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I love science-fiction “blueprints”. You know what I mean: exterior three-views and deck-by-deck plans of spaceships and submarines and so forth, with dimensions and other technical details added for fun. The fictional worlds I visit are made all the more “real” when the creators provide me with blueprints and other “artifacts” of the imaginary worlds they have created. I still have my collection of Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise blueprints (and technical manuals) that I bought as a kid; I had hours of fun poring over them back in the 1970s. I also have my set of blueprints from the original Battlestar Galactica series, plus a bunch of similar stuff related to Alien/Aliens, various SF anime shows, and even a book of architectural floorplans containing “blueprints” for various TV series homes (e.g., the Cleaver homes in Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch house, etc.).
It’s always bugged me, however, that no one seems to create the blueprints I really want to see – many of which are related to subjects in literary science fiction. For example, how many “artifacts” of the worlds depicted in Heinlein’s novels are out there? Precious few.
So I decided to do my own. The drawing you see here is a textually-accurate depiction of a “torchship”, the Lewis and Clark, from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Time For the Stars. I’ll post details about the ship (again, taken directly from the text) if anyone’s interested.
Thanks.
“Time for the Stars” is a very elegant novel. I don’t think it’s as widely reprinted as other Heinlein juveniles, perhaps because there isn’t much fighting in it, but what a conception: identical twins who communicate telepathically at absolute speeds being sent on relativistic-speed starships
Cool! As a kid I devoured the Heinlein juveniles. And his science/engineering was always pretty solid. Where it wasn’t – as in the torch ship’s direct matter-energy conversion – he offered plausible explanations. Today we know that a ship moving at lightspeed would be hit by interstellar hydrogen, which isn’t (think, instant deadly radiation dose), but that doesn’t reduce the descriptions Heinlein gave in ‘Time…’ of relativistic effects – which to me were educational. The telepathic twins idea was always a little hokey, but red-head twins were a theme in many of his books – vide, ‘The Rolling Stones/Space Family Stone’. Love the plan drawing, good stuff.
Matthew Wright
http://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com
http://www.matthewwright.net
I’m glad you liked it. There may be more to come in this vein, so please stay tuned.
Pingback: Getting the science into science fiction « M J Wright
Thanks. My own further thoughts on rocketpunk & SF posted today:
http://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/getting-the-science-into-science-fiction/
Matthew
Great artwork. I have a similar problem. I have absolutely no graphic talent, only linguistic. I can compose a poem, but never could design a spaceship. I’ve read both Clarke’s ’2010′ and Asimov’s ‘Nemesis’, and I’m frustrated beacause my lack of imagination. I cannot ‘see’ the chinese Tsien and the Superluminal spaceships into my mind. I Have searched on the net and found an incredible Leonov (also from 2010) and Magellan starship (in Songs of a Distant Earth) from the artist Manchu, but in the case of the Tsien and Superluminal, can’t find anything satisfactory. I’m reluctant to bother artist by artist begging for a commission. Have you any idea?
P.D. I’ll bring to my mind your Lewis and Clark when reading ‘Time for the Stars’, inasmuch as I prefer your design to the Manchu’s one.
I’d happy to discuss a commission. Please contact me by email: bruce@brucelewis.com.
I would love to see the blue prints for the ship in the CS Lewis book Out of The Silent Planet. The verbal descriptions are so exquisite that visualizing them on paper should be easy enough for the enterprising architect…sorry for the pun.
Say, Jewel, that’s a great idea! I’ll make a note of that for the next book. Thanks!