Whatizzit?

[Scott K]

I know I'm supposed to be working on the Northrup Wings, but I've also started back up on this one, too. Anyone recognize it?

Scott K.

[cjwalas]

It looks a lot like the spaceship from "Conquest of Space", but I don't remember it well enough to say that's it.
Chris

[SCEtoAUX]

It's that thingamajig from that whatchamacallit.:D

[Paperbeam]

A fusion powered aircraft/suborbital vehicle?

Terry

[Gil]

Von Braun's Mars Mission...,

[Lex]

It's that thingamajig from that whatchamacallit.
Winner of the annual award of "stating the blindingly obvious" :D

[billy.leliveld]

Von Braun's Mars Mission...,

I think Gill has a clue..
The magazine on my laptop is the original 1953 Colier's magazine, but the Mars vehicle is not in there, but there are unmistakebly simularities..

[Gil]

I think Scott K. may have found a rich vein for a line based of Disney inspired space vehicles.

Updating with a little further research. The following is extracted from Wikipedia:

"At this time von Braun also worked out preliminary concepts for a manned Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars) mission which used the space station as a staging point. His initial plans, published in The Mars Project (1952 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952)), had envisaged a fleet of ten spacecraft (each with a mass of 3,720 metric tons), three of them unmanned and each carrying one 200-ton winged lander[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#cite_note-seh2-20) in addition to cargo, and nine crew vehicles transporting a total of 70 astronauts. Gigantic as this mission plan was, its engineering and astronautical parameters were thoroughly calculated. A later project was much more modest, using only one purely orbital cargo ship and one crewed craft. In each case, the expedition would use minimum-energy Hohmann transfer orbits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit) for its trips to Mars and back to Earth."

von Braun evangelized his projects through Collier's Magazine and consulted with the Walt Disney Company in an animated series which the first was "Man in Space" (1955) followed by "Man and the Moon" (1955) and lastly "Mars and Beyond" (Dec. 4, 1957). Note that the first two were "pre Sputnik" while the last followed the launch of Sputnik (Oct. 4, 1957). This was not lost on Disney nor to the average American still in shock that the Russians had beaten them into space.

"The Mars Project" is still available. Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Mars-Project-Wernher-Von-Braun/dp/0252062272

+Gil

[Paperbeam]

Von Braun's 1956 Mars mission is the closest match I've seen so far:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vonn1956.htm

No fusion power involved whatsoever - those propellant tanks (more like giant bags) to power conventional rockets were actually intended to be fabricated out of plastic.

Terry

[Leif Ohlsson]

Gil beat me to it, but I said "von Braun" to myself immediately I saw the outline. That cockpit/nose shape is kind of unmistakeable...

Leif

[Scott K]

Gil. Leif, Terry, yup, that's it! I'm using the plans from an old issue of Finescale Modeler. I scanned them a couple of years ago, and actually started on it then. Then last year, I worked on it a bit more, but lost it in a disk crash. After I assembled my first YRB-49 test build, I noticed too late that I had included too much dihedral in the build (though not on my drawings), I thought "where did I get the idea that was right?" Then I remembered the Mars Lander I had started before, and returned to it. I was originally only going to make the lander itself, but decided to attempt the "Interplanetary Drive Section" as well. Since I made a couple of design errors on the other wing, I worked on the first test build of the Mars wing yesterday and today instead. I'll have to start another design thread when I get time, but meanwhile, here's my progress so far.

BTW, it never dawned on me that I was doing this at the same time as the Phoenix Lander was due to touch down until after I heard that it had landed successfully! Must be my subconscious was telling me to do it now :rolleyes:.

Scott K.

[Paperbeam]

Great idea for a model, Scott K. and good job picking it out Gil!

Terry

[billy.leliveld]

The Lower Hudson Valley paper giftshop has this one;
http://jleslie48.com/braunmodel_spaceplane.pdf

[Astroboy]

Billy,
The model at the Lower Hudson Valley Challenger Center is the third stage of Wernher von Braun's Ferry Rocket. It is his 1952 vision for a Space Shuttle Orbiter. Jon Leslie has mislabeled it.

Bill Kastenmeier

[Gil]

I remember the Disney broadcasts. As an impressionable kid I was totally mesmerized by space, von Braun's vision of the future and the art of Disney to animate it to life. Many years later I was at Cape Kennedy in July 1969 to witness the launch of the first Lunar lander mission....,

+Gil

[dansls1]

That's cool Gil. Unfortunately being born in 1971, the bulk of my space exploration memories are less cool and more tragic.

