Concept rockets?

Question

Most of us are familiar with "concept" cars -- these are the one of a kind vehicles produced by automakers as experimental projects, future products, etc.

I like the "concept rockets" that I see from time to time in various publications, such as Discover, PopSci, etc. These are conceptual illustrations of possible rocket vehicles, either proposed or in some stage of development.

For instance, the May issue of Popular Science had color illustrations of possible launch vehicles for the proposed Orbital Space Plane.

Most of these kinds of proposed designs never make it into production in real life, but they look like they'd be fun models!

What do you think? Do you have any favorite "concept rocket" that never made it into production? Do you think there would be interest in kits based on these designs?

shockwaveriderz · Accepted Answer

ray:I think this would be an excellent idea.....shockie B)

Bob Kaplow · Answer

You can find some of these in Jack Hagerty's book. Buy it for someone forthe holidays.	Bob Kaplow	NAR # 18L	TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD"		>>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Cliff Sojourner · Answer

recently I built a JIMO - Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter. it was a natural to put blue LEDs on for night launches. I didn't have time to finish it properly (mostly just flat black on the radiator panels) but I figured what the heck, it's a night launch anyways. it flew great on an E9. my new slogan: there is no sin of stability that can't be overcome by noseweight.

RayDunak> Most of us are familiar with "concept" cars -- these are the one of a kind

David Weinshenker · Answer

X-20 "Dyna-Soar"?-dave w

BB · Answer

There are lots of early Saturn prototypes which never made it past the drawing board, which would make awesome "alternate history" vehicles, along with the "Nova" rockets which preceded them. Painted up in the style of the Saturn 1B's and V's, they would look quite impressive. The Nova lies somewhere between the fantasy "Saturn" designs of Von Braun and Bonestell, and the actual Saturn V which was realized instead.

Speaking of Von Braun and Bonestell, there's a guy down in Australia producing a homemade, alternative-history "documentary" based on the "Man In Space" series from Collier's magazine that VB/Bonestell worked on together. This was back when VB was trying to ignite a passion for space exploration in American popular culture.

Anyway, there's a "teaser trailer" of the film under the "Gallery" link of the homepage:

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The idea of the film is to produce a retrospecive, alternate-history documentary of man's accomplishments (up to the late 60's, which is when the documentary would have purportedly been made) exploring the solar system, had we begun in the 50's instead of the 60's, using gigantic boosters to loft space stations and explore both the moon and Mars as well.

Looks pretty cool.

Ismaeel Abdur-Rasheed · Answer

geez, that brings back memories!  :)- izDavid We

RayDunakin · Answer

Bob K. wrote:

RayDunakin · Answer

Cool!

Cliff Sojourner · Answer

I figure JIMO & the asteroid tug are concept/fantasy rockets until someone builds real ones ... although the deep space 1 with its ion drive is getting close, eh?

as my dad always said, it takes a lot of ballast to fly a desk! hey waitaminnit, I resemble that remark!

Concept rockets?

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