t/Space 2005 meet TRW 1963!

[gunsandrockets]

Skimming through the Astronautix.com files on the various plans for manned missions to Mars, I came across this most interesting plan by TRW from 1963...<br /><br />"In 1963 TRW designed a Mars expedition using aerobraking at both Mars and Earth, and a swingby of Venus on return. It found that this approach could reduce the expedition mass in low earth orbit by a factor of five, allowing chemical propulsion to be used. "<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/craft/trwmars.htm<br /><br />And this image of the TRW Mars Ship broken down into it's components. Note in particular the "Mars Excursion Module" (MEM) which is the Mars landing vehicle...<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/z/ztrwmarx.jpg<br /><br />I couldn't help but notice the similarity to the t/Space plan for a large CEV moon lander...<br /><br />http://64.78.33.215/index.cfm?fuseaction=media_gallery.viewmedia&albumid=EB16F697-96B6-175C-96CF328B2D46B0CD&media=2<br /><br />Since the heart of the TRW and t/Space designs rely on aerobraking it's no wonder they look so alike. <br /><br />http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:_yUyX5CpLfIJ:www.transformspace.com/documents/tSpaceArchitecture.pdf+t/space+cev+aerobraking&hl=en&ie=UTF-8<br /><br />But the similarity of the t/Space Moon landing CEV to the TRW Mars landing MEM is striking. I wonder if the t/Space plan for Mars is as close to the TRW Mars plan as the resemblance of the t/Space CEV is as close to the TRW MEM?<br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

I just realized that Kistler is also using the Atlas warhead/Corona film capsule shape for it's second stage reusable reentry vehicle.<br /><br />http://www.kistleraerospace.com/flightprofile/fp04.html<br /><br />http://www.geocities.com/atlas_missile/warhead.html