Not OT: "The Martian" And Prof. Buning's UM Aero Space Design Class 1986?
Any other MGoBloggers here who were in Prof. Buning's Aerospace Engineering Senior Space Design in 1986? Because I want someone else to confirm I'm not insane: the interplanetary spacecraft in "The Martian" sure looked a LOT like the craft we designed in that class.
In that class, UM had a $25K grant from NASA to design a "castle" -- a ship in a long (26 month) solar orbit that regularly passes Earth and Mars. The idea is, if you want to go from Mars to Earth, or Earth to Mars, on a regular basis, you don't need to build a separate ship for each trip. You build this one ship (the castle), that orbits the sun and regularly intersects the two planets. Then you only need to build "taxis" that hop from the planet onto the castle, travels through space, and hops off at the other planet. So as the castle orbits the sun for 10 to 20 years, it can support multiple E:M or M:E trips (the "up/down" or "down/up" voyages).
Our ship, called Project CAMELOT* (dang my memory is good on this), had a particular layout. We even built a 10-foot model of it. Had an rotating ring for "artificial gravity," a non-rotating boom, etc. We did a written report on it and I assume it's been collecting dust in NASA archives since then.
(* CAMELOT stood for "Circulating Autonomous Mars-Earth Luxury Orbital Transport." Yes, we came up with the acrynym first and then filled in the words afterwards ,just like Marvel did with S.H.I.E.L.D. And we debated the "L" for a while before settling on Luxury, because nothing else seemed appropriate.)
Fast forward to 2015. Matt Damon's movie "The Martian" comes out. Highly recommend you see it, way way better than "Interstellar." Anyway, it involves the "Hermes," a spacecraft going between Earth and Mars. And wow... the layout of the Hermes looks an awful lot like our UM project design. Certainly not identical but 80% overlap, at least.
Now, it could be, form follows function, so two groups independently thinking of this would come up with the same design. But there have been plenty of other interplanetary spacecraft in movies, and none look much like Project CAMELOT or Hermes. (The ship in "2010" comes to mind as involving a rotating section.) The producers of the movies were said to have had lots of help from NASA in the film; that's pretty obvious as you watch it.
One wonders if they found the UM report from 1986 and thought, hmm, there's the general idea for what this kind of ship would look like. And the creative movieminds took it from there....
And one more connection. HARBAUGH was our starting quarterback that year. HMMM. Coincidence?
October 5th, 2015 at 12:53 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:15 PM ^
Disagree about the being "basically Cast Away". You had an interplay back and forth between what was happening on Mars, Earth, and a little bit of the Hermes. Matt Damon made video logs which were much more entertaining than Hanks talking to Wilson. I can say, I really disliked Cast Away, but really enjoyed this movie. Perhaps because there was more technology and more interesting things could happen, but to say this was just a cookie cutter of Castway, I have to disagree.
p.s. it wasn't me who negged.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
But I do remember Prof. Buning talking about CAMELOT. I think he probably regarded that project team and the design as a high water mark.
Our class produced a far more mundane design for an Assured Crew Return Vehicle to service what was then called "Space Station Freedom." I recommended to Prof. Buning that we name it the "Ballistic Unguided Limited Longevity Space Habitat for Immediate Transit."
It made him laugh. The project manager wasn't as amused.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^
BULLSHIT... Nice.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 12:40 PM ^
I think form does follow function, but that doesn't mean that NASA doesn't have concepts under development for manned Mars missions that are based on research done previously, no matter how long ago it was. I think it's entirely possible that your Camelot vessel may have formed the basis for whatever advanced spacecraft design NASA is toying around with these days.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:42 PM ^
Wow I didn't know this design story.
But Michigan Engineering is always right there with MIT and Caltech's.
The Martian is a great movie. Waaaaaay better than Interstellar, arguably also better than Gravity, too. Highly recommend!
October 5th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^
Why don't you post a picture or link to a picture of whatever it is you are talking about for the 99.3% of us who were not in a class in 1986? Thanks
October 5th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^
Photos? Link?
Let me take you back... to 1986. NINETEEN EIGHTY SIX.
We did NOT have: digital photography; cellphones; Internet; laptop computers; electricity. (Alright, we might have had the Internet, but it was a DARPA thing that UM undergrads didn't know about. The WWW hadn't been developed yet.)
