cutaway in G. Harry Stine's "ICBM" shows the
wing leading edge slats in a different shading than the rest of the
wing, and at their leading edge they abut the alcohol tank. Visible just
below the leading edge (the drawing is from slightly above and forward
of a side view) is a circular or spherical "something" that is either a
feed pipe to the leading edge of the wing, or the lens opening of the
camera equipment. The same drawing in "V Missiles of the Third Reich"
makes it look more like a piece of equipment than a camera window. If a
Peenemunde engineer wanted to cool something that was going to get hot,
what would be more natural than for him to fall back on a variation of
the regenerative cooling of the rocket motor's combustion chamber and
nozzle? Both the SR-71 and Concorde kept their insides cool by sending
fuel from their tanks through their exterior structure on its way to the
engines.





The other thing
they never addressed was how to keep the A9 stable during the
exo-atmospheric part of the flight after motor burnout.



Probably the same way the V-2 was to be kept stable exoatmospherically:
it wasn't.

Getting the dart shaped V-2 to come down pointy-end first wasn't a
problem with its tail fins, it would stabilize on the way in, no matter
how it first contacted the atmosphere; but in the case of the A9, there
would be the concern that it come in right-side-up with the wings level,
and not tail-end forward with the wings vertical, for instance. The X-15
came in sideways once, and the result wasn't good.
The Antipodal Bomber would have had this same problem, and it doesn't
have any obvious means of addressing it either. When I built my 1/32
scale manned A9 model, I gave it a fair amount of dihedral (as the W.W.
II drawings showed), so that at least it doesn't end up gliding with the
pilot either. When

The A-9/10
actually had some launch sites under construction in France, IIRC.



Only in Philip Henshall's mind; the old boy went to France and brought
back wonderful stories of A9 silos and A9/A10 bunkers and nifty
buildings where V-1's and V-2's were to be launched within a few feet of
each other (like either the Luftwaffe or SS would go for that); then
somebody actually went over and checked out what he had described... and
found that he had been "making it up as he went along", as they say in
"The Life Of Brian"; but this didn't stop him- next he fabricated a
radiological warhead carrying V-2 based on the "Korsett" test stand
mounting device that the A4 V-1 (first A4 prototype) slipped out of
during tests when the Lox made it shrink; his theory was that the
radioactive dust was kept between the Lox tank and motor; and that the
externally-mounted "Korsett" strengthened the rocket's structure at this
point- the end result was quite something to see- a V-2 with around 1/3
the propellant tankage of the original, and a horribly unaerodynamic
sleeve wrapped around it...but Henshall gave it greater range than the
original! (no doubt due to the fact that it didn't have all that pesky
alcohol and Lox weighing it down.)
Next thing you knew, the Korsett-equipped V-2 was right up there with
manned A9/A10s and BMW "Flugelrad" flying disks in the "Nazi
Wunderwaffe1946" mythology.
According to my "V-Missiles of the Third Reich" book the only A9/A10
assembly bunker was authorized on October 20, 1943 under a project
code-named "Zement"; it was to be located under the mountains near the
town of Gmunden at Lake Traun in Austria, and comprise two multi-story
galleries- "Anlage A" and "Anlage B" having a total area of 76,543
square yards underground.

Pat

 




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