Tag: Martin Marietta

Rendezvous in Space (1964)

If you were lucky enough to attend the New York 1964 World’s Fair, one of the treats was a documentary film presentation at the Science Pavilion. Rendezvous in Space, a film about the future of space exploration was directed by Frank Capra, and features a cast of notable Hollywood voice actors including Mel Blanc, June Foray, and Alan Reed. You can watch the complete film here.

At this point, the screen goes black with only audio, as the audience’s gaze is directed above to the full-sized models of the Space Taxi docking with the station, which would have looked something like this:

I imagine it was quite the spectacle. Anyway, after that it’s time for home.

Image credit: Martin Marietta
Image source: Numbers Station

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Image credit: NASA KSC
Image source: Numbers Station

Spacemaster Two-Stage Concept

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NASA studied this Martin Marietta concept for a fully reusable space transportation system during the Shuttle research effort in 1969-1972. It featured two piloted fly-back vehicles – a twin-fuselage booster craft and a delta-wing orbiter – in a two-stage configuration. The liquid-propellant booster would carry the orbiter to a set altitude, then detach and be piloted back to land. After separation the orbiter would ignite its own engines to reach orbit. Both vehicles had retractable air-breathing jet engines for powered airplane-like flight during descent to landing. NASA transferred a variety of concept models to the Museum after settling on the final Space Shuttle design.

Image credit: NASM
Image source: NASM

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Into The Unknown
by Don Dwiggins
Golden Gate Books, 1971

Image credit: McDonnell Douglas
Image source: Numbers Station