Nuclear Blast from the Past

The Booster Rocket is a regular favourite on the blog and possibly one of the most original designs for a spaceship ever proposed. It also makes a great toy, appearing in both the SWORD and Spacex lines. Paul Vreede has previously postulated on the blog that the original inspiration for the craft would have been Ed Valigurskys wonderful painting in the book 'Man and Space', in 1962.

We've seen designs for a nuclear powered Mars Mission featuring the Booster Rocket before and Darth sent these great images of the proposed mission from an edition of 'Popular Mechanics' in November 1963. This shows a multi staged mission powered by what looks like a NERVA engine to transport a seven man team to Mars. This concurs with the article in Man and Space, some 12 months earlier.

 However, while trawling around to discover some background on another subject, I came across details of an exposition in 1961 by the American Rocket Group, in New York which invited engineering companies, including NASA and the major aerospace developers, to show off their ideas.

In amongst the rather brief coverage of the event, I spotted this rather familiar shape in the form of a model. It seems to be just in front of a mission breakdown and flight plan for the proposed Mars Mission, but unfortunately, information is rather brief.

The shape of the model does bear a much closer resemblance to the SWORD Booster Rocket than the Popular Mechanics design, although the front end does appear to be considerably different. With luck, more information on this exhibition will surface shortly..