Man in the High Castle - Concord

[Madoc]

Martin,

Actually, it's that way in the series.  The Germans are specifically called out as "flying in rocketships" across the skies.  This, as the Japanese have no such high tech.

[martinbayer]

Martin,

Actually, it's that way in the series.  The Germans are specifically called out as "flying in rocketships" across the skies.  This, as the Japanese have no such high tech.

Looks like (unsurprisingly) a case of sloppy production design then. The closest (near) current real world analogs of conceptual designs for high supersonic/hypersonic passenger airliners with propulsion systems that include a rocket component together with air breathing elements (necessary to explain the propulsion nacelles with air inlets as shown in the series) are the Airbus Zero Emission Hyper Sonic Transport concept (http://illumin.usc.edu/assets/submissions/1209/Kang%20IlluminFinalPortfolio%20AE.pdf), the recent Airbus patent for an "Ultra-Rapid Air Vehicle" (http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=09079661&IDKey=837DD0BDAD3A%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D9%2C079%2C661.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F9%2C079%2C661%2526RS%3DPN%2F9%2C079%2C661), a passenger variant of the Reaction Engines Skylon concept (http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/tech_docs/JBIS_v56_118-126.pdf), and the LAPCAT-M8 configuration studied in the LAPCAT (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies) EU study series (http://cordis.europa.eu/documents/documentlibrary/120142511EN6.pdf). The relevant designs typically use liquid oxygen with liquid hydrogen as the propellant combination, and due to the low density of hydrogen and the need to store it at extremely low temperatures in well insulated tanks, making wing tanks largely impractical for the accommodation of cryogenics due to their poor volume to surface ratio, their passenger compartments occupy only a fraction of the fuselage, as opposed to the majority of the fuselage as evidenced by the row of windows in "High Castle". Note that although the  LAPCAT-A2 concept by Reaction Engines does not strictly qualify in this context, since the Scimitar engine, even though it is derived from the SABRE engine used in Skylon, no longer has a rocket mode, it still exhibits the very same characteristic. Rockets are thirsty beasts, and as as stand alone propulsion system they would be absolutely unsuitable for long range cruise flight and could at best enable boost glide vehicles like the Spaceliner proposed by DLR (http://elib.dlr.de/87329/1/IAC13-D2.4.5.pdf), but even as a two stage system with pure rocket propulsion the Spaceliner passenger stage fuselage is still mostly occupied by propellant tanks.

My apologies for being such a pedant, but having worked in this area for some time stuff like this still gets my goat every once in a while...

Martin

[jcf]

The novel was published in 1963 and set in 1962, as is the Amazon series, so anything that looks like the
current 21st century projects you mention would be rather unlikely.

[martinbayer]

The novel was published in 1963 and set in 1962, as is the Amazon series, so anything that looks like the
current 21st century projects you mention would be rather unlikely.

I completely agree with your statement above, but since aerodynamic, structural and propulsion efficiencies, which dominate overall aerospace system performance, have only increased over the last half century, my analysis was a best case scenario based on current technology, so I don't really think that backdating it by half a century will improve the assessment in any way in the sense of making the novel and/or TV show more credible and realistic.

Martin