[whulsey]

Those of us old enought to remember the Disney's series and the articles, etc. where really lucky. They gave us unlimited horizons to dream on. As dansls1 says with being exposed only to the later parts of space exploration with all its politics, lost opportunities and tragic losses what is out there now to inspire younger people and create dreams? Sorry if I'm getting a bit too metaphysical, worked real late last night and had to get up real early this morning; so brain is floundering around.

[Gil]

Scott K.

Chesley Bonestell was the renowned space artist commissioned for the Collier's Magazine articles. The following URL is interesting from the perspective that he actually built what appears to be paper models of the vehicles!....,

http://www.bonestell.org/models1.html

Also the movie "Conquest of Space" has an interesting spaceship that looks suspiciously like the Willey Ley / Werner von Braun Mars concept. A clip is here:

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1186922777/

Also these were found amongst the ruins of the internet:

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/6430/marsship3by0.jpg
http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/4904/space4yk2.jpg


+Gil

[John Bowden]

I too remember this............ also the neat Sci-Fi moves all shot in black and white.............. When Worlds Collide was one of my favorites..............

Boy I sure did expect to be mining asteroids when 2000 rolled around..........or at least living on the moon or in a space station.

Missed the boat on those.......... where did we go wrong? Don't answer unfortunately I know :o

[Scott K]

Gil, that really IS an interesting site, Thanks! I didn't think to look up Chesley B., but should have. I did find the Conquest of Space clip, but at 47meg, it's a bit large for me to download via dialup at the moment.

I haven't had time to actually cut any more paper yet, but I hope to shortly. I'm about to take on the drive section and all those tanks :eek:. Hope this works! See my new thread, "To Mars in 1956!" for more details later.

Scott K.

[Armchair]

When JFK announced going to the moon he added the words "...and bring them back safely..." That was because our success rate for launches was less that 50%. I was working at Martin Denver on the Titan I and II.

Most people had forgotten how many test pilots were lost in WWII and after and I am sure the powers to be felt the American public would not tolerate similar things in the space program. I feel our progress has been hampered because of our fear of risk. Each of the Shuttle accidents shut the program down for months and years.

By the way, a train accident in California killed 25 people last week and the trains were running the next day. Risk???


Armchair

[Diderick A. den Bakker]

Don't care where it comes from - just keep up the good work. These early rockets are a lot more interestin g than Startrek etc.
Diderick A. den Bakker, Holland

[joe4227]

Don't care where it comes from - just keep up the good work. These early rockets are a lot more interestin g than Startrek etc.
Diderick A. den Bakker, Holland

Diderick, I agree! The Sci-Fi stuff is all well and good, but if it's fiction you can "compromise" details and get away with it.

Modelling REAL designs, even historic Concept Designs, you are limited by the historic facts. So they must be more "real"!

Also, there was a certain minimalist influence, which carried into other areas of engineering - things were "simple and elegant". And as Einstein said, they should be "as simple as possible, but no simpler"! ;)

[joe4227]

I too remember this............ also the neat Sci-Fi moves all shot in black and white.............. When Worlds Collide was one of my favorites..............

Boy I sure did expect to be mining asteroids when 2000 rolled around..........or at least living on the moon or in a space station.

Missed the boat on those.......... where did we go wrong? Don't answer unfortunately I know :o

Simple answer to that question: Bogged down in Vietnam. Then the Republicans that followed believed that Oil at home was more important than the perceived dubious returns of mining on the Moon or Mars. It all fell to Accountants...

The only surprise to me is that NASA even survived the crashes and cuts to live another day - and now a whole new century... :eek:

By the way - the Russians claim to have launched at least one vehicle carrying the Plasma Gun. But they were afraid that firing it would shake the vehicle apart!

[joe4227]

Scott K.

Chesley Bonestell was the renowned space artist commissioned for the Collier's Magazine articles. The following URL is interesting from the perspective that he actually built what appears to be paper models of the vehicles!....,

http://www.bonestell.org/models1.html

Also the movie "Conquest of Space" has an interesting spaceship that looks suspiciously like the Willey Ley / Werner von Braun Mars concept. A clip is here:

Conquest of Space Trailer - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1186922777/)

+Gil

And Disney has put all the "Conquest of Space" programs on a single DVD in the Tomorrowland Series. You can get it at Amazon, or Future Shop! And hear Willy Ley and Werner von Braun describe the vehicles in their own voice...