My Space Fleet (or, nostalgia concerning missed and lost toy spaceships)25 November 2017 David S. F. Portree
Major Matt Mason, the moon, and a map. All stuff I've loved since forever. If I'd received this in a Christmas stocking at age eight, I'd have exploded. Alas, it appears to be a fan creation, not an authentic Mattel product. Image credit: I'm not sure, though it uses a NASA base map from after Luna 24 landed in 1976 and Mattel box artI was born in 1962, just ahead of John Glenn's orbital Mercury-Atlas flight. The 1960s were a great epoch for space toys, but I fear that I missed out on most of those. My parents were not keen on encouraging my odd fascination with spaceflight. I had some Major Matt Mason dolls, but none of the larger sets. It wasn't about poverty; I had a big metal garage with lots of moving parts and lots of Man from Uncle spy toys. They just didn't see space as a "normal" sort of interest for a youngster.
Oddly enough, though, they took me to see 2001: a Space Odyssey during its first theatrical run. (I think I had to take hostages - it's all hazy now.) I remember vividly building an Apollo LM model with my dad. I think that stands out because it was the only time he did something with me that was related to space.
The LM was great, but it was not enough for me. It was a display piece; I needed sturdy vessels with which I might conquer the Solar System.
I was eight or nine when I began to use materials I had at hand to make models of spacecraft of my own crude design. In the 1970-1975 period, in fact, I designed my own space program. Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Earthlight were a major inspirations, as were the book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bob McCall's first art compendium, Our World in Space, also influenced my vision. Some Star Trek influence was inevitable, though my space travelers didn't tangle with aliens.
Foam cups, pins, dixie cups, pens, popsicle sticks, colored markers, curtain weights, and rubber cement were my construction materials. The weights made excellent footpads; by far the heaviest parts of my spacecraft, the disk-shaped lead weights help them to stand upright in the face of stray breezes and casual sideswipes from affectionate cats.
Perhaps in keeping with Star Trek, my ships included two propulsion systems. Chemical rockets permitted proximity operations near space stations and facilities on asteroids and other vacuum worlds. A far more advanced "photonic" drive enabled high-gee acceleration with minimal propellant expenditure. Think the Epstein Drive from The Expanse series.
The first vessel I built was an all-purpose explorer/police vessel in the tradition of Endeavour from Rendezvous with Rama or Star Trek's Enterprise. I envisioned a fleet of such craft. They were not designed to land, though each carried a small sortie vehicle and a 2001-esque service pod. The sortie vehicle and pod could be combined to yield a beefier sortie vehicle and the sortie vehicle could be broken down to create a second service pod.
Much of the action in my space program centered on the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and the asteroidal moons and trojan asteroids of Jupiter. Asteroid settlement was well under way in my year 2020. My explorer/police vessel could "dock" with small and middle-sized asteroids with compatible facilities. It could also push smaller vessels with higher-g landing capability, much as the Apollo Command and Service Module pushed the Lunar Module.
The second vessel I built was a long-range explorer with higher-g landing capability. It had a beefy photonic drive, chemical verniers, and a small crew complement - perhaps only four people. Basically, it was a big engine with scientific instrument pallets standing in as skin, eight adjustable landing legs, and a crew module on top.
A more conventional vessel needed weeks to travel between worlds of the Inner System and the Asteroid Belt and months to travel between the Outer System worlds. The long-range explorer could reach Pluto from Ceres in five weeks. It could also descend through atmospheres: an optional disposable heat shield enabled Titan landings. Mysterious Titan was a major focus of scientific exploration in my space program.
The third vessel I designed, the Vulpecula-class space tug/freighter, was a small, none-too-speedy ship capable of pushing a standardized cargo module between worlds. It could accompany a cargo module to its destination or simply boost it on its way, then dock with an incoming cargo module and return to port. Vulpecula could operate with or without a crew and could land.
Though I only built a pair of cargo modules, I imagined that they would take many forms. They could, for example, serve as tankers for refueling spacecraft. Another module was decked out as a passenger pod. The influence of the Franz Joseph space freighter in the Star Trek Technical Manual is unmistakable.
I also built a fast courier. Like the explorer/police ship, these vessels of the Pegasus class weren't meant to land. They had a photonic engine identical to the explorer/police ship's engine, but could accelerate harder because they included a small crew cabin, no auxiliary vehicles, and minimal instrumentation. They were meant to move people rapidly between scattered ships and worlds. For example, if an isolated trojan asteroid colony urgently needed a surgeon, one could be dispatched in a fast courier.
Finally, I built a long-range explorer capable of really epic trips. An extended version of the explorer/police ship, I envisioned that only a few would be built. Most traveled in pairs to interesting worlds beyond Pluto. Their crews hibernated in shifts. They traded speed for on-site crew expertise. These vessels were considered to be an evolutionary step toward star travel; this made their journeys as important as their destinations. In truth, they were ahead of their time.
I didn't spend much time on Earth-to-orbit transportation. I assumed that rockets larger than the Saturn V would exist. That's all I remember.
Individuals and companies could own Pegasus-class fast couriers, the Vulpecula-class freighters, and cargo modules. The fast couriers became the equivalent of private jets.
Nowadays, my parents, who are in their late 70s, wisely accept my spaceflight and writing work. My dad, the radio engineer who abandoned an early interest in the ionosphere and Van Allen Belts when I was seven or eight - the documents he threw out filled several trash cans - has become interested in the aurorae at Jupiter and Saturn, space spin-offs, the Deep Space Network, and smallsats. My mother, for her part, doesn't understand much about space, but is glad that my enthusiasm for it led me to meet her granddaughter's mom.
Though I often lamented never acquiring Major Matt Mason's big moon base, in retrospect I am glad that I was thrown back on my own devices. Fueled by obsession, it caused me to become creative.
Whatever became of my space fleet? After Star Wars came out, I switched to building kit-bashed hyperdrive starships. The foam-cups-and-popsicle-sticks fleet came to seem archaic. One summer day as I prepared to depart for my first semester of college, I set fire to that fleet. The foam, rubber cement, and paper burned rapidly, leaving behind in moments only blackened pins and curtain weights. At college, my spaceships mostly became built of words, and it has remained so ever since.
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My Space Fleet (or, nostalgia concerning missed and lost toy spaceships)