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**AirDOGGe** · 01-13-2005, 04:06 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

I believe those are just fanciful movie props, and have no real engineering behind them (as is the case with the Millenium Falcon of Star Wars fame). Nobody can guess what flight vehicles of the future will look like or how they will be engineered or propelled, so the movie modelers just make something wild and unusual, that bears little or no resemblence to current or proposed vehicles of today.

The same problem would have resulted for people back in the days of the wright brothers and beyond...Nobody then could have predicted SSTs or scramjet engines or ground effects flyers, etc....That's why we got stylish buzzing sparkler-spewing spaceships in flash gordon movies that bear little resemblence to what we actually did end up with.

Probably the most realistic fictional space vehicles I've seen in a movie were in "2001, a Space Odessey", but even some of those had details that make little sense, like the giant engines used on the Jupiter-bound spaceship (something not required in the near weightlessness of space, based on current technology). They were made that way to represent engine technology that MIGHT exist someday, not based on current scientific studies.

Remember, most movies showing the future are trying to show us something nobody could possible imagine...future technology that hasn't been invented yet.

P.S...My comment about the engines on Stanley Kubrick's Discovery Jupiter-bound spaceship was "borrowed" from an article in Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine posted some years back, an article on movie spaceships and their realism...The Enterprise of Star Trek fame got very poor marks for believability.

---------------------------------------------

By the way, the links you offered take me to pictures of a ship that was in the newer 2001 redo of the "planet of the apes" movie, not the 1968 production. The ship in the original movie actually bears some small resemblence to flying vehicles that were proposed back then, some that were later developed, like the lifting body craft and the dynasoar of the sixties, and perhaps even Lockheed's now defunct X-33.

Here's a link to the 1968 movie flight vehicle:

http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/ApesShip/Stills/Exteriors/PofAicarusExteriors.htm

.

**First time Juke** · 01-13-2005, 11:02 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

Interesting really. The 1968 space module looks more ---bound to the early space age--don't you think ?

**440_Magnum** · 01-14-2005, 02:46 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

[QUOTE=AirDOGGe
Probably the most realistic fictional space vehicles I've seen in a movie were in "2001, a Space Odessey", but even some of those had details that make little sense, like the giant engines used on the Jupiter-bound spaceship (something not required in the near weightlessness of space, based on current technology).
.[/QUOTE]

I remember reading an article by Arthur C. Clarke discussing the ships in both 2001 and 2010 movies. The engines on "Discovery" were his idea ofa form of ion drive in which a plain old fission reactor would superheat a chamber into which water (or pure hydrogen, don't remember which) would be released. The intense heat would ionize the water and shoot the hydrogen and oxygen ions out the nozzles, creating a low specific impulse thrust. In theory, it could provide a very small thrust for weeks or months at a time and gradually accelerate the ship to very high speeds instead of chemical rockets which apply enormous acceleration for very short intervals of time and the ship just coasts the rest of the time. At the halfway point, the ship would turn around and start de-celerating, so that the engines would run the entire length of the trip. All the tanks along the "spine" of "Discovery" were supposed to be the tanks for holding the water (or hydrogen?), the reactor was way back in the un-manned tail section (to eliminate the need for very much shielding), and the only place where the crew would be was in the "ball" at the front. Not a bad guess, when you stop and think about it.

For the 2010 movie, the "Alexei Leonov" was shown with inflatable "ballute" heat shields, which have now actually been used by the Mars Rovers. Clarke always was better than the average sci-fi writer at predicting the future.

Go ahead, say it:
Stop, Dave.... Stop. :-)

**AirDOGGe** · 01-14-2005, 07:56 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

I do agree that the fictional ships in Stanley Kubrick's movie were probably the most believable of all sci-fi flicks. The long boom concept is sound (to place the fragile crew as far as possible friom the reactor).

I don't know if discovery's powerplants were supposed to be some form of low thrust ion drive (using electrical magnetism or static forces), or simply used the heat of nuclear fission/fusion to expand and propel the fuel medium out the back.

I've seen several real concept designs of the latter for just such a propulsion system (using hydrogen as the medium). In fact, the US made such a nuclear engine called NERVA, which was built and developed/tested decades ago. I learned on a show on the WINGS channel a few months ago that it actually reached somewhere around double the thrust of standard combustion/reaction engines per pound of fuel!

You can read about NERVA and see concept pics of a spaceship using this technology at the following site:

http://www.aemann.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/spacecraft/nerva/nerva.html

NASA is even considering reviving the concept for a nuclear Mars vehicle even today that uses this concept.

-----

It was the huge nozzles in the back of discovery that were in question....Their large design and quantity more resembled that of combustion/reaction engines on standard rockets that have to start on the ground, versus an interplanetary ship that was built in orbit (as was the Discovery Jupiter-bound ship). One or two probably would do on such a vehicle.