So, yes, there were photos taken of the model -- using, you know, this thing called FILM. It had to be DEVELOPED. Where my photos went, who the heck knows. And if I had them, I'd have to get them scanned etc. There was no website with the project. There was no website for U of M. There was no World Wide Web. So... no, no photos, no link.
And I probably had the written product, but I am 99% sure it was lost when my basement flooded 10 or so years ago.
October 5th, 2015 at 3:02 PM ^
Nice, thanks.
I'd say this is convergent design. Lots of space station concepts look similar. But who knows?
2.5 million kg is approaching reasonable, I think. Where's the radiation shielding coming from?
October 5th, 2015 at 6:42 PM ^
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October 5th, 2015 at 3:31 PM ^
10,000+ upvotes for providing the pictures.
October 5th, 2015 at 2:13 PM ^
Why don't you jump into Marty McFly's Delorean and go have a look yourself?
It was so rude of the OP to mention this without providing a link to the wiki. ...from 1986...
I'm sure he's got plenty of digital pics on his 1986 smart phone. The whole collaboration was probably recorded digitally and downloaded to Youtube via his Apple IIc.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^
In 5th grade we had an assignment to come up with an invention. You know what mine was?
The pre-lit Christmas tree. 10+ years before those things were on the market. Fucking teacher probably stole my idea and is sitting on an island somewhere right now.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:08 PM ^
I'll give you one for free to replace it.
Open a resturant/bar chain called "Balls" and put them as close to Hooters as you can. Except all the wait staff are men dressed in speedos, the menu is wine, cheese and a ton of different chocolates and on the TVs you show nothing but Hallmark movies, soap operas and reality shows.
Women would pack the place and then men would follow cause the place was full of women.
Your welcome.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^
Leave my welcome out of this.
October 5th, 2015 at 2:04 PM ^
Tallywackers recently opened in Texas.
/please, can we call it a tallywacker?
October 5th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^
OK, I have not seen The Martian, but plan to. That said, Interstellar is a phenomenal movie and even without seeing the former yet, I still know that the latter is better.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^
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October 5th, 2015 at 2:17 PM ^
plot holes and cheesy science ran amok all over interstellar. it peeves me that people think it was any good. i mean, i'm not sure if it had better black hole science than "event horizon."
that said, the martian was really good. not just the science, but the characters were believable too. very believable emotions and a perfect touch of humor.
October 5th, 2015 at 2:22 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 3:58 PM ^
Well, it's called "science fiction" for a reason, mate.
October 5th, 2015 at 4:04 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:18 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:54 PM ^
They consulted with Kip Thorne and I belive some other physics guys for Interstellar.
That said, consulting with a prominent physicist is not the same as making a movie where the physics is at all likely to be possible (I haven't seen Interstellar, but I've heard).
October 5th, 2015 at 3:19 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 8:47 PM ^
Emphasis on 'known laws.'
That's why I said 'at all likely to be possible.'
Nothing known now to rule it out - but that doesn't mean it won't eventually be found to be impossible.
Again, I haven't seen Interstellar, so maybe there isn't anything ridiculous in there. But I think they have wormhole travel, and that is... stretching it, to say the least.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 1:27 PM ^
Go CalTech and JPL!
October 5th, 2015 at 1:30 PM ^
Why don't you just Google it?
/s
October 5th, 2015 at 1:36 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
'The Martian' started life as a blog and was written chapter by chapter with input from the blog's readers - some of whom were top notch thinkers in space science.
So it is entirely plausible that one of them was familliar with the work out of the OLDEST and FINEST Aerospace Engineering department in the USA.
More on that story here:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/martians-andy-weir-buddy-buddy-nasa/
Unfortunately Prof Buning retired before I could take his class.
(Aero '94 desptie the user name)
October 5th, 2015 at 3:46 PM ^
Just to make sure no one has forgotten that Apollo 15 was an 'all michigan' crew.
October 5th, 2015 at 4:04 PM ^
I was fortunate to be in that senior design class in 1990 as well, hands down the best class I took in undergrad - Prof. Buning was just outstanding. I was on point for the thermal tiles and with 95% confidence I can say there was a 60% chance that the crew would not have burned up on re-entry.
October 5th, 2015 at 7:33 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 9:55 PM ^