Ok, how about the De-cohesion Cage or D****** Cage, where D****** = the name of the inventor or the effect. In essence it works like an annular confinement beam, keeping your molecules in one place while you pass through the light barrier in either direction. Without it you'll basically evaporate or explode or turn inside out or something.
Beats me - but if they don't say "deceleration" then you're freer to make assumptions about what they do. If the set drawings call them deceleration tubes then I guess you have to take that into account. It seems logical, though, that they'd be used for both acceleration and deceleration - it may just have been too much of a mouthful for the writers, and "AC/DC stations" wouldn't work either.
In the drawings I sent, you can see the 96-inch crew hatch is almost in line with the front of the command dome - which places it on the rounding portion of the (right hand side) bottom deck. In the 3rd inter-porthole space from the front. In your flyby, it looks like the crew hatch is positioned back in the straighter portion of the (left hand side) bottom deck; and in line with the center of the command dome. I think the crew hatch slides upward to open. The large 696-inch hatch on the opposite ship side is not needed. It was never seen in the "This Island Earth" movie. The 516-inch circular hatch on the very bottom was the only other hatch used - to capture an airplane. And I think it slided rearward to open - if I remember correctly. Sorry to be a pain about the crew hatch. But it must line up with the elevator tube, when the Metaluna lands on the elevated landing pad on Metaluna underground. Other than the crew hatch location, your Metaluna saucer looks really good in the flyby.
In the movie, Leslie Nielsen stated his crew had been "locked up in hyperspace for 378 days." Forbidden Planet was released about nine years after the sound barrier was broken. Back then, most Hollywood writers just assumed that the light speed barrier could be accelerated beyond with sufficient technology (like the sound barrier). The Deceleration Stations are there to protect the crew from the stresses of sudden deceleration from greater than light speed to CONSIDERABLY less than light speed and are probably called Acceleration Stations when the ship enters hyperspace.
Since 'c' often represents the speed of light, I always assumed they were "de-c" stations; that is, a place to go while the ship drops below the speed of light.
Anyone being the tiny little subset of fans who look up other fan blueprints...which would be less than 1% of the people who like the film.
The Matt Jefferies saucer was never filmed. So it would not qualify for inclusion in this book. But I wish it had the Bamboo Saucer, and the saucer from the Matt Helm movie - later used in I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched. Would have been great to have the V mothership saucers too. But that would be out of the 50's and 60's time frame of the book.
I think even that figure is optomistic. I'd guess the people who wouldn't accept anything other than the Shane Johnson plans could comfortably fit in my bathroom. I'd also go on to guess that the number of people who even think seriously about plans for the ship might fill my entire flat. Compared to the millions of people who've enjoyed the movie over the years it's a fraction of a fraction.
Does anyone else like this idea... The United Planets Federation (based on Earth) is directed by the "Colossus" super computer, created by Dr. Charles Forbin in the 1970 "Colossus: The Forbin Project" movie, and maintained/enhanced over the ensuing 80 years? In the movie, Colossus said it would give mankind the stars. It would certainly differ from the Star Trek federation model.
I'm always of the "let a thousand flowers bloom" persuasion rather than the P.F. Farmer grand-meta-kitchen-sink school. IOW, I love having dozens or even hundreds of discrete science fiction "universes" each with their own flavor rather than merging and linking them. I don't like to think of FP as belonging sequel or prequel-wise with any other movie or tv series. Whatever's going on in that universe - history, technology, cosmology - is unique unto itself.
I have an idea for a UP saucer about twice the size of the C-57D, maybe a few years newer. It's actually pretty conservative - when I get a basic mesh done I'll post it. I should correct myself and say that I don't dislike the "Colossus" idea, any more than the Jupiter II or the Metaluna saucer, as part of FP. But I think that the more stuff that's invented specifically internal to the "universe" the more interesting it is. The appearence of just about every important physical object in the Trek universe, for example, was at some point extrapolated from the designs of Jefferies and Chang and Theiss for a couple of ships, props and uniforms. An enormous amount of new invention and outside reference have been pulled in over the decades, but they defined a certain envelope.
Here's a mesh I did about five years ago, based on drawings available online and frame-grabs from the movie:
I'll have to hunt up the old files and see if it can be tweaked and rerendered - I'd drop some of the hull detail now (panel lines are too obvious and Trek-like) and fiddle with the engine lighting. I think this is a 2005 project.
Cool. That's a pretty neat saucer. But I think it diverges too far from what was in the movie for me to think of as the C-57D. On the other hand, if they remade the movie, I think this is as far away from the original that I'd like to see it go. Good work! --Alex
So what would the Bellerophon look like? I think, being a colony ship of sorts, that it would be larger, perhaps more dome-like?