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Sept. Art Challenge - Harry

Harry

Harry

Captain
Captain
Soo.. contemporary stuff.. I like alternate space programs that are a bit more.. exciting.. than the endless budget cuts of real life.

This is an image challenge, so excuse the big image:

orbitalnuke.png


It's the sub-orbital warhead platform so chillingly envisioned for Assignment: Earth, with some very bleak flavor quotes from TOS. From that dialogue, it seems Gary Seven was not particularly succesful. Or at least the Soviets had orbital nukes to wich the Americans responded.

I suspect there may be room for the Dyna-Soar or similar craft in Trek's timeline to complement the orbital platforms (the Outer Space Treaty apparently was not created in the TOS timeline).

The episode only mentions one warhead on the launched platform, but in general they are described as 'multi-warhead'. The one sabotaged in TOS is probably a lighter version or some kind of prototype.
 
Wow! It's good to see you back, Harry! When I saw the thread, I was half-expecting to see a bit more on your DY-series development but this piece is awesome! Now at last we have the visuals to explain what that big ol' Saturn 5 was carrying on that chilly day in 1968.

Do you plan on continuing your DY-series development?
 
Looks great, though it's strange to see the Saturn V as a WMD.

Here's a few technical comments from the point of view of someone who's far too obsessed with the space program:
- Use two solar panels; Skylab only had the one as her second was ripped off by the loss of her micrometeoroid shield. Also, I'd add at least one solar panel to each assembly. If you look at Skylab, she had three solar panels the same length as yours on one arm. (Solar panels in 1968 weren't nearly as advanced as they are today.)
- Do you intend to have the ODM be able to move itself into a different orbit? If not, I'd replace the engines with a dummy head or even a docking adapter to allow a CSM to move the ODM.
- Make the antenna smaller; the Apollo CSM's high-gain antenna was only about the size of the U in USAF. Unless, of course, this is posing as a very large and heavy communications satellite. ;)
- Add CSM-style RCS thrusters to the outside of the ODM. You need to be able to orient the platform on orbit, and you can't do that with an engine bell.
- Whether you use the engine bell or a dummy head, it's way too small. Here's a good reference pic of the bottom of the S-IVB stage. To fit into the Saturn V correctly, the ODM needs to have the same engine configuration. I'd also use one or two of these engines in the Justicar instead of the several you have.
- On the ODM, I'd make the black stripe extend up to the 'adaptor' piece, or I'd replace the space in between with white. This is the location of the Saturn's instrument unit; the computer that tells the rocket what to do. It came in both colors (black on the V and white on the IB), but it's something that really needs to be represented on the ODM, since your nose cone covers it. (And it's a good thing to keep it because then the ODM has a proven onboard computer.)
- It's not a technical comment, but might I recommend a grayer background? It's hard to make out the lower details of the Saturn.

Having said all of that, this looks absolutely fantastic, not to mention quite authentic! I would never have thought of turning an S-IVB stage into an orbital weapons platform. And you kept the instrument unit; this design wouldn't even need an internal computer system with a modified IU.

All in all, keep up the great work! :thumbsup:
 
Trekker4747 said:
Did the Earth move in this paticular vision? Making it the fourth-most planet?

;)
Click to expand...

Sheesh.. It was 2 o'clock in the morning when I finished this...

Do you plan on continuing your DY-series development?
Click to expand...

The DY-245 is still coming along slowly. I'm trying to work out some sort of natural evolution of impulse type engines. But I get easily distracted by challenges like this ;)

And thanks for the technical comments, Turbo. I'm definitely going to do a second pass with that information.
 
Very nice, Harry.
About your use of "suborbit": As I understand it, something can be put into "suborbit" but it falls right out. Anything that doesn't reach orbit is suborbital and would be on a balllistic path up and then down again. Examples would be Al Shephard's Mercury capsule, ICBMs, and Spaceship One.
 
Masao said:
Very nice, Harry.
About your use of "suborbit": As I understand it, something can be put into "suborbit" but it falls right out. Anything that doesn't reach orbit is suborbital and would be on a balllistic path up and then down again. Examples would be Al Shephard's Mercury capsule, ICBMs, and Spaceship One.
Click to expand...
Whoops, can't believe I didn't see that the first time through. Yeah, it should read something like this:

"In response to nuclear warheads placed in low Earth orbit by other major powers, the United States today is launching its own orbital plaform with multi-warhead capacity."
 
Actually, those are verbatim quotes from the TOS episode. The first bit is read by Gary Seven (Supervisor 194), the bottom bit is dialogue between Kirk and Spock.
 
That is a fascinating contradiction, that might afford you a creative opportunity. There must be an orbital and suborbital component to the thing -- the platform is orbital, and the warheads upon release are suborbital.

Two quotes from the episode give you this out:

"orbital nuclear warhead platform"
Click to expand...

and

"a malfunctioning suborbital warhead"
Click to expand...

The one that causes the problem:

"suborbital platform with multi-warhead capacity"
Click to expand...

should be considered impossible and contradicted by the "orbital nuclear warhead platform" quote. Or, it should be interpreted as meaning "suborbital" when they malfunction and become ballistic headaches.
 
Suborbital warheads would be regular ICBMs, as far as I am aware. In the 1960s the Soviets were working on 'FOBS' (an US Intelligence term), so the idea of nuclear weapons in orbit was not that far off. Though it seems that they mixed up 'suborbital' and 'lower orbit'. Translating suborbital to LEO is the best fix, I reckon.

Here's a second pass, with a different presentation:

orbitaldefenseplatform.png


And a close-up of the ODP (new acronym):

orbitaldefenseplatform2.png


I imagine that, to complement this kind of technology, the USAF actually does launch their MOL, and get their version of Gemini (Big Gemini). I believe Dyna-Soar was cancelled already during TOS's time, so Gemini may be the way to go. But I would like to imagine these beautiful spaceplanes existed in the Trek timeline, maybe in the 70s or 80s.
 
Oh, and this was a previous sketch for the contest:

TMK.png


A sketch-y version of what the TMK-1 (Mars-Venus flyby concept) might've looked like as an operational Mars flyby mission. This was just a quick drawing with some shapes stolen from various places.
 
That looks great, Harry! The vehicles look great (and the solar panels make it look like a very real spacecraft), and the faux New York Times article is a nice touch.

I'm guessing that the Harpies are about the size of the Redstone?

I also wish that the Gemini B missions had gone ahead, because even though it was a military project, we would have had a permanent presence in space since the early 1970s. I still can't believe that no-one at NASA had the idea to pull an unused Saturn IB out of storage and launch an automated CSM to Skylab to boost its orbit in 1978. They wouldn't even have had to send a crew on board; the docking could have been controlled remotely.
 
And if it ever breaks down you can just send Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sullivan and James Gardner up to fix it!

;)

Very cool designs.
 
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