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Defense Intelligence Reference Document Space Access Where We ve Been And Where We Could Go

Defense Intelligence Agency · 56 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and dated 8 March 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It gives a historical and technical review of how to reach space and return. It covers hypersonic gliders, air-breathing and rocket propulsion, thermodynamics and materials, and launch options. It argues that reliable, schedulable access to low Earth orbit is mainly a hardware and propulsion problem rather than a technology one.

  • p. 5 …much the issue, as exemplified by the Lockheed A-12/SR-71. When asked about space…
  • p. 12 …the AFFDL at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC), and the Lockheed…
  • p. 20 …This was similar to the Lockheed Star Clipper (see Figure 38). liE!l B:!lll IElill…
  • p. 42 …So both Lockheed Aircraft and McDonnell Douglas proposed a self-sustained operational system using recoverable lateral…
  • p. 51 …and logistics requirements, Lockheed, NAS-9-1422. • Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), Lockheed, NAS-9-1688. • Manned…
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Thermodynamics and Materials
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The structure of Model 176 was based on diffusion-bonding and super-plastic forming of
flat titanium sheets. Forty years ago, the method was called "roll bonding" and
executed with the titanium sealed within an evacuated steel envelope and processed in
a steel rolling plant. With a lot of effort and chemical leaching, the titanium part was
freed from its steel enclosure. All of that has been completely replaced today by the
current titanium diffusion-bonding and super-plastic forming industrial capabilities. The
photo in Figure 16 is from a Society of Automotive Engineers book titled Advanced
Engine Development at Pratt & Whitney: The Inside Story of Eight Special Projects 146-
1971, by Dick Mulready. Chapter 6, "Boost Glide and the XLR-129 - mach 20 at
200,000 Feet," shows a surviving remnant from the 1960s program.
The super-plastic-forming, diffusion bonding that was so difficult in early 1960 is now
an accepted fabrication procedure. One of the F-lS's major bulkheads was fabricated
from titanium sheet elements using this procedure instead of machining away more
than 90 percent of a titanium forging. Had the procedure been adopted as a product-
manufacturing method, it would have eliminated the almost 2-year manufacturing cycle
in acquiring titanium forging of the wing spars and major bulkheads. Note that only 2.5
percent of the thermal heating enters the primary structure.
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 56 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.