Has anyone of you ever heard about the aerospace pioneer Hermann Ganswindt? He lived in the late 19th century and obviously wanted to do all at once rather than Lilienthal's step-by-step-approach. He doubted that fixed wing aircraft would be able to fly at all and considered helicopters, or what he thought they might look like, the only working aircraft heavier than air. He also had proposed a Space ship, about which I recall a sketch and short description in a book about rocket science by Max Valier published in 1928. (I was not older than 10 years when reading it, about 30 years ago.) This project seems quite steam-punky by itself. The rivets not mentioned by Valier are to make it even more look like a 1960s' Jules-Verne-Movie. For propulsion Ganswindt suggested a pulling layout similar to the escape systems used by Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Soyuz. This should guarantee a certain value of stability. But in opposite to the escape towers, the gas flow would be lead through an exhaust duct though the capsule (maybe for heating?). The intended working principle can be called one of the earliest attempts to solve the problem to control a solid propellant rocket engine and even to be able to switch it of and on again. Cartridges of gun powder would be dispensed from revolver magazines into the central combustion chamber/nozzle an brought to ignition. Combustion chamber and nozzle are integrated in some bell shaped housing of considerable weight that is connected to the rest of the vehicle by an elastic suspension (four coil springs in my case) to produce something like continuous thrust. Additional fuel had to be stored outside, cartridge belts should be pulled behind like bunches of grapes. Added an airlock enabling a crew member to get out in a space suit an to load new fuel belts into the revolver magazines. Also don't remember whether Ganswindt had thought about attitude control at all. Maybe the main engine should be adjusted in direction by asymmetrically changing he tension of the springs. I decided to add six Laval guns that can be fired for turning the vehicle and reloaded from inside, either with cartridges or with well defined doses of pure gun powder. Even before Tsyolkovsky's fundamental calculations this spacecraft was intended to be launched in two stages: The version discribed by Valier was that it to be lifted by helicopters to the upper edge of the atmosphere. Another way of the story says that the vehicle should be suspended with a long rope between two airships. These should be flying parallel until the set had reached its ceiling. Then, on command, both dirigibles should immediately turn from each other jerking the spaceship into orbit like an arrow from the bow string ... Knowing that the range of his spacecraft would be limited, Ganswindt proposed bases on the moon or space stations, he called artificial moons, he'd prefer the latter ones. This one has been photographed from its sister ship that relies on liquid fuel and pulls barrels separated by fuel components behind her. Shortly after the last refueling stop at a space station both are firing into a hyperbolic orbit around the moon for a fly by to continue to an interplanetary mission ... Please, view full size for details, setting all those rivets has really been hard work. Happy new year WIL AutoCAD 2011 Panasonic DMC FZ-50 (2 december 2006) Corel Photopaint 7 Notepad