Leonov: Aerobraking by TomPeters
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Description
The theory is sound, and has been used successfully by many unmanned probes, and a few unsuccessful ones. By skimming the upper atmosphere of a planet, one can use the atmospheric friction to slow one's speed enough to allow the planet in question to capture one into orbit about said planet. Only this wasn't theory, the planet was the king of the solar system, Jupiter, and the velocity to be slowed in the savage inferno was over 12 miles per second. The laminate ablative aeroshell that Leonov had carried from Earth would blaze as brightly as a star, eroding away to a small percentage of its original mass.
When Rob Caswell and I decided to create this series of images, and a design for the literary Leonov, based as closely as possible on the book, we realized what was described was a hard, ablative shield, not the inflatable ballute seen in the movie. The shield seemed to fit better with Soviet engineering sensibilities, anyway, hardy, basic and brute-force.
Modeled and rendered in Lightwave 8.5. The plasma plume and trail was done with hypervoxels attached to a polygon frame, then touched up in Photoshop a little for the still image.
Thanks for taking a look!
-Tom
Comments (8)
JOELGLAINE
KICK ASS! I love the moons up there,too! This has a more realistic look to it over the movie. Lower fuel use,too. LOLOLOLOL^__^V,,
geirla
Great flame and background! I just wonder, from a stability standpoint, how close to the shield the center of mass needs to be.
TomPeters
geirla Thanks! I think the stability problem is certainly there, but can be overcome by gyros and/ or the attitude thrusters. You would want the CG close to the shield, which is yet another reason for Clarke stipulating a comparatively short, squat craft.
Penters
great interpretation and moddelling
zhaanman
Awesome look hay some like it HOT Ha!
dbrv6
That's lighting things up! Excellent.
arcas
As the series progressed, numerous people said "can't wait for your aerobrake piece". Well?? Where is everyone? Another innovative view, Tom. You've really shown a talent for giving us views that go against the (often tired) preconceived visions.
mzedanh
WONDERFUL RENDER.