Military Space Plane vs. Ares 1...which could be operational first?

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
I don't know if this was a serious North American proposal or just
Strombecker models screwing around, but a manned interceptor based on the
Navaho missile is fairly nifty also:
http://fantastic-plastic.com/ITCF-108RAPIERPAGE.htm

Have you ever seen the Japanese Animated series Stratos 4? Reminds me of
the TSR-2MS aircraft in that show, but the F-108 Rapier looks much more
impressive with its much larger booster rocket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratos_4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St...sure_Suits.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ht_profile.png

For some strange reason, if you do a Google image search for Stratos 4, you
find a lot of pictures from the show, but very few that show the aircraft
used in the series. Strange, but true. :-)

The F-108 design they finally settled on didn't ride on the back of a
booster rocket, but they did propose launching a X-15 on a Navaho booster:
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/g26x15.jpg

That would have been one heck of a ride.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

Jeff Findley wrote:

The F-108 design they finally settled on didn't ride on the back of a
booster rocket, but they did propose launching a X-15 on a Navaho booster:
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/g26x15.jpg

That would have been one heck of a ride.

We never got Stratos 4 here in N.D.
We discussed the Navaho/X-15 a few years back here on the newsgroup, and
some people thought the booster acceleration would overstress the X-15
and cause it to break up during ascent.
That wasn't the only Navaho/X-15 concept by a long shot:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x15b.htm
For off-the-wall crazy, how about giant Navy expendable nuclear armed
bombers with X-3 Stilettos riding atop them?:
http://xplanes.tumblr.com/post/19280...rsonic-nuclear
The thought of something that had as high of a landing speed as the X-3
(200 mph) trying to do a carrier landing is hilarious.


Pat