Making Of: “Hypernauts”

 art, blather, history, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  3 Responses »
Aug 022014
 

This is probably reaching waaaay into the Obscure Closet: midway or so through the making of the TV series “Babylon 5,” a number of the people invoved in the visual effects for that show decided to stretch their legs a bit and make a Saturday morning kids show (raise your hands those who do not remember “Saturday morning kids shows.” You. Yes, you with the raised hands: shaddup. Damned kids…).

“Hypernauts” was a half hour show that only ran a few episodes, and while the CGI is pretty lame by current standards, at the time it was pretty awesome, especially by kids show standards. What really impressed me at the time, though, was the design of the ships. Not surprisingly, they looked like they belonged in the “Babylon 5” universe, not only because they were modeled and rendered by the same people and on the same machines, but because they were *designed* by the same people. The shows main transport ship, the “Flapjack,” was a surprisingly utilitarian design created by Steve Burg who also designed the Starfury for Babylon 5.

Anyway, here’s a “making of” video from nearly two decades ago (shut UP you horrible young brats).

[youtube dLdMWlvRp7E]

 Posted by at 5:31 pm

New aerospace acquisitions

 drawings, history, news, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Aug 022014
 

Thanks to the funding made available via my Patreon campaign, these recently arrived:

Document: “A Recoverable Air-Breathing Booster,” 1964, Chrysler Space Division. This report describes a ring to be fitted to the base of a Saturn I booster; the ring is equipped with either 4 or 8 additional H-1 rocket engines for additional liftoff thrust, as well as a similar number of turbojets to be used to return the ring-booster to Cape Canaveral for a vertical landing.

Diagrams: “Plans for Scale Model Construction of the LONG TANK DELTA” and “Plans for Scale Model Construction of the LONG-TANK THOR AGENA,” from McDonnell-Douglas, 1971. These came in an envelope, and illustration on which depicts the Delta rocket, the Honest John (the diagram of which I have previously obtained), the Saturn I, the Genie AAM, the Nike Ajax and the Nike Hercules. If anyone knows of the latter 4, please enlighten me.

These will be added to the list of drawings/documents available to my Patreon patrons to vote on.

WP_20140801_006

patreon-200

 Posted by at 2:58 pm

“Interstellar” trailer #3

 art, awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  15 Responses »
Aug 022014
 

Behold:

1) It looks gorgeous. The last shot seems to show a planet – presumably the Earth-like planet – in orbit around what I’m guessing is a black hole or neutron star with an accretion disk.

bwah

2) It looks fricken’ depressing.  They’re not going out into space for adventure, or to make money, or to expand human civilization, or even to save the world, but apparently to drop off some seeds on another world so that some tiny remnant of terrestrial life will survive the Doom That Came To Earth (dust storms, apparently).

3) Saturn V. Launched from a silo. In Kansas (or thereabouts). Shrug.

A planet orbiting a black hole w/accretion disk is certainly an interesting idea, but I’m dubious about its long term viability. Sure, it’s entirely possible to locate the orbit so that the light falling on the planet from the disk is the rough equivalent to that falling on Earth from the Sun, but this light will be *highly* slanted into X-rays.

Also: The depressing nature of the movie gave me an idea for a short story of my own. Oddly for me, the goal here is to be *anti* depressing in terms of reasons for going into space. Not to stop the sun from exploding, or to restart the sun, or to escape the nuclear holocaust, or to fight the aliens. There are actually *uplifting* reasons why one might wish to go, and I’ve got the rough outline for such a yarn figured out. Even got the tentative title: “Mockingbird.” I’ll leave it to y’all to puzzle that one out.

Still: based purely on the imagery, and on some of the narration…

shut_up_and_take_my_money

 Posted by at 10:13 am

Voyager “aeroshuttle” test footage

 art, history, Hmm..., science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  4 Responses »
Aug 012014
 

“Star Trek: Voyager” featured a slick Starfleet ship with a secondary spacecraft tucked up under the primary hull. It was seen in every episode, but was never seen actually separating from the main ship. Instead, shuttles  and other secondary craft were often used, but not the “aeroshuttle.”

Turns out, Foundation Imaging, the company that did the visual effects once the show went from models to digital, not only “built” a CAD model of the aeroshuttle, they also shot some test footage. This included building a cockpit set and using series regular actors.

[youtube ZhZ6D-PLssQ]

Turns out this test footage was prepared just before “Star Trek” Insurrection,” which featured a similar secondary craft leaving from underneath the Enterprise primary hull, and the producers didn’t want to steal the movies thunder there. So the aeroshuttle was just sorta forgotten, replaced by the “Delta Flyer.”

 Posted by at 6:21 pm

AeroBits: Shuttle Landing Passes

 history, Hmm..., Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  1 Response »
Jul 302014
 

Two passes – Public and Press – for parking to witness the landing of the first Space Shuttle orbital flight, STS-1. The government threat/verbiage on the back is a little creepifyin’ but I’m pretty sure it’s expired by now (probably expired the moment it landed). These passes were scanned at 300 DPI and are presented at Blog-Rez. Higher rez versions are available at the APR blog, and full rez at my Patreon.

shuttlepass1a shuttlepass2a

 

These passes were obtained via an eBay purchase, and were “extras” to the items I was actually after (detailed large format diagrams of the Shuttle flight instrumentation). This purchase was made possible by my Patreon contributors. So if you like this sort of thing, please consider contributing to my Patreon campaign. Every little bit helps! The full-rez scans are available to all Patreon contributors.

 

patreon

 Posted by at 12:25 pm

Odd spacecraft

 art, history, Hmm..., projects, spacecraft  7 Responses »
Jul 302014
 

Found on the back of a 1963 issue of “Space World” magazine was this piece of artwork depicting an unusual – and perhaps fanciful – spacecraft. The same artwork had appeared earlier – at least as far back as 1961 – in a magazine ad for the Garrett AiResearch corporation. The artwork was thus *probably* created in-house at Garrett. Since Garrett was a manufacturer of turboprop engines and electronics, not an aircraft or spacecraft design firm, this is unlikely to have been a serious engineering effort. Still, it’s interesting to see what level of *apparent* effort the PR divisions of numerous companies went to back in the glory days of the Space Age.

spaceworld63ad

 

garrett

 Posted by at 7:24 am

American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act of 2014

 awesomeness, Hmm..., I'm from the government, news, politics, reshaping the world, rockets, spacecraft  18 Responses »
Jul 302014
 

If the bill actually does what it seems to… here we have a new law that’s actually a good idea.

Panel sees ASTEROIDS Act as step in right direction for space property rights

Instead of the “stuff in outer space is the common property of all mankind” bullcrap, this bill would seem to put across the crazy notion that those who go to the bother of actually exploring and exploiting asteroids would actually *own* them.

 Posted by at 12:03 am

“A is for Apogee”

 art, news, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 292014
 

I guess this is kinda neat, in a late-50’s – first-half-of-the-60’s kinda way: NASA is working on “Orion A to Z,” an alphabet book using the 26 letters to describe the Orion spacecraft and related systems. I’m thinkin’ they must’ve had some trouble with “F.”

14098359600_e9944fc2fe_z

 

14364835599_bfacaec15d_z

 

 Posted by at 11:50 pm
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