The Practicing Futurist  

 

 

TAV TransAtmospheric Vehicle, a.k.a. the Mongoose

I coined that term - TAV TransAtmospheric Vehicle- over 47 years ago.
Some of the top pictures I took myself, and are the TAV as a plastic model by Snaptite,
which at that time was somehow called the F-19a Stealth.

The bottom picture was seen in the March 1984 issue of Science Digest magazine, 
and then as the centerfold of the USAF's "Airman" magazine, November 1985.
The concept artist's name is Atilla Hejja, USAF Art Collection.

The unsolicited proposal for creating my engines was sent to NASA (lead) and US-AF (secondary) in July of '02. 

NEW LINKS UPDATED 7-24-08
They converted & updated the AF 2025 study documents to pdf documents and moved to a new web called 
the Air University - Center for Strategy and Technology - or CSAT

http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/index.htm 

http://csat.au.af.mil/index.htm 

http://csat.au.af.mil/studies.htm 

Along with the Air Force 2025 study mentioned above, 
there is a lot of focused effort on my TAV in another study called Spacecast 2020.
I am sure they did their best, and compared operational requirements to my SR-71;
but it is painfully obvious they don't know anything about my engines.
These have been planned for nearly 47 years - the same time I coined the term TAV and made my original sketches. And their study also makes it painfully obvious they don't realize my engines can enable a larger cargo version. 

Many of the financial estimates seemed to be the typical low-ball numbers now - with the re-writes and engineering changes and cost over-runs later. 

ATTN. DOD and NASA: GET THE FUNDS TO ME NOW 
YOU STAND TO LOSE A LOT MORE THAT I AM.   (8-25-08)

http://csat.au.af.mil/2020/index.htm 

 

OLD LINKS = Also see excerpts from the War College studies, such as the Air Force 2025 study: 

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025 The AF-2025 study and its subheadings gave very key focus to the DOD’s desire for the TAV system to become a reality.

Various subsections referred to by that study effort include:

Hypersonic Attack Platform

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/v3c12/v3c12-1.htm#Contents

Space Operations Through The Looking Glass

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/v3c14/v3c14-1.htm#Contents 

Space Lift 2025

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/v2c5/v2c5-1.htm#Contents

 

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