I don’t know if it is the right place, here. Indeed the subject could seem fictional, but in realty it’s at the roots of the modern spaceflight.
When I was looking for documentation about my project
TWA Moonliner, I was fascinated by the story I found here (
The Great 1952 Space Program That Almost Was )
In short, a group of experts was gathered for describe a way to conquer the space soon. The project started from the concern about the military use of the space, but it was focused on the peaceful use of the space to reach the terrestrial orbit, the moon and mars.
This could be an interesting science fiction tale, but the interesting part of the project was that they would like to define a way to go to space, Moon and Mars with the available technological knowledge at that moment.
Von Braun was involved, and he said: “Speculations regarding the future technical developments have been carefully avoided. While the [Collier’s] designs may be a far cry from what Mars ships some thirty or forty years from now will actually look like, this approach will serve a worthwhile purpose. If we can show how a Mars ship could conceivably be built on the basis of what we know now, we can safely deduce that actual designs of the future can only be superior. Only by stubborn adherence to the engineering solutions based exclusively on scientific knowledge available today, and by strict avoidance of any speculations concerning future discoveries, can we bring proof that this fabulous venture is fundamentally feasible.”
The excerpts of the symposium were published between March 22, 1952 through April 30, 1954 by the monthly magazine Collier’s, and today are available
here.
I was ever fascinated by the illustrations of Chesley Bonestell and Rolf Klep, in particular the Ferry Rocket depicted by Klep, that was also the first step needed for conquer the space. Here some illustrations:
Space age poster
(
http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm...osterLarge.jpg )
Assembly of Three-stage Space Vehicle by Rolf Klep
(
https://goo.gl/images/rYGJyX )
Von Braun and Ferry Rocket
(
http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm.../VonBraun2.jpg )
The Ferry Rocket
(
http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm.../VonBraun1.jpg )
In the Jonathan Leslie site there is a
model of the third stage (the “shuttle”), but I would like to build the entire stack.
So I decided to design my own model after I found
here some good drawing of it.