One of the readers of this blog recently passed along a diagram he created of the “”Lewis and Clark” from the Robert Heinlein novel “Time for the Stars.”
Some years ago I toyed with the idea of creating a book of plans of Heinlein ships, but I never did much with it and the idea fluttered away. Obviously I’m not the only one who has had this idea, as the diagram demonstrates. Would there be enough interest for the diagrammer in question to go ahead with a series of plans? There is of course the example of “Star Trek” plans that have been on sale for as long as I’ve been alive, “Star Wars” blueprints that have always seemed a pale second compared to ther “Trek” equivalents (Trek ship three-views and deck plans? Everywhere. Wars? Not so much), and others.
Comment below if you’re interested, and perhaps the diagrammer will go ahead. I’d be interested, especially if inboard profiles/deck plans – THAT MADE SENSE – were also included for most ships.
25 Responses to “Torchship Lewis and Clark”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
sounds good…go for it.
I’d buy them.
It’s an interesting idea, but would just the ship diagrams be enough? Or would you need to include material from the source stories to put the diagrams into context?
For example, I have no recollection of reading about a ship named “Lewis and Clark”. If I recalled the story, perhaps the layout would make sense (water launched?), but with the diagrams by themselves it looks to me like a random collection of sci-fi rocket parts.
I’d buy them.
I’d be interested, depending on price not being exorbitant and as Siergen noted I’d like to see source materials referenced. (ha! I know, define exorbitant.)
Good idea! But also I would like to see Poul Anderson’s ion drive ships from his Rustum series. Also Larry Niven’s ships, Jack Vance’s ships,
H. Beam Piper, Jerry Pournelle, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov….. you get the idea.
More, please.
I’m in, it’s the kind of thing I’ve wanted for a while. It’d be great to see an accurate rendering of the Rodger Young (complete with armored ape launchers!) that isn’t from that horrible movie!
The more realistic the diagrams from an engineering standpoint the better! And some commentary on how the thing might actually work.
No Star Wars! Star Wars RUINED science fiction!
Totally interested!
…L&C (Not C.S. and Sir Arthur) is a torchship, central to Time For The Stars.
A kind of a Barlow’s Guide, but for spaceship, with pics, diagrams, and descriptions from the book, would be very cool.
What would make Roger Young interesting is the fact that it has to be able to dive into planetary atmospheres to deploy the drop pods, so we are looking at something that has a pretty aerodynamic bottom side on it at the very least, but it also has the ability to use FTL drive to get point-to-point with the fleet.
You could have a ball designing something like that, with sensors and FTL drive that retract inside of the vessel’s reentry shockwave for protection while it drops the mobile infantry.
It would be hard-pressed to look anywhere as near as cool as Scott’s Orion Battleship, which I’d love to see in a movie…when the hull doors open and the destroyer gun turrets swing into firing position.
Fukin’ A, what a scene that would be!
The problem with some of the ships, like the Rodger Young, is that they are not described very well at all… and they were envisioned by Heinlein well before the “modern age” of spacecraft design. So it could well be that Heinleins idea for the RY was that it was just your stock 1950’s Rocket Ship. If you design it the way that a modern designer would… it wouldn’t fit in with the rest of his ships which were described (and in some cases shown) in greater detail.
As for a movie with an Orion Battleship: if the battle scene is not shown as *silent,* I’d be annoyed as hell. With, perhaps, some very muffled and appropriately delayed “flumfs” caused when the hideously thin expanding gas cloud from the gun blast hit the “microphone.” A nearby nuclear detonation, either a weapon or a pulse unit, wouldn’t produce a noticable sound… if you are close enough to hear it, you’re close enough to be killed by it. On the other hand, the charged particles released might cause nearby metallic structures to kinda sizzle, with sort of a radio-static crackle for a split second (liek AM radio picking up lightning).
Everyone assumes that in space everything would be silent due to the lack of atmosphere to transmit sound; but internally to the spacecraft, sound would be transmitted through the ship’s structure.
It’s like the sound of the SR-71 in flight; you might not hear the sound coming out from the exhaust at Mach 3, or the noise of its shockwave, but I can damn well guarantee you the crew could hear the noise of the turboramjets operating through the structure of the aircraft’s body.
As for spaceship design, would you prefer the design for Verne’s “Nautilus” that’s in the book, or what Harper Goff did for the Disney movie?
That thing is a work of artistic genius, ranking right up there with Pal’s Martian War Machines.
Once you’ve seen either of them once, you can probably draw a pretty good representation of it for the rest of your life.
_That’s_ great design work.
BTW, I don’t know if it was one person or more who did the spacecraft designs for Babylon 5, but boy, were those good!
Particularly the Shadow “Battlecrab”, which is one of the most alien looking and scary spacecraft ever put on the screen.
Speaking sort of what Pat is talking about, two of our local libaries
have a copy of “Saucer Fleet” which has pretty good diagrams of
different spaceships and saucers from TV shows and movies including
the martian war machines. They also have a current picture of
Russell Johnson(the professor) from “Gilligan’s Island” taken about 4-5 years ago
if anyone is interested.
Bruce, try to find the companion book SPACESHIP HANDBOOK.
http://www.arapress.com/ssh.php
The blueprints are as accurate as possible, given the limitations of taking measurements from the screen. Look at the table of contents.
The appendix on atomic rockets is worth the price of the book all by itself.
there are some teaser images here
http://www.rogersrocketships.com/dockingbays.cfm
Winchell, already have seen “Spaceship Handbook” and agree very good
reference book…also the book “The Dream Machines” written back in
1993.
Interested.
I’d like to see more of these…and would be glad to shell out some $$, as well, to keep the artist doing more of ’em. 🙂
Yes, Dream machines is great as well.
These books are not inexpensive, but in my opinion they are worth every penny.
Not plans, but scale models of some of Heinlein’s ships can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/116637781725296267499
So did anything ever happen with this?
Not that I’ve seen.