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  #1  
Old 06-09-2022, 06:40 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Default Bloostar User's Guide (and more)

Hello All,

I came across a Payload User's Guide, which contains scale data, for Zero 2 Infinity's Bloostar rockoon-type satellite launch vehicle and sounding rocket. This unusual vehicle (small test versions have already been launched successfully, see: https://www.zero2infinity.space/ , https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...Bloostar+rocket [videos], and https://www.google.com/search?q=Zer...sclient=gws-wiz ) is carried to launch altitude by a Project Skyhook-type, polyethylene plastic film stratospheric balloon, and:

For orbiting small satellites, it is flown in a three-stage configuration (and with the third stage only, when used for suborbital launches). All three stages--having six rocket engines on the first stage, six smaller engines on the second stage, and a single Stage 2-type engine on the third stage--are "nested" rather than vertically stacked, and all thirteen pressure-fed engines (which burn LOX/methane) have vacuum-optimized nozzles. The vehicle is steered by differential throttling, enabling simpler and lighter engine mountings to be used. Also:

The Bloostar vehicle--which is designed to be reusable (except for the third stage, in its satellite launching configuration; it is reusable in its suborbital, third-stage-only configuration)--uses Tsiolkovsky's original staging method, with propellant cross-feeding between all stages. All thirteen of its rocket engines are ignited simultaneously, after its release from the balloon, and the outermost stages are dropped off when empty. This staging method also gives Bloostar multiple engine-out capability:

In the event of one or two engine ignition failures at launch, or non-catastrophic engine losses later, it can still deliver the payload to the desired orbit or suborbital trajectory; the guidance system shuts down the opposing engine on the other side (in order to maintain flight control), and the remaining engines burn longer (and the lower stages are dropped off when emptied), in order to reach the correct cutoff velocity. Below is a link to the vehicle's payload user's guide:

Zero 2 Infinity Bloostar Payload User's Guide:
http://www.zero2infinity.space/wp-c...-User-Guide.pdf

I hope this material will be useful.
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Old 06-09-2022, 09:39 AM
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Ez2cDave Ez2cDave is offline
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After a little "digging" . . .

Dave F.
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Old 06-09-2022, 07:39 PM
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I gotta admit, that is an interesting, compact design the way the three stages fit together with the engine(s) from the next stage above nesting inside the engines from the lower stage(s). Pretty neat.

Thanks for posting the info and to Dave for the images/graphics.

Earl
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Old 06-09-2022, 08:19 PM
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I wonder if these guys were inspired by Wernher Von Braun & Chesley Bonestell ?

Dave F.
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Old 06-09-2022, 09:12 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
I gotta admit, that is an interesting, compact design the way the three stages fit together with the engine(s) from the next stage above nesting inside the engines from the lower stage(s). Pretty neat.

Thanks for posting the info and to Dave for the images/graphics.

Earl
You're welcome, and thanks to Dave for copying-and-posting the Bloostar--and the von Braun/Bonestell (and probably Willy Ley, too) Moonship--illustrations. Bloostar's two-piece, split "fold-back" payload fairing is more like a folding baby carriage or beach "tent parasol," because the dynamic pressure it encounters is so very low; it keeps out dust, and protects the payload and the "upper" (inner) stages from the solar heat, during the carrier balloon's ascent, and:

The entire system (except for the third stage, in orbital launch configuration) is reusable or recyclable. The Skyhook-type zero-pressure, polyethylene plastic film (the kind used for dry-cleaning clothes bags and plastic food wrapping) balloons can be used only once, but they are cheap, and also recyclable (and the gas valve assembly at the top of the balloon is reusable). In fact (going back to the late 1940s, when these Skyhook balloons were invented), when the balloons happen to land on or near farms, they were/are given to the farmers, who wash, dry, and use the plastic film for wrapping frozen meat and vegetables. Otherwise, the spent balloons are collected and recycled (and if they land on water, they float).

I have contacted Zero 2 Infinity about possibly conducting Bloostar launches and/or space tourism flights from our area. Here (see: http://stratocat.com.ar/bases/25e.htm ) is information on the numerous Project Skyhook-type (plastic film, near-space) balloon launches from Fort Wainwright here in town; the last such launch occurred in 1998. Nearby Eielson Air Force Base was also a Skyhook-type balloon launch site, until 1980 (clicking on the location names *here* http://stratocat.com.ar/bases/balloons-alaska.htm will take you to the launch lists and launch sites information). Had I known about the two 1998 Cosmic ray flights, I could have watched their launches--not very far down the street from me--from Fort Wainwright; those enormous (~40-story tall) balloons must have been readily visible from all over town, even before launch! Plus:

