Lander from "Interstellar"

[dhanners]

Here is my build of the Lander from "Interstellar." I enlarged it from UHU02's model of the Endurance. While Endurance didn't do much for me, design-wise, I did like the Landers, meant to ferry cargo modules from Endurance to a planet's surface. They struck me as a utilitarian design with a nod to the Eagles of "Space:1999." Not sure what scale UHU02's Endurance is (1/96th?) but I decided to enlarge the Lander, more than doubling it in size.

I cut out all 44 flight deck windows and backed them with clear plastic. Since the flight deck has windows on the top, bottom and front, that results in a see-through model. I didn't want to go to the trouble of building an interior (maybe if the model were bigger...) so I backed the clear plastic with a dark-gray card.

I recessed the top and bottom airlock hatches and added the shutters covering the front four windows and the four windows on the top sides of the front. I used details from a second set of printouts to add some raised detail, including the rectangular hatches along the side of the nose. On the Eagle-esque outrigger pods, I punched out holes for the RCS nozzles, and also cut small rectangular openings in the front of the pods that I've seen in photos of the "real" vehicle.

Uhu02 has you glue the three rocket nozzles at the rear to a single piece which results in the nozzles being at an incorrect angle. I scratchbuilt a "step" piece for each side's nozzle housing so the nozzles would be angled properly and each parallel to the other. I used Uhu02's nozzles as a template to cut my own from dark gray cardstock, then glued them to black disks I cut with a circle cutter. I cut very thin strips of cardstock and glued them as "hatbands" on the nozzles.

 

[zathros]

I enjoyed this movie so much, I had to buy it. I have an LCD Projector at hoe, and being able to watch it uninterrupted, the continuity of that movie, the overall feeling, I believe it is one of the best ""Science-Fact" movies ever made. Seeing any model from that movies is pure joy. You really god the able right on the money. The ship looks solid as a rock!!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You did a really good job on this project. Everything is very clean, crisp and clear. I like that you recessed the windows. It does indeed give an interesting "nod" to the old Space 1999 Eagle (intentional or not).
I too am looking at tackling this model as well. However, I am planning to do the entire model. I am going to use magnets to make the model truly "modular".
Once again, you did a GREAT JOB! Thank you for sharing this with us!

 

[dhanners]

You did a really good job on this project. Everything is very clean, crisp and clear. I like that you recessed the windows. It does indeed give an interesting "nod" to the old Space 1999 Eagle (intentional or not).
I too am looking at tackling this model as well. However, I am planning to do the entire model. I am going to use magnets to make the model truly "modular".
Once again, you did a GREAT JOB! Thank you for sharing this with us!

Thanks for the kind words. I'd love to do the model in a bit bigger scale, with a flight deck inside. With all those windows, you could actually see a lot. While I found a couple of photos of the flight deck (with its rotating seats for when the vehicle flies inverted) but I couldn't find anything resembling an actual interior plan.

While the design of the Endurance was certainly interesting and perhaps even workable, I had a problem with the design of the center module where the Landers and the Rangers docked. The module is attached to the rest of the spacecraft by a single tunnel. I would argue that makes no sense from a design or structural or redundancy point of view. For one thing, why have only ONE way to access the docking module? You're screwed if something happens to that access. A spacecraft needs to have redundancy built into it, and a single connection to the docking module is a fairly glaring problem.

Then again, I can't recall the last time anybody asked me to design a spacecraft for a movie....

 

[Revell-Fan]

The model looks great! I too enjoyed "Interstellar", especially the great visuals and the depiction of Newtonian physics (in combination with no sound in space). It is one of the few movies you have to watch from beginning to end. The whole development is so gripping that you can't skip any moment of it. Carl Sagan would have loved it!

For one thing, why have only ONE way to access the docking module?

The Apollo-Soyuz-Test-Project had only one docking ring, too. And the Space Shuttle docked onto the ISS using one access tunnel. So this flaw followed NASA's design history.

 

[zathros]

Well,in the movie that does happen. The separation of the modules allows any one glaring problem to be isolated. With spacesuits, they can get through, or around a broken module, or approach from the other direction. Most of those modules carried supplies I believe. Personally, I think Bigelow-Boeing's designs with NASA's newer "real" spaceship will take the day. Their elastomeric properties and ability of each module to be completely self contained have greater potential. Objects have bounced off of the ones orbiting the Earth that would have put massive holes in the I.S.S.. One is attached to the I.S.S. now, is just a trial version. I wished they would attach one of the big ones. The rigid modules are obsolete.

 

[dhanners]

The model looks great! I too enjoyed "Interstellar", especially the great visuals and the depiction of Newtonian physics (in combination with no sound in space). It is one of the few movies you have to watch from beginning to end. The whole development is so gripping that you can't skip any moment of it. Carl Sagan would have loved it!


The Apollo-Soyuz-Test-Project had only one docking ring, too. And the Space Shuttle docked onto the ISS using one access tunnel. So this flaw followed NASA's design history.

But ASTP and the ISS are very different designs from Endurance. If the ISS were circular and there was some key module in the center, I bet there would be more than one access to that module. Plus, a single-point design puts a lot of stress on that single point when thrust is applied. (And in "Interstellar," they use one of the docked craft to provide thrust for the entire station.) Things may be weightless, but they have mass and are affected by intertia; for example, the ESA's original long four-panel solar arrays planned for Orion's Service Module were changed to shorter three-panel arrays because of concerns about the longer panels swaying when the vehicle was under thrust.

 

[zathros]

I guess it depends on the modulus of the materials. I don't think the Endurance had very fast acceleration, hence the cryo-sleep, and the way the ship fell apart. It also has four docking rings on the outside perimeter of the station. I think given NASA's budget constraints in the movie, and the very little they had to work with, this was the best they could do, with what they had. Considering the mission to the Moon had been already deemed to have been a "fake" and taught so in the schools. I think that if the need came up, that ring could have been reconfigured as necessary on the fly.

 

[dhanners]

Indeed, but look at the diagram. What trouble would it have been to link the Command Module (the red module at 9 o'clock) with the Core Docking Hub? More access, more strength.

 

[zathros]

No much, but I'm not sure that there would have been much of a strength gained, compared to possible damage caused by more modules being affected by some kind of catastrophe. I think isolation to maintain reintegration was the thinking behind it. Shoe string budget. Plus the other ships could easily dock with the outer rings docking ports. It was just a movie. I think the present NASA's Nautilus project, with fully independent, ejectable habitats, in case of catastrophe, is a better way to go. This thing could fly almost anywhere, set up supply points a various LaGrange points, and launch Landers on other planets, asteroids, even Mars, and if something goes wrong, just come back home. A true spaceship. The ring would solve the Bone fracture problem too. At that size, it would take the average Human around 7 days to not get sick from it, if you were in it all the time. A couple of hours a day would mitigate many problems. The bigger the rotating ring, the better the acclamation.

I do agree though, I'm not sure why they went for that configuration, unless they only had access to smaller rockets and had to launch every section bit by bit and assemble it in a piece meal manner.

 

[wulf111]

"Indeed, but look at the diagram. What trouble would it have been to link the Command Module (the red module at 9 o'clock) with the Core Docking Hub? More access, more strength."

the design was meant to look like a clock that the complete reasoning for them using this configuration.

 

[zathros]

We don't know how this thing was finally pushed up to speed. The ring is the strong part. Ranger two has a docking pad attached, it would have been easy to dock it anywhere on the wing, or both Rangers and both Landers, and do hard thrusting from from without the circle of pods. IMHO. See below: