posted 10-24-2007 10:28 PM               

Remember this was long before the LM was a dream in John Houbolt's mind, so it was still a program with one craft landing on the moon and coming home (be it direct ascent or EOR for fueling before going to the moon). The concepts I saw were mainly limited to the command module though rather then a big spacecraft with legs as I recall, probably since that would have been tied in with whatever stage 3 of the booster was going to be (S-IV rather then S-IVB mainly).

If I recall correctly, Convair's concept looked very much like the CM concept that NASA went with for Apollo and the LES looked almost identical. One concept (Martin's I think) utilized a strange lifting body style shape with drag foils for use in reentry with the idea being that it could be steered to a land landing as opposed to a water landing. The other two concepts were more traditional capsule variations. In the final CSM design, it was a capsule, but the offset center of gravity of the CM gave it some lifting body characteristics for the skip reentry.

From what I remember about government contracts, the ideas can be proposed, but the company that proposes the idea still has to bid on the contract to get it and it doesn't always get it. The crawlers used to transport the Saturn V moon rockets for instance were proposed by one of two companies that made giant crawler tractor machines at the time. But the contract to build them went to the OTHER company that also made giant crawler vehicles. So indeed it is possible for NASA to go with something that resembled the Convair design in part, even though Convair wasn't the prime contractor.

posted 10-25-2007 11:03 PM               

• the Apollo Martin 410
  
• The GE Apollo D-2 Proposal

posted 01-28-2008 01:10 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
Paul Carsola had a brief article on the Convair proposal in a recent article in Quest in 2006.

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posted 07-23-2016 01:23 PM               

As I have previously noted all of the artwork has been titled on each individual piece, Apollo this or Apollo that. Apollo seems to be the intended vehicles given name. In what appears to be Bryant's own hand writing he has titled the individual cover sheets, permanently attached to each piece, with a description of the vehicles particular status and also signed his name to the cover sheet and artwork (two signatures per piece). There is no mention of General Atomic nor the "Landing Boat" anywhere on the three pieces. When David did his interview of "Orion Project" with the BBC the artwork was never presented to the BBC interviewer as had been done by others during interviews. The desk photo shows three individual pieces, the third piece that is being partially blocked from the viewer's eye is actually a different vehicle and the third piece of artwork I own that is missing from the photo is the "Apollo Rentry Heating" piece.

It seems particularly odd to me that this vehicle would be any kind of "Landing Boat" as the craft only transported one individual, the pilot. To me a "Landing Boat" would require the ability of the vehicle to transport several individuals. The pilots (only one) scale size would indicate that there was only enough room in the vehicle for him and no passengers.

posted 07-24-2016 03:04 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Atlas/Apollo:
In what appears to be Bryant's own hand...

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As to only carrying one person:

1. If that's true... then how is it an Apollo concept? Three was the minimum.
   
2. The landing boat was close to the same size as the Convair lifting body Apollo RV. But it had a deeper, more voluminous fuselage. There was room to pack a number of passengers in there, so long as they were just going up or down, not spending time floating around on a mission.

   The tail end of this thing is ten feet thick (same as the diameter of the Atlas booster), far thicker than needed for passenger transport.

posted 07-24-2016 02:07 PM               

I looked at the drawings that you referenced in your reply but was unable to see any connection to any particular manufacturer in the drafting box notes, is this something that you sourced elsewhere or did on your own? In your referenced drawings it clearly shows the landing skid deployed as a shield in the "Landing Boat Reentry" drawing?! I went ahead and purchased from your website the articles about the "Landing Boat," unfortunately there were no diagrams or schematics that matched your link drawings or of the vehicle in my artwork of this particular craft only written descriptions. The drawings that were included in the information I purchased from you were of a completely different vehicle and those drawings were done by you and titled "Convair Landing Boat" in the drafting box. In the article the "Landing Boat" is described as its own space vehicle with its own mission and then ultimately being repurposed to the "Orion Project." I am under the impression that you did all of the drawings and descriptions of the vehicle and the intended use in all of your website content? If so I would really like to see the original information you sourced to complete your articles. In looking at the drawings of other vehicles in the article that I had purchased there are manufacturers names and descriptions, along with other "Apollo" titled vehicles.

Why was the diagram that you linked in this forum not in the article referencing the Convair "Landing Boat" that I had purchased from you? Why was the diagram that was in the article titled "Convair Landing Boat" different than your link in this forum?

This is the "Convair Landing Boat" drawings that you drew per your website...

posted 07-24-2016 06:50 PM               

As early as 1961, before Gemini even had an official name, NASA was already thinking about how they could send one to the moon.

posted 07-24-2016 09:56 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Atlas/Apollo:
The artwork itself is also signed "J.Bryant."

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quote:

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If so I would really like to see the original information you sourced to complete your articles.

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quote:

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Why was the diagram that you linked in this forum not in the article referencing the Convair "Landing Boat" that I had purchased from you?

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posted 07-25-2016 01:40 AM               

At that earlier time he expressed the sadness that many "company artists" have that their work vanish into a deep dark hole, and that they often don't have so much as a snapshot of it. At the time, he was pretty sure he'd never see them again... so he seemed pretty happy to see them again, a year or two later.

It's not the first time that I've seen this sort of thing happen; earlier this year I was paid to re-create an old display model of an MX-1593 (the early larger five-engine Atlas concept) for a documentary company. They were going to re-interview a USAF General who'd been interviewed 20 years ago with that model in the background, but he'd sold it off in the meantime. And no joke, a few weeks after I shipped off the model, the very model that the General had on his desk showed up on eBay (162125286597).

Sometimes the timing of things is astonishing.

As to the Apollo notations, Bryant and I discussed them; he had no idea what they might have been. He said he left General Atomic and the Orion project shortly after doing those and never saw them again. It may be they were recycled because they resembled one of the Convair Apollos. And it may be that someone had them and had no idea what they were, and assumed they were Apollo because of that resemblance. We'll probably never know.

There were reportedly truckloads of art and engineering diagrams and models made for Orion, and they've largely been stuffed down the memory hole. A lot no doubt got taken home; and when the engineer/artist who took them home died - and with Orion, that means most of them by now - the stuff goes to family members who likely have not clue one what they've got.

posted 07-25-2016 11:46 AM               

So... shrug.

Agree to disarglebargle, or something.