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Here's an interesting little
plot point. According to the script, the men on the Wheel spent
eighteen months building this spaceship and none of them, up to and
including the commanding officer ever twigs to the fact that having
dirty great wings on the thing pretty much ruled out a Moon trip on an
a priori grounds.
Probably put it down to a
committee idea, I suppose.
The actual destination of the
ship is, in fact, Mars and the design of the craft is a simplified
version of the Mars expedition outlined by Von Braun. In his
original plan, the ship was supposed to be a bit more elaborate and it
was supposed to be only one of a fleet of landing and supply ships,
but in the pre CGI days you were lucky to get one ship out of a
Hollywood studio, much less a fleet, so we should count ourselves
lucky.
The design is rather clever, if
a tad inelegant. The ship proper is the tiny rocket thing in the
centre of the assembly. Below it are the chemical rockets and
fuel tanks that propel it to Mars. Once there, this is
jettisoned and the ship glides in to the Martian surface on the great
wings for a safe landing. "Safe" being a relative term, of
course.
 Once down, the rocket
is raised on to its tail and when it comes time to depart a year
(?!?!) later the crew blasts off for home. Assuming, of course,
that the commander isn't seized by a bout of religious mania and tries
to blow up the ship, but that's space for you. |