These balloons weren't only used to carry instruments and rockoons (which they still do, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQ-tMoAHkY & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47s97wBujY ). Some also carried test pilots and medical researchers to the edge of space (and today, there are space tourism firms--such as Zero 2 Infinity--working on such balloons and gondolas for cheaper, "B-line to space" (as these NASA Wallops videos call it: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...B-line+to+space ) tourism flights, and for launching small satellite carrier rockets--rockoons--from way up there [see: https://worldview.space/ , https://www.zero2infinity.space/ , & https://sites.nd.edu/aiaa-club/notre-dame-irishsat/ ]), and:

USAF test pilot Joseph Kittinger (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj0qFLXUQz4 ) made the first test flight of the pressurized gondola-capsule (he later parachute-jumped from over 17 miles in project Excelsior [see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior & https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...elsior+III+jump ], and assisted Felix Baumgartner in his 2012 jump: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...umgartner+jump+ ). Kittinger also made an 18+ hour astronomical flight in a Project Skyhook-type balloon, with astronomer William C. White, in Project Stargazer (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep...oject_Stargazer ). Plus:

Dr. David G. Simons, a USAF flight surgeon, made the Man-High II flight (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjtHWDA9B4 , http://stratocat.com.ar/fichas-e/1957/CBY-19570819.htm , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jiICEtRyrM&t=9s ), the first scientific flight of the project, launched from an open-pit iron mine at Crosby, Minnesota, about 140 miles from St. Paul. Then:

Demi McClure, who passed the physical examinations with almost superhuman results, was selected to pilot the Man-High III flight, the final flight of the project. As this short video (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU_aMam5ewo ) shows, he was ordered down early because of excessively-high body and gondola temperatures (the story of how that came to occur, and how he dealt with it, sounds like fiction--but it is true). He landed the balloon, climbed up out of the gondola, and calmly walked without any assistance--he refused any assistance--to the recovery helicopter, completely lucid and with no sign of impending loss of consciousness, despite having a body temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit (and having been that hot for some time before landing--the recovery crew feared that they would find him dead in the capsule!). As well:

The U.S. Navy had a similar but larger piloted near-space balloon project, called Project Strato-Lab (see: http://stratocat.com.ar/artics/stratolab-e.htm , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Strato-Lab , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Ross_(balloonist) ). The final, Stato-Lab V flight, which took place on May 4, 1961 (the day before Alan Shepard's Mercury-Redstone 3 flight), ended in tragedy for Victor Prather, who drowned--in the same way that Gus Grissom almost did that July, after his Mercury-Redstone flight--when Prather's U.S. Navy Mark IV spacesuit filled with water; Malcolm Ross, who was the mission commander, was retrieved safely.
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Old 06-09-2022, 09:53 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ez2cDave
I wonder if these guys were inspired by Wernher Von Braun & Chesley Bonestell ?

Dave F.
The Moonship's propellant tanks were actually plastic balloons (made of plastic that was impervious to the hypergolic fuel and oxidizer [nitric acid and hydrazine, von Braun's favorite lunar and Mars spaceship storable propellant combination in the 1950s]), in order to reduce the ship's mass. The Moonship's mission profile plans--at least the early ones--called for crew members to go outside in spacesuits and manually disconnect & jettison the empty tanks.

The much-publicized lunar expedition plans (in the Collier's magazine article series, and in the Golden Press book "Space Flight: The Coming Exploration of the Universe" [see: https://www.google.com/search?q=spa...sclient=gws-wiz ]) called for three Moonships, assembled at von Braun's wheel space station, to depart from it for the Moon. Two of the ships had its propellant tanks attached to a central open framework. The third Moonship, with--I *think*--only a single pilot (shown in the black-and-white model photo, in the pictures you posted) had--as the Golden Press book says--a "more solid center," and this ship would be broken up on the Moon to serve as Quonset-hut type living quarters during the explorers' six-week stay. Also:

This ship lacked a fuel reserve for making a second landing attempt if things didn't quite go according to plan. When they were ready to return, the other two ships would lift off and take all of the personnel back to the space station, where the Moonships could be re-conditioned to make further trips to explore other areas of the Moon. I wish our space program had occurred as von Braun, Ley, and Bonestell envisioned it! As well:

The spaceflight historian David S.F. Portree (his website contains a wealth of Concept Scale data! [see: http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/ ]) pointed out that even though Mars' atmosphere is just 1% of Earth's (rather than 10%, as was thought in the 1950s), von Braun's winged "landing boat" would still work; it could simply jettison its wings about a mile above the surface, with the Mars orbit return rocket touching down via parachute and a brief rocket burn. The Moonship would also work, and even better, with today's improved rocket engines and new, lightweight materials; its propellant tanks might not even have to be jettisoned when empty.
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http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
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Last edited by blackshire : 06-09-2022 at 10:11 PM.
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