MAKING IT TO SPACE

Moving into the late seventies, my interest in real space exploration began to pale, as the era of the space opera began, with the advent of  George Lucas 'Star Wars' franchise in 1977. So the publication of the 'Young Scientist book of Spaceflight' in 1978 would have gone completely under my radar. The Space Shuttle was the most exciting thing happening in actual space flight and having been hugely disappointed in the final flying version of th vehicle - following several years of exciting and radical proposals - I gave space technology a wide berth. Even today, the Shuttle fails to interest me and I tend to be drawn to the sixties as my golden era.

So when this book initially came to my attention, I was quite dismissive, assuming it would be the usual stock illustations and coverage of modern space flight. However, on closer inspection, I was quite pleased to see it was written by industry stalwart Kenneth Gatland, who had published many great books over the years - such as the Pocket book of Manned Spaceflight and Frontiers of Space (both of which feature heavily in the blog). Gatlands books are always illustation heavy and invariably very interesting and informative, covering unusual material and subjects as well as a thorough investigation of the more standard fare. Opening up the slim volume, I was surprised to see a splash page featuring a Russian Vostok rocket, but with the illustration clearly based on Roy Cross beautiful box artwork for the Airfix 1970 release of the model kit.

Cross was an amazingly technical illustrator, who managed to make every painting he created for the company an absolute masterpiece and contributed to the success of the company. There are a list of illustrators credited in the introduction of the book, but Cross is not included, so it is fair to say the illustration has been slavishly copied.

Another interesting illustration forms part of a section which includes instructions on building a Mars roving vehicle. The articulated, pressurised rover shown in the article takes its inspiration from the Grumman Molab design, which was proposed as a long distance vehicle for exploring the moon, taken to the surface on an adapted LEM descent stage.

The book also includes ideas for making a space station, again based on an existing NASA proposal and an artists impression of a fully fledged lunar mining base, complete with an electric trackway for launching payloads into lunar orbit. As is usual for Gatlands' books, the ideas are some of the less well known and always interesting to read about.

Like all his previous publications, there are a lot of quality illustrations and comprehensive background information to support them.

On the subject of the Molab, another excellent and more recent book by Rob Godwin, is the Lunar Exploration Scrapbook, which details just about every proposal for extended lunar exploration, in the form of jet pack, flying platforms and all manner of rovers. Godwin uses original schematic drawings as the basis of computer models depicting how the vehicles might have looked, had they made it beyond the planning stage.

The Molab was one of the designs which made it to full size mock up, which is now viewable in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.
 

The sprung suspension wheels were designed to move easily through what was assumed to be a very varied terrain, with deep dust drifts and irregular surface conditions. The vehicle would have been delivered to the surface by a LEM cargo variant, with the body rolling off a ramp onto the surface for assembly.

A it was a very recognizable and simple shape, the Molab concept found its way quickly into the public domain, once the idea had been passed over as unworkable by pressed NASA engineers.

Most notably, it appeared in the Gerry Anderson backed 'Project SWORD' comic strip in the 1968 annual of the same name. The premise being the population of a devastated Earth sought rescue and redevelopment in offworld colonies, using vehicles designed for extraplanetary exploration to navigate a ravaged landscape and effect an escape from the ruins.

The Molab was designated 'The Ant' and used n the storyline as a fast transport vehicle. Although it never made it into the extensive toyline, like other NASA designs such as the Saturn V and the Dyna Soar Glider, it was depicted clearly in the comic strip.

As no toy or model version of the Ant vehicle - or the Grumman Molab - was ever made available, I tried to make a simple version myself using available parts.

The Tri-ang Spacex series of toys did release a toy version of a Molab, but the similarity ended at the name, as the vehicle was based on a pulp book cover illustration, rather than the original vehicle.

The wheel design was echoed in another Tri-ang Spacex vehicle, the MEV2 and also found favour in other toys, such as this Comansi Airgam Boys rover.

ANOTHER CIRCUIT OF THE STAR

Another 12 months have come and gone and I celebrated my 63rd birthday with some fine gifts, including some cool space stamps. The above set from Fujeira feature six  early American satellites, such as Pioneer, Telstar, Tiros, Ranger and the first sucessful launch, Vanguard.

This set of later stamps from Yemen entitled 'Conquest of the Moon' has some interesting US designs for space vehicles, including the tubular roving laboratory, Moon Tractor and the bell shaped space suit.
 

