U.S. Air Force Reusable Space Shuttle: The Triamese by Convair

Triamese reusable space transportation system has attractive operational capability and significantly reduced operational cost, The concept has been named Triamese, since it uses three virtually identical elements to deliver its payload to orbit, Each element is a rocket powered, vertical takeoff, horizontal landing, reusable vehicle. Good subsonic performance, attained by variable geometry wings, coupled with the use of turbofan engines provides a cruise capability which enhances both operational and logistics activities. Two of the vehicle elements operate as boosters from liftoff to a staging velocity of about 8,000 - fps, after which they decelerate and fly subsonically to a suitable landing site. The orbital elements, complete with payload, then accelerates to low earth orbit. Prior to staging, the rocket engines of all three elements are operating with propellants from
the booster elements.

[@Boeing-I-hs2gj]

Well I'm amazed to finally see the Triamese getting its own CGI animation to Space and back.

[@mjw907]

2022

[@franciscocampos8251]

​@@mjw907 y io

[@Cruiserfrank]

Many of the models of Convair's space project proposals (from the Atlas space station to this) ended up on display at the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park. Sadly, most of it was lost when an arsonist burned the museum to the ground in 1978.

[@jmwoods190]

Convair had quite a few really interesting aerospace designs back in its heyday. From the B-36 & B-58 bombers to the Atlas ICBM series(fun fact: it was originally meant to be twice as big with 2 more booster engines like a mini S-ID with 2 verniers), and from the Nexus to the Triamese- Not the most usual but visually impressive nonetheless!

[@Skoran]

Never heard of this concept, such a cool design. Amazing video as always.

[@davidcurry5239]

That's similar in concept to the RAF Mustard, tripled lifting body design that was one of the early videos.

[@MattMcIrvin]

I remember seeing a little model of it at the National Air and Space Museum, along with MUSTARD and a bunch of other Shuttle concepts.

[@Zerepzerreitug]

Loved the time lapse sequence with the crawler at the beginning. Makes it feel much more real and grounded (no pun intended).

[@datathunderstorm]

You’ve done it again Hazegrayart 😊. Another amazing concept brought to life - so realistic, you’d think this actually happened! They look like oversized X-37 Shuttles. Loved the wing deployments AFTER reentry 🤓👍🏾

[@lewismassie]

Fun thing about this design, NASA knew the optimal staging velocity for a reusable design was 10,000 feet per second (~3km/s) however this design staged at 8,000 ft/s (~2.4km/s) which shows you how using a common airframe design made the two booster designs somewhat undersized, even when putting fuel into the payload section and using crossfeed. So why was this persued? Well the 10k ft/s is for optimising the size of your hardware, assuming that you're building different craft. The commonality leads to a huge saving here so it's not so bad

[@Cruiserfrank]

Convair proposed this in 1968, but like most of their space projects it never went anywhere. I wouldn't say it was "pursued."

[@22steve5150]

@@Cruiserfrank Convair didn't fuck around with conventional designs too often. A lot of really interesting "what if's" when it comes to their military designs.

[@hagerty1952]

It seems that would have incredible side loads on those two outer craft when they separate and turn sideways at Mach 10! How does that work?

[@22steve5150]

@@hagerty1952 I'd guess that when they separate they are so high up that there is practically zero air resistance from the thin atmosphere, with them requiring limited thruster use first to gain distance from the center craft and then turn to orient themselves correctly for atmospheric reentry and use of control surfaces for the trip back down.

[@lewismassie]

@@hagerty1952 The air gets thin very quickly as you go up. Peak aerodynamic stress would be on the way back down, as the trajectory would be very steep

[@vf-31tomcatters]

space planes are one of the weirdest but one of the best parts if aerospace

[@silverfox8615]

They are the sirens of aerospace. Sexy, but they serve only to lure you onto the rocks of ruin. Wings are dead weight on a space ship, where every kilogram matters. This is a nice design, in that most of the lift comes from the body, as it does on Starship's re-entry. But that has even less control surfaces and reuses it's rocket motor to land instead of lugging around a pair of jet engines.

[@ArjunaKunti]

@@silverfox8615 spaceplanes can enter the atmosphere with only 1.5 G braking force instead of the capsule designs with 4-5 or 6 G. Material and biological experiment samples can destroy at such high G forces (not to mention sick or injured astronauts) therefore spaceplane designs are needed for swift returns.

