Whatizzit?

**Scott K** · #1 05-25-2008, 11:11 AM

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** · #2 05-25-2008, 11:45 AM

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** · #3 05-25-2008, 12:41 PM

It's that thingamajig from that whatchamacallit.:D

**Paperbeam** · #4 05-25-2008, 10:38 PM

A fusion powered aircraft/suborbital vehicle?

Terry

**Gil** · #5 05-25-2008, 10:53 PM

Von Braun's Mars Mission...,

**Lex** · #6 05-26-2008, 10:12 AM

Quote:

It's that thingamajig from that whatchamacallit.

Winner of the annual award of "stating the blindingly obvious" :D

**billy.leliveld** · #7 05-26-2008, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gil

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** · #8 05-26-2008, 02:07 PM

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 mission which used the space station as a staging point. His initial plans, published in The Mars Project (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] 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 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-W.../dp/0252062272

+Gil

**Paperbeam** · #9 05-26-2008, 02:25 PM

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** · #10 05-26-2008, 02:50 PM

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