You can just make them out in this blurry pic...there's 2 engines behind each of what appears to be 3 large shields (no doubt some form of radiation protection), for a total of 6.

Still, that ship was probably a bad choice for me to use as an example of barely believable fictional movie spaceships. Something out of "Battlestar Galactica" would have been better

--> If interested, there's a cutaway of the NERVA engine on this NASA webpage:

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000144.html

"Dave.....What are you doing Dave?....Stop, Dave.......Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do....."

**Air Race Addict** · 01-15-2005, 09:54 AM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

Originally posted by AirDOGGe

In fact, the US made such a nuclear engine called NERVA, which was built and developed/tested decades ago.
-----
"Dave.....What are you doing Dave?....Stop, Dave.......Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do....."

Question? Will it fit on a Mustang???? Just kidding. Very nice expose' on the science of space travel. I am very interested in the subject, and have always admired AC and his vision of the future. Thanks for the good reading.
Bill (aka: a VERY BUSY Air Race Addict)
ME PLEASE!

**First time Juke** · 01-16-2005, 05:00 AM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

http://romanticmovies.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=romanticmovies&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.totaleclips.com%2FPlayer%2FSplash.aspx%3Fcustid%3D9%26clipid%3DE15365%26playerid%3D38

;there is view of the Minority report flyers.

**Leo** · 01-17-2005, 02:03 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

Anybody farmiliar with the X-6? Test bed for a possiblr neuclear engine for heavy bombers. The concept was to use the heat from a nuclear reaction to heat an air chamber and produce thrust similiar to jet engine dynamics. Never built except as a reactor carrying test bed.

**hattend** · 01-17-2005, 02:58 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

There is a book available called "X-Planes: X1 to X45" by Jay Miller.

Has a whole chapter on the X6/B36.

Available at Amazon.com

I may have to buy it again as it i in the 3rd edition and my edition only goes up to the X34

Don

**AirDOGGe** · 01-17-2005, 08:59 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

Anybody farmiliar with the X-6?

yeppers....Very fascinating read...I recall seeing pics of the engine too. it resembled a small reactor that had 4 jet engines grafted beneath it.

There's also the nuclear reactor scramjet engine developed for project Pluto, a Mach 3 cruise missile that was going to fly around the Soviet Union at very low altitudes, spitting out Hydrogen bombs, and doing damage from its intense supersonic shock wave and UNSHIELDED reactor. Air & Space Smithsonian did a good article about it in the late 80's (that's where I first heard of it).

Not only did I find a good page of Project Pluto, but it's a word-for-word reproduction of the original A&S article, complete with all the picture I recall seeing so long ago. I don't have the magazine anymore. so I'm definitely archiving a copy of the website.

Page Not Found (404)

http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html

-------------------------

I know I've seen articles/drawings of the engine for the X-6 (which never flew), but prototype proof-of-concept engines ran in ground platform tests. I'm having no success finding it right now....I'll post links later if I can relocate the pages.

Meanwhile, here a link to a pic of one of the proof-of concept reactor engines:

http://www.magnesium.net/~sez/sashatrek/seattle_to_texas/seattle_to_texas-Pages/Image13.html

And the USAF site has info about the NB-36H, with was the plane that flew with a reactor within it (it still had standard prop & jet engines). I believe this one was used only to test the shielding and radioactive emissions of a flight-weight reactor.

The NB-36H can always be recognized by it's bizarre cockpit, which owes it's shape to all the sheilding used to protect the crew from radiation.

Access Denied

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b3-84.htm

**Unregistered** · 01-17-2005, 09:42 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

UPDATE:

Took some searching, but I finally found the sucker!

Here's the site I saw before with the sketches and photos....There's even a photo of the never built aircraft, complete with the nuclear-heated engines beneath the fuselage:

USAF DARPA Falcon Program | air-attack.com

http://www.air-attack.com/page.php?pid=18

**AirDOGGe** · 01-17-2005, 09:49 PM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

UPDATE TO LAST POST:

Bingo....I finally found the images I ran across in the past.

There's a rough drawing of the complete flight engine and some photos, including a photo of a model of the never-built X-6, complete with 4 reactor-heated engines mounted below the fuselage:

USAF DARPA Falcon Program | air-attack.com

http://www.air-attack.com/page.php?pid=18

**First time Juke** · 01-18-2005, 03:56 AM

Re: Flying hairdryers in movies !

Whoaaaa Airdogge !

I want to see the day when Han Solo and Captain Picard race in nuclear powered pods in Reno ( or around Saturn ) ! Maybe that is the direction mankind has to go to.

I saw a pic of the new steam operated record car on a magazine. Steam is that good enuf to propel an aeroplane ?

Could the PELICAN be operated with STEAM-engines ? In ground effect a plane needs 70% less thrust/power....just a tought.

best regards,

Juke T

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