[@nimeshjain5523]

No one can beat your space animation

[@sweenytwain7095]

NASA does a pretty good job... They did fake the moon landing And now THE JW telscope 🤷‍♂️

[@tsr207]

Excellent video concept - as others have mentioned the MUSTARD concept in 1960s by BAC followed the same principles !

[@stuartyoung4182]

This may be Hazegrayart's best video yet! I always thought that this was a practical design for the Shuttle: almost identical form-factors for side boosters and orbiter - a flat belly would have made the job of heat tile replacement MUCH quicker - and swing-wings and jet engines for less drama when landing. The USAF would NEVER have approved it, though: not enough cross-range for the proposed missions out of Vandenberg AFB (now SFB).

[@HalNordmann]

The bigger wings help with emergency return (that's why NASA wanted them too), and they also help spread out the heat load. The jet engines and swing-wings are also pretty heavy, with a limited benefit for the orbiter. The TPS is also totally different for the orbiter and boosters, not to mention cargo bay.

[@randycampbell6307]

@@HalNordmann Ya the overall "commonality" of the designs was mostly cosmetic really which was a problem in the "trimese" designs

[@Seminal_Ideas]

Really enjoyed this one. I particularly liked the crowd's reaction when the two boosters separated. Well done in making these truly fascinating glimpses into an alternative space program.

[@CalvinMaclure]

Can you even imagine what this would have looked like irl?? Bonkers!

[@fork9001]

American MUSTARD (does Triamese use methane?)

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

Probably called something like RANCH Rapid Astronautical National Cargo Hauler

[@pseudotasuki]

Multi Aircraft Yeet (to) Orbit

[@johnbuchman4854]

@@HALLish-jl5mo Who would like to "Buy the RANCH"?

[@randycampbell6307]

@@HALLish-jl5mo "Reusable" instead of "Rapid" :)

[@randycampbell6307]

It uses Liquid Hydrogen as all the concepts did so that's why they have the rather tall and narrow configuration. The Air Force version (along with the "AstroRocket" concept) was actually studied using 'storable' propellants (similar to the Titan II) which made for smaller LV's but much heavier

[@thejesuschrist]

This one is so bad ass!

[@Humuku]

Nice ambient sound and marks of reuse. 👍🏻 As always must have been an insane amount of work,

[@leeterthanyou]

Me: Moooom I want project MUSTARD. Mom: We have project MUSTARD at home. Project MUSTARD at home:

[@AndrewDasilvaPLT]

Haze, you're getting so good at this! I'm proud of you!

[@SpainSpace]

CONGRATS ON 100K!

[@mattbrewster8051]

Beautiful! Now, try depicting the British HOTOL cobcept- in which both a manned booster and orbiter are launched HORIZONTALLY!

[@jackalopewright5343]

Your stuff just keeps getting better!

[@user-qe8rs1jp2v]

Не плохая конфигурация , имеет право на жизнь .

[@tamtamich4]

На концепт MUSTARD похоже

[@wm9782]

I never heard of this concept. Thank you very well done!

[@chrisrigoni]

please never stop creating. These are so amazing man.

[@vonbraunwerner9067]

Wow. I like the way he preview that - it is a bit like real world rockets launches. And the RLV extensive CGI collection carries on ! Glad to see the Triamese joining the high-res CGI fest. Again, I've been filling my mind (and computers hard disks) with RLV pdfs and documents since 2002; and seeing them "flying" as CGI and in HD is pretty amazing. You are doing a fantastic job, very useful. Can't help asking: will you do Hermes someday ? and Saenger II ? And Saenger's *Silbervogel* oh drats, that would awesome.

[@randycampbell6307]

Silbervogal done to Two Steps From Hells "Flight of the Silverbird"...Well they are kind of made for each other :)

[@vonbraunwerner9067]

@@randycampbell6307 Can't explain why but your name sounds familiar :)

[@randycampbell6307]

@@vonbraunwerner9067 I comment on the internet so ... :)

[@ArjunaKunti]

@@vonbraunwerner9067 for me, your name sounds familiar! :)

[@vonbraunwerner9067]

@@randycampbell6307 D'oh, forgot my pseudo here is not Archibald

[@aliebchen]

You’re getting really good at these videos 🙏

[@enzofitzhume7320]

"We need that shuttle mighty bad!'

[@macsteed01]

Animation is great. Working prototype is a dream

[@Infinite_Maelstrom]

Cool! Hadn't heard of this one before. It looks like "What if there was an American version of MUSTARD?"

