The vehicle would be powered by ten modified RL10 engines arranged in a 2 x 5 array. The vehicle’s shape would be derived from several flown or heavily-studied lifting body type vehicles such as the FDL-5, FDL-8, or X-24C. The space vehicle would be reusable, making a runway landing after return from orbit. Overall, the vehicle would be approximately 10.7 meters (35 feet) wide and 15.2 meters (50 feet) long. Unlike more traditional launch vehicles but like the Space Shuttle, each tank would have three inner tanks, with hydrogen in the front, oxygen in the middle, and hydrogen at the rear to control the center of gravity for a lifting ascent. If necessary, they would be explosively blown into pieces. The tanks would form an aerodynamically-shaped nose for a lifting ascent trajectory and be released from the space vehicle shortly before it reached orbit, to burn up on reentry. The tanks would be covered with the Space Shuttle’s spray-on insulation if necessary. The space vehicle would have two attached drop tanks based upon design, materials, tooling, and fabrication techniques for the Atlas launch vehicle. As jumbo jets go, it would have been a real hot rod. The 747 would fly a zoom parabola, with vehicle separation at 15,200–16,800 meters (50,000–55,000 feet) altitude. Not only would it have the internal tanks, but the hydrogen would also be pumped into afterburners on the 747’s large turbofan engines, providing up to 400 percent thrust augmentation. The tanks would be low boil-off dewars and the propellants would be pumped into the drop tanks just before separation of the vehicle and drop tanks. The launch platform was defined as a 747 that not only carried the space vehicle and drop tanks on its back, but also had liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen storage tanks inside its fuselage.
General Dynamics performed a basic assessment of the concept for the Air Force.
The Space Sortie System had three major parts: a launch platform, drop tanks, and a space vehicle. According to Dana Andrews, who later worked on the concept, Hart was concerned about the Air Force’s lack of responsive launch capability at the time. In late 1980, Don Hart, the head of the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, outlined what was described as “an Air Force Sortie Space System” in a seven-page overview document. Studies starting in 1981 all included an external tank. One option, quickly discarded, was to use fluorine fuel. This was supposed to provide quicker, and hopefully cheaper, launch of satellites than existing expendable rockets. The Air Launched Sortie Vehicle never progressed beyond the study phase, but it would have been a wild ride to space.Īn early concept of the Space Sortie System without an external tank. This Sortie Vehicle, looking somewhat like a space shuttle orbiter that had been (lightly) stepped on by Godzilla, would have fired its own rocket engines while on top of the 747 and pushed both vehicles higher before separating the spacecraft to head into orbit.
Now, newly-acquired information indicates that Boeing conducted several studies of “Trans-Atmospheric Vehicles” in 1983, including a revised variant of the ALSV. In one early concept, the 747 would have been equipped with multiple rocket engines in its tail to boost it to launch altitude.
The ALSV would have launched into space off the back of a 747. In the early 1980s, the United States Air Force sponsored studies of what was initially designated a Space Sortie Vehicle, then renamed the Air Launched Sortie Vehicle, or ALSV. It is a concept that has been around since the beginning of the shuttle program.
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A recent episode of the AppleTV+ series “For All Mankind” featured a big reveal: an advanced space shuttle launched off the back of a C-5 Galaxy, headed for space on a military mission.
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