Speculations on the "Phase II" Space Office Complex

[GodThingFormerly]

While flicking through my recently acquired copy of the generally unremarkable 1978 manned spaceflight advocacy screed, Space Trek: The Endless Migration by Jerome Clayton Glenn & George S. Robinson, I stumbled across these illustrations of architect Dr. Peter Lizon's "Tetrahedron City" modular space colony design from 1975:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c339/thegodthing/Lizon1.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c339/thegodthing/Lizon2.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c339/thegodthing/Lizon3.jpg

Now, if you all would be so kind as to point your browser at Andrew Probert's site on the evolution of the ST:TMP Travel Pod and consider the two photographs at the top of the page:

http://www.probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/TMP_D-Vehicles2.html

Except for the geometric entity the structures describe (tetrahedron vs dodecahedron) as well as the adaptations made for synthetic gravity habitat modules, I must say that the conceptual similarities are nothing if not remarkable.

Cosmic thoughts?

TGT

 

[SonicRanger]

The second image...

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c339/thegodthing/Lizon2.jpg

... also reminds me of the Epsilon 9 station:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2&pos=42

 

[ancient]

The concept is used fairly often, the tetrahedron is a 'perfect shape' after all.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Interesting. Reminds me of the Xindi pods from ST:Enterprise. I always wondered why the docking rings on the Phase II Enterprise schematics had pentagons drawn into them. That answers the question. Thanks much for the cool pics, TGT.

 

[trevanian]

I wouldn't figure Mike Minor to be somebody who was heavily into real science, but I bet he must have seen these someplace, and then tried to 'up' it with the twelve-sided notion (which from what I recall of Magicam's involvement, they said you could draw this but not actually build them to link in the indicated fashion.)

I think maybe even I saw these sketches, cuz I remember acting as an a/v type guy at some kind of NASA/astronomical conference in the bay area in the fall of 1977 or early 1978, and we (me and two other high school students) flipped a lot of slides for three days. Besides a hideous embarassment when I put the shuttle/orbiter slides upside down (I didn't realize it went into orbit with its dorsal DOWN), I remember we handled lots of L5 related stuff too, which might be why this stuff seems familiar.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Re: Speculations on the "Phase II" Space Office Complex

D'oh! I cannot believe I actually forgot to ask Rick Sternbach about his recollections (if any) of the subject, considering that he worked closely with Phase II's Mike Minor and Lee Cole on ST:TMP under Harold Michelson.

TGT

 

[Rick Sternbach]

Re: Speculations on the "Phase II" Space Office Complex

D'oh! I cannot believe I actually forgot to ask Rick Sternbach about his recollections (if any) of the subject, considering that he worked closely with Phase II's Mike Minor and Lee Cole on ST:TMP under Harold Michelson.

TGT

I think we in the general SF design field were always looking at interesting bits that were coming out in the mid to late 1970s, including the Arcosanti stuff, all the L5 colony concepts, etc. Back then we kept in touch with the idea of new ways to essentially package people and things and stick them in the desert, up in space, or anywhere else. Some but not all of the space settlement concepts were coming from people who didn't really know dip about space engineering or how to get all that crap up off the planet, but they did come out with some interesting shapes and textures and so on. I drop a lot of those folks into one bin where the design process is more important than the practical reality, but they have a part to play in helping start up cool SF ideas. I didn't have a lot to do with and didn't really witness the development of the Phase II stuff or the eventual miniature work on TMP, so I can't offer much on whether some of the published human habitation projects were used as references, though it wouldn't surprise me. On TNG, I do know that we had a nicely bound Arcosanti book kicking around the art department (MIT Press maybe?), and we definitely did browse it from time to time. I can also tell you that like with 12 Monkeys, we had fun on Voyager looking through some Lebbeus Woods books. Fascinating stuff; just shows we get ideas from everywhere, and other folks get ideas from us. Round and round.

Rick
www.spacemodelsystems.com