[@watchth1ngs]

Incredible work and your soundtrack really grounds the reality of it all

[@michaelgautreaux3168]

Neat enough. Spotted 5 issues that need attention but neat enough. 👍👍 Many thanx.

[@rishiparitala88]

Amazing sound design!

[@contendhay647]

Looks like an AGM-86 on copious amounts of methamphetamine.

[@FoxFourX1]

Haze, you never disappoint!

[@Bo0M360]

My favorite space rocket/plane design!

[@ghostindamachine]

Amaing work :) Really enjoyed the creativity and work that went into this.

[@fuzzyhead878]

Up next on “KSP Bait” Edit: I just realized there are scorch marks on the sides of the shuttles corresponding to the jet engine exhaust. Sometimes your attention to detail is scary, man.

[@UD503J]

The timing of the audio with the booster sep was a great touch.

[@therichieboy]

Beautiful work, Sir. I wonder what the launch abort system would been like.

[@ArcXDZ]

Probably the same for shuttle, abort to orbit. For the boosters however, it'd probably have ejection seats instead

[@randycampbell6307]

@@ArcXDZ All three were supposed to have 'escape capsule' modules for abort which again cut into the usable payload. (Not to mention how the Orbiter would eject the capsule) The boosters specifically were supposed to have a capsule designed/base on the Gemini but the Orbiter would have a large crew size so needed a new design capsule.

[@raymondpaul123]

You’re amazing. great video thanks.

[@kylehd7]

Wow great work

[@michaeldunne338]

Great video. That was quite a concept, with the launch feeling very MUSARD-y (as in the British Multi-Unit Space Transport And Recovery Device). What was the anticipated payload capacity for the spacecraft that went into Low Earth Orbit, for LEO and GEO kinds of payloads?

[@LDTV22OfficialChannel]

*MUSTARD-y

[@steevorific]

Gorgeous rendering

[@justicier10-7]

Not sure if the original concept was like this, but... the boosters appear to have a cockpit... manned boosters in addition to a manned orbiter? Booster separation for the pilots would have been an interesting experience. Such a Kerbal idea :D

[@MattMcIrvin]

Lots of these concepts had piloted flyback boosters. You could argue that Virgin and Scaled Composites' White Knight/SpaceShipOne/Two did something similar by using a launcher airplane with a cockpit identical to the spaceplane's. But with automation where it is today, there's no good reason to have a crewed rocket stage any more.

[@vincentcleaver1925]

The car alarms were a great touch

[@TheWizardGamez]

its pretty cool that they took what couldve been a cool shuttle concept, and just made it deliver 1000 lb warheads to unsuspecting ships and other virtually stationary targets

[@robertevans6481]

Now that was cool !!

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@ronschaefermd]

amazing animation, looks so real

[@terencewong-lane4309]

*Awesome*

[@techFPV5964]

That's the wildest thing I've ever seen!!

[@Estephanian]

Amazing work

[@hi6go7]

Super cool

[@xrayaiz74]

My teenage daughter saw this launch on screen and thought it was real. I said, "No. It's just Hazegrayart. It's 3D rendered." Is it live, or is it Hazegrayart? (Sorry Memorex--no copyright infringement intended. It was just too hard to resist).😎🤖

[@HalNordmann]

Wonder if we'll ever get the B9U/NAR-191Shuttle concept, as that one is most often shown when talking about the fully-reusable concepts.

[@JLSLights]

Hell of a video. Took me a min to realize it was a concept and animated lol

[@tertiaryobjective]

I need to get out of the past and switch from Bryce to Blender (I think that's what you're using). These are so amazing it checks all the boxes. Engineering, Rocketry, Art, Imagination.

[@IanValentine147]

Awesome keep the imagination alive!

[@valecasini]

2:40 the people speaking about the separation on the background is so immersive! 👏

[@yanniklemm4108]

I'm curious: from when is this concept and would it have involved crossfeeding propellant?

[@topsecret1837]

It appears it did use crossfeeding per the description

[@jamesphilip6737]

Really cool. Very talented animator. I figure it would be skinned United States Space Force nowadays.

[@tylerthompson516]

Shut up super cool love the retractable wings and watching those engines come out the side freaking sweet...although I was kinda scratching my head wouldnt it be less fuel efficient and more harsher on the parts to launch all three of them together like that? Wouldn't it create a lot of drag and end up needing a lot more thrust to get it up in to orbit?

[@cretium805]

What about the core's return, though?

[@ajds]

Gorgeous. I am pretty sure this was actual historical footage.

