Sep 092010
Stumbled across this today… an interview with Max Faget circa 1972-ish, where he’s describing the Space Shuttle. Included is a crude computer animation of the space shuttle in orbit dropping off a payload. Sadly, no further information about the film it came from seems available.
15 Responses to “Very Early Computer Animation”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I’d really like to see the design tools and process used to create that, and to contrast those with what are available today as freeware.
Jim
Faget has a honkin’ big model of the original version of the Soyuz aerodynamic shroud and escape tower sitting to his left in that video.
It would be fun to know what that was all about.
Pausing the video, what exactly are the models behind him?
All the way to the left looks like Skylab with a docked Apollo CSM.
Then the Soyuz.
Then something that looks like a S-IVB stage based spacelab with two Apollo CSM’s with shortened service modules docked to its lower end, and something thin sticking out of its top (nuclear reactor?), and what looks like some sort of a LM ascent stage attached between the two CSM’s at the bottom.
Then something that looks like a modified version of the Lockheed Star Clipper concept with the shuttle riding above the “V” tanks rather than within them.
Then something that has a large rectangular solar array on it.
Then, a early version of the Shuttle/vertical stack concept that uses something other than the stock Saturn V first stage under the ET (this specific version I’ve seen before, and will try to track down).
Then, the real oddball; an Apollo CSM with some sort of wildly different version of the LES than was ever used operationally.
Next, a small mystery model… a Revell Mercury/Redstone?
Anyway, food for thought.
The fact that the Soyuz aerodynamic fairing is shown with the correct slightly tapered shape on its lower half, and yet not the later, Zond-based, version of the escape tower like was used after the first few flights, does nail down at least where that model came from in time, and sets an early date limit on the video as not being from before around what? 1973?
That ties in well with the type of CGI shown, and I suspect it’s from the period 1975-1978.
The type of CGI shown is way too advanced for 1972, when computers were incapable of doing even that crude of a type of rendering, as witnessed in the pure hell they went through just getting the line-form-plans of the Death Star to rotate in 3D in 1977’s “Star Wars”.
> Skylab with a docked Apollo CSM.
Maybe
>Then the Soyuz.
Probably not.
>Then something that looks like a S-IVB stage based spacelab
“Early Space Station Model:” http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=3203
> modified version of the Lockheed Star Clipper
McDonnell-Douglas/Martin Phase B baseline w/high cross-range orbiter. See: “Space Shuttle Concept,” http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=3203
> Then something that has a large rectangular solar array on it.
“Proposed Rockwell Space Station:” http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=5794
> Then, a early version of the Shuttle/vertical stack
Looks like a Phase B Double Prime design w/pressure-fed booster.
> Then, the real oddball; an Apollo CSM with some sort of wildly different version of the LES
Looks like Apollo-Soyuz
>sets an early date limit on the video as not being from before around what? 1973?
The shuttle model he’s holding dates from mid/late 1971. The design of the Shuttle in the CGI is Rockwell’s final Phase B high crossrange design from January 1971. Difficult to imagine why anyone would go to the bother of animating a design that was years old, given the difficulty that must have been encountered with computer animation at the time.
> The type of CGI shown is way too advanced for 1972
I don’t think so… it was just really, really hard.
> as witnessed in the pure hell they went through just getting the line-form-plans of the Death Star to rotate in 3D in 1977’s “Star Wars”.
And yet, the year before Star Wars came out “Futureworld” had a 3-D rendered face and hand.
Aerospace has had computer graphics for longer than the movie industry. What was seen as adequate for visualization, such as this Shuttle animation, looks entirely too terrible for TV or movies, and some more years of development were required.
Admin said:
“>Then the Soyuz.
Probably not.”
No, that one I can guarantee you on: I’ve got a 1/144 scale Airfix version of that thing sitting around 24 inches from me as I write this, orange stripe around the aerodynamic shroud and all.
Compare to the Faget model:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/publicresourceorg/493766048/
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/graphics/t/tsnii6.jpg
Now, where he got that thing from is a good question…was it some sort of a gift from the Soviets?
The straight poop should be coming shortly; I just emailed someone who knew Max Faget regarding this situation, and who I’ve had email conversations with before.
Would it help to know that his last name is “Oberg”?
…cut to scene from “Blazing Saddles” …”You’d do it for Randolph Scott…”
“Randolph Scott…Randolph Scott!…” 😉
Oberg has replied, and he thinks the thing dates from December 1972, based on the narration and the fact that Faget is holding a model of the Shuttle with a tail tip pod on it, which was the design at that time.
As far as the model of the Soyuz goes, Faget never showed it to him when they got together to discuss the 1983 use of the Soyuz LES, and he states that although it does look like a Soyuz shroud/LES, he wonders if it might be some early version of the Apollo LES.
If it is related to Apollo, it must have been for something like the GE design that so strongly resembled the Soyuz.
He has photos of Faget meeting the cosmonauts from the aborted Soyuz flight on his website:
http://www.jamesoberg.com/gallery6.html
> he thinks the thing dates from December 1972
Told ya. But did you believe me? Oh, hell no. Nobody ever does.
I just thought the CGI looked too complex for that time.
Back then, I associated NASA animation with hand-drawing things in classic cartoon style.
I suspect that this wasn’t NASA animation but NAR animation, and done not for PR, but for “sell the design to NASA” purposes.
That could be; but if it were would have been me, I’d have gone with classical animation, as it would have looked a lot better than that clunky thing.
If you look really closely at the big model to his left, you can see the four aft-hinged flip out stabilizer panels on it. That is indeed a Soyuz shroud.
I assume he had it on the grounds of: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, and he got a kick out of the Soviets adopting his escape tower concept.
> it would have looked a lot better than that clunky thing.
It could well have been:
1) An early attempt at CGI in general
2) An early attempt at “motion studies” or whatever they call it, to show how the arm woudl deploy a station module
3) Someone just screwing around to see what they could do.
Remember, this was a period that it wasn’t CGI but VERY early computer assisted design that someone had the bright idea to use to show how things would be moved around and put together.
CGI as “animated imagery” was a few years down the line … and even more to get the kinks knocked out (Pixar stared out as a medical imaging company not the company that judo threw ‘traditional animation’ into the spin cycle of a washing machine). 😉