The tractor image may have been based on an early test article for a moon roving vehicle and the bell suit is certainly a representative of Republic Aviations concept model of an environment suit.

Like so many early concept images that were circulating in the press, the bell suit found its way into a toy version, in Marx 1962 'Operation Moon Base' set, along with a second version, would would later be developed into a more streamlined option.

Keen to capitalise on the idea after the suit design appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1962, Mattel produced a version for their 6" poseable figure line Major Matt Mason, some years later in 1967.

A second set of Yemen stamps commemorating 'Flights to the Planets' contrast the early visualisations of space travel with actual space probes.

Stamps from Yemen have also featured images of concept vehicles which were again used by the toy industry.

Finally a slight departure from Space, but a subject which also fascinated me as a child, Dinosaurs. This partial set of five Polish stamps show early marine life and reptiles which predated the larger saurians.

ROMANCE OF THE RED PLANET

The spectre of the Red Planet has haunted me from a very early age, enchanting me with visions of mysterious Martians populating the remote world. Although the Moon was always clearly documented and mapped, Mars always appeared ambiguous and occulted by distance and speculation.

Schiaparelli's early attempts at mapping the surface in the late 19th century began a school of thought which suggested that Mars was teeming with life, both vegetative and intelligent, as observers seemed to see darker areas of the surface change with seasonal regularity, giving rise to the idea that Mars has lush plains of grasses. The straight lines which he saw, he described as 'canali' which meant gulf or canyon, but the name became synonymous with the traditional waterway and speculation on purposeful engineering on the surface began to take hold.

American astronomer Percival Lowell claimed to have confirmed the existence of these 'canals' on Mars and spent considerable time mapping and documenting his sightings. Lowell subsequently came under considerable criticism for his theories, but the Lowell maps and observations were used as the basis of modern maps until 1962 and the canal theory was only finally disproved when Mariner finally took detailed photographs of the barren surface two years later.

As a boy, I kept a scrapbook of snippets relating to the space race and once found an old newspaper with the headline showing the memorable mission some years earlier. As I was only about 6 or 7 at the time, I took great delight in colouring in the newsprint photo with a red crayon!

Today Mars has been inspected, mapped, drilled and sampled by probes, orbiters and rovers and is close to finally revealing its secrets, when samples are finally returned from the Perseverance rover mission. Just this month, the president elect of the United States announced his intention to restart the Mars race and put an american on Mars within the next decade.

However exciting the plans and the cascade of new images being beamed back from the current probes, showing acres of barren rust coloured rock, there is something much more attractive about the innate mystery of the red planet, as seen through the eyes of the early visionaries, who speculated on the possibility of life beyond Earth.

One fine example of this vision, executed in beautifully intricate paintings is the 1964 book, simply titled 'Mars' by Robert Richardson and illustrated by the great Chesley Bonestell.

Bonestell was the go-to astronomical artist from the 1950's onwards and is responsible for some of the most breathtaking illustrations of the planets and the proposed space missions.

Richardson's text is full of complex mathmatical data and theories, but is still reliant on the observations from the larger telescopes such as Lick and Flagstaff for the maps and photographs of the martian surface. The lack of concrete information about the planet - which would be provided very shortly after its publication, when the Mariner probe would arrive, is offset by the wonderfully evocative paintings from Bonestell.

The journey to Mars would be carried out by ion powered ships, slowly accelerating by virtue of the electrically generated thrust. Ion engined craft would only be perfected decades later and put to use in probes such as New Horizons and Psyche.

There are only a few colour plates in the book, but all of them are beautifully rendered and show the main stages of a manned landing and excursion on the martian surface.

Clearly, some of the information is entirely incorrect and speculative, but the beautifully frosted mountains being explored by a diminuitive rover and the sun baked terrain really capture the mood.

The book covers all aspects of a projected mission and goes into considerable detail about the practicalities of achieving the objectives, as well as suggesting what conditions the astronauts may encounter on arrival. Richardson is very careful to not entirely debunk Lowells suggestions about canals and intelligent life, but his scientific arguments are solid and well documented.

Towards the end of the volume is a very early illustration of the Voyager Probe, which was initially intended as a Mars landing mission in the late sixties and what would have been an updated Mariner craft. The project would ultimately see fruition some decades, as the Viking programme.

The endpapers for the book show identical monochrome illustrations of the main spacecraft undergoing essential repairs, prior to landing.