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Fictional: Craft and Stations:
AcrossToMars

Summary:Illustrating Bonestell in Celestia.
Description:This Add-on for Celestia displays some models and situations based on paintings by Chesley Bonestell. If you restore this zip file into Celestia's extras directory, it should recreate all of the directories and files necessary for it to work with Celestia v1.4.1. Note: Versions of Celestia after 1.4.1 no longer support the Cel:// URLs included in this add-on.

The included HTML (Web) file contains Cel:// URLs which will take you to viewpoints which are similar to some of Chesley Bonestsll's paintings. They are not identical: Getting all of the details exactly the same would require much more effort.

Background:
In 1947, Wernher von Braun wrote a book titled "Das Mars Projekt." An English edition, "The Mars Project," was published in 1953 and a reprint is readily available. In 1952 Colliers Magazine hosted a symposium on space flight, the results of which were published in their magazine. Spacecraft were designed by Wernher von Braun and illustrated by Chesley Bonestell and others. Those spacecraft designs also were published in several books, some of which were "Across the Space Frontier," "The Conquest of Space," "The Conquest of the Moon," and "The Exploration of Mars." Physical dimensions for many of those designs were published in the book "Spaceship Handbook" by Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers.

This Addon consists of my interpretations of some of these spacecraft and situations.

Credit:
The models were created using Anim8or, a 3D design program by Steve Glanville. Visit http://www.anim8or.com/ for more information.
The following books were used as references.
* von Braun, W., The Mars Project, Illini Books Press, University of Illinois Press, USA, 1991
* Ley, W., The Conquest of Space, Viking, New York,1949
* von Braun, W., et al., Across the Space Frontier, Viking, New York, 1952
* von Braun, W. et al., The Conquest of the Moon, Viking, New York, 1953
* Ley, W., von Braun, W., The Exploration of Mars, Viking, New York, 1960
* Miller, R., Durant, F. C. III, The Art of Chesley Bonestell, Donning, Norfolk, 1983
* Hagerty,J., Rogers, J.,Spaceship Handbook, ARA Press, 2001

This Add-on was designed for use with Celestia v1.4.1. Celestia, an open-source real-time 3D astronomical visualization program, was created by Chris Laurel with assistance by many others.
Visit http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ for more information.
The models were translated into Celestia's CMOD format using utilities provided by Chris Laurel.

Limitations:
The models are quite simple and "low poly." I'm sure you can create better ones.
The trajectories from Earth to Mars and return are fake. Although they have some of the appropriate characteristics, and leave and depart on reasonable dates near the oppositions of 1965 and 1967, they are distorted circles rather than ellipses.

Final Note: Versions of Celestia after 1.4.1 no longer support the Cel:// URLs included in this add-on. If you'd simply like to view these objects in Celestia, you can find them using the Solar System Browser under Celestia's built-in Navigation Menu.
Addon Homepage:http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/b-vb/index.html
Creator:Selden Ball
Version:1.0
License:This Add-on for Celestia was created by Selden Ball and is copyright (c) March, 2006. All rights reserved. This Add-on may be freely redistributed for educational purposes. All models and documents were created entirely by the author. They may not be used for any commercial benefit without explicit written permission by the author.
Added:2006-04-05 09:20
Last modified:2008-03-25 14:13
Download:
AcrossToMars CMOD/HTML 8.85 MB

Comments by visitors:

2006-05-06 05:35
#3 jmdollan
I love this add-on; it's like reading the old books all over again.
2006-04-08 01:10
#2 gradius_fanatic
this is cool, it reminds me of the movie "Mission to Mars".
2006-04-06 00:12
#1 JimD
Truly wonderful Seldon.
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