[@TexanUSMC8089]

LOL

[@grandicellichannel]

1:27 Your videos have become so realistic that this time my phone even decided to lift off my hands by it's own. Hope the flight profile won't include a splash down or you will pay me back dude, it's not waterproof.

[@datathunderstorm]

Love your unique sense of aerospace humour 😂😂😂😂👍🏾

[@grandicellichannel]

@@datathunderstorm Thanks buddy. 👍😅 I am just out of words for how many times I repeated in the comments how mind blowing his CGI and sound effects are, improving every time, therefore I came out with the idea of the first space joke I had in mind as an alternative way to pay my respects for his work! 😍 Glad you appreceated it tho. 😆

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

Great =)

[@UCaQ_ogbce1Nq7xbxm3uMxIQ]

4:05 美しい日本を見せてくれてありがとう！ Thank you for showing us beautiful Japan!

[@centaur1a]

Almost going back to the 60’s/70’s design of the early space shuttle design. Except that you have two lift-off shuttle that are manned and have jet engines that can pop out. If this was real life it would cost soo much than the shuttle we have right now, because of the fuel for the rocket and the jet engine, design for the pilots, maintaining repairs and the time consuming check every details for the next flight. The launch platform was to too small for the three shuttle too. Look at SLS that rocket is costing way too much just sitting on the ground.

[@DuesenbergJ]

Congratulations reaching 100 000 subs and thanks for another great video.

[@richardtate1742]

The Air Force has had their own space shuttle for a long time now.

[@safeysmith6720]

When the two rockets were released, in reality they would have fallen out of view much quicker than in your simulation.

[@andrewhillis9544]

NASA NEEDS TO BUILD SOMETHING LIKE THIS BUT WITH AEROSPIKE ENGINES!!!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@RudCh01]

If the US govt started this today, its maiden launch would happen in 60-70 years, 250 trillion over budget, and around the same time SpaceX launches their first warp ship.

[@pontuswendt2486]

AMAZINGNES!!!

[@thisisnotajoke]

Fantastic video as always! Personally I think that this is one of the most ridiculous concepts of all times. Nothing against a Triamese launcher per se, but fold out wings and especially the engines that rotate 180 degrees to their flight configuration are just way to many moving parts that could possibly fail in my opinion.

[@SimpleTruth1309]

So cool that it can land on those shopping cart wheels purchased from the lowest bidder, Harbor Freight.

[@silverfox8615]

Excellent work, as always. But, damn, is that a lot of moving parts in that design. Lots of points of failure.

[@Dominion69420]

Mustard's older American brother getting some love now

[@federalauditsabatordetecte8607]

Complete 💯✅

[@inspectormills3290]

tremendous video. However, the jet engines (2 each!) in the side boosters reduce the amount of mass and volume could have been used for fuel.

[@genesisofgiant3769]

Your 3D rander is look so nice.

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

This is the most Kerbal design I've ever seen.

[@vonbraunwerner9067]

For no particular reason I'm playing Iron Maiden "Fear of the dark" as background music - and it's pretty awesome.

[@maurisanjurjo4960]

Bonito montaje

[@kaloianmitrev6279]

Dream on musk has taken over that role

[@biketech60]

It's getting harder to distinguish real from CGI , which looks so real but also too perfect .

[@TheTruthPlease100]

Nice! Are they working on those or still concept phase?

[@jathawk101]

Pretty good CGI video.

[@me-so2ze]

I can't help but wonder why they jets pop out so high on the head of them. Seems like that just increases the heat on the sides or will it not cause any problems ?

[@andrewhillis9544]

SPACE SHUTTLE 2.0 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@roberthogue5138]

We have SpaceX and their revolutionary reusable rockets to thank for lighting a fire under the complacent Big aerospace corporations, I just hope there is more to it than great animation and Hype.

[@kanscopeichel491]

Am so happy this is Carbon neutral

[@watchthe1369]

APFDS plus Tomahawk fold wings combined into a nice little concept. Motors they use?

[@getsideways7257]

At some moments this looks more realistic than SpaceX videos :)

[@ryansmith1115]

We need another reusable space shuttle style vessel.

[@kyleklintok7730]

This is getting so realistic. Can we get a good virtual president now?

[@j0m4m46]

Anything is possible with enough resources and the will to do so.

[@WinVisten]

This reminds me a lot of the British MUSTARD shuttle.

[@emmanuelgarcia2870]

👏

[@erikjonromnes]

Wow

[@jbizzle1966]

Nice but you have the runway distance markers on a taxiway and the skid strip has no parallel taxiway.