Bonestell & von Braun

[selden]

AcrossToMars has been uploaded to the Motherlode.

It's currently available at
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creat ... ars_v1.zip
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I've been slowly working on models of various spacecraft designed by Werhner von Braun and Chesley Bonestell in the mid-50s.

They are by no means finished yet, and I don't intend to make "high resolution" versions, but here's a preview.

[rthorvald]

I've been slowly working on models of various spacecraft designed by Werhner von Braun and Chesley Bonestell in the mid-50s.

I love this stuff! Any chance of seeing the Mars landing eventually?

-rthorvald

[selden]

That's my hope.

The components of the winged lander that's at the left in the lower picture should be reusable for that.

Note that these models (with some modifications) are based on the ship designs discussed in the series of books that resulted from the Collier symposium, not the designs that were shown in the magazines.

The book titles are
Across the Space Frontier
The Conquest of Space
The Conquest of the Moon
The Exploration of Mars

I know of at least one other person who was working on similar, but probably more elaborate, designs (Beowulf01), but he hasn't posted for a long time.

[Dollan]

I've always loved these old designs. I was wondering what happened to Beowulf too... which makes me doubly glad that someone else is working on such a project.
'
...John...

[buggs_moran]

Most excellent Selden! I can't wait to add them. I fondly remember looking through spaceflight books as a kid and seeing the Von Braun designs. My local library had maybe five books on spaceflight in the Adult section and I would look though them over and over.

[Chuft-Captain]

That blue delta-winged one looks uncannily like the top of a V2 rocket. That wouldn't be one of the Von Braun designs now would it?

I have seen Beowulf logged on a couple of times, but not for long. His designs look pretty good from what I've seen. I haven't seen his models in Celestia (only pics) but they look very detailed.

[selden]

CC,

My understanding is that von Braun made sketches of the spacecraft and Bonestell would fill in the details in his paintings, sometimes pointing out things that wouldn't work.

[selden]

An update: positions changed slightly and spacemen added. (plus changes that aren't visible)

[selden]

I've managed to create a few more dioramas with pieces of the original models.

The pictures are on the Web at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/b-vb/

Bear in mind that these are my interpretations, and are not identical to the original paintings.

To put it another way, getting the details exactly right is really hard! And there probably will be quite a few changes before I'm finished.

[rthorvald]

I've managed to create a few more dioramas with pieces of the original models.

The pictures are on the Web at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/b-vb/

Hey, on Mars
Nice that you included the landscape!

I hope you will make it available soon...
Will there be a flight path, or static scenes?

- rthorvald

[selden]

I've tried creating several Earth-to-Mars transfer orbits using an EllipticalOrbit with "reasonable" parameters for a couple of oppositions in the mid '60s. I still haven't managed to get all of the parameters right, though. They miss Mars by quite a large distance out of the ecliptic plane.

I also tried using trajectories of the current Mars missions, but the trajectories on Horizons don't get very close to either Earth or Mars. They don't include either launch or orbital insertion phases.

*sigh*

The orbits around the Earth and Mars aren't that difficult, since their primary parameters are included in The Exploration of Mars, so they'll certainly be included.

I have to redo the dioramas (yet again), though, since my original picture was for 2006, and I think the 1965 opposition probably is more appropriate to model.

The pictured scenes will be available using Cel:// URLs that pause simulation time. The bodies are in orbit, so they don't stay in those positions for long.

[rthorvald]

I also tried using trajectories of the current Mars missions, but the trajectories on Horizons don't get very close to either Earth or Mars. They don't include either launch or orbital insertion phases

Well, it??s basically the same challenge we (Jestr and i) had with the comet add-on; no data we could find would match the dates. We ended up throwing away all expectations, and Jestr wrote a path that showed off the concept realistically on it??s own terms instead. We moved the year until it fit. Though of course, having it happen in the 60??s will be more fun...

- rthorvald

[Malenfant]

Selden, are you actually making these models yourself in some other software? If so, what software are you using?

They look pretty nifty anyway

[selden]

The spacecraft are modelled using Anim8or.

I use a script of netpbm and imagemagick commands plus my own Fortran program to create cmod models from image brightness patterns (bumpmaps) for the terrain.

[Carl]

This is awesome! When I was young, these books and paintings enabled my imagination to take wing away from the holler in eastern Appalachia. I am very much looking forward to the completion of your most excellent work.
Thank you for doing this.

p.s. holler is local term for a valley, or a small valley within a larger valley. It is local cultural slang.

[Louis Wu]

Selden:
The models look fantastic!

I've been a space history buff all of my foolish life.

The Von Braun/Bonestall items are lovely.

Thanks for the hard work, can't wait to install them at my house.

Steve

[selden]

AcrossToMars has been uploaded to the Motherlode.

Be patient: it may be a while before someone has time to make it available on the web site.

The Zip file is about 9MB. It expands to about 21MB.

[Beowulf01]

Selden, those models look real good. Quite a bit of work there.
I vist wheni can to keep abreat of recent developmets in Celestia, but my life has been hetic.

As for me, i have not been able to spend much time building models or much else, i avrave about 4 hours a week doing 3d Modleing a week.
Most of it is becase i have a 9 month old son, that pretty much consumes my life right now.

I did manage to build a Von braun ferry and spacestation, but i was having problmw importing it to celestia. As i have said before im a rank amature with 3d modeling,and been haven issues with file size. for some reason my models polycount is WAY bigger than what the 3ds format can handel...or at lest the importation of the file from Rhino3D to 3DS gives me that bug.


http://home.centurytel.net/harley002/3D%20models/
there is a link to my recent models..some are pretty old and need to be updated.

[selden]

Beowulf,

For what it's worth, many 3D programs have problems with individual 3DS meshes larger than 64K polys. A model can consist of multiple meshes, though. Also, if they're translated into CMOD format, Celestia seems to work fine with larger meshes.

[selden]

AcrossToMars (9MB expanding to 21MB) is now available at
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creat ... ars_v1.zip

Eventually it'll be on one of the catalog pages, but that may be a while.