[FPSPACE] Speaking of New Mexico...

[LARRY KLAES]

Hi John,

 

An actual Gemini test vehicle with the paraglider (Rogallo wing) attached

to it was at the Manchester UK Science (or Air and Space) Museum 

not too long ago (don't know if it still is):

 

http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000918.html

 

and photos of the exhibit taken here:

 

http://www.ninfinger.org/models/vault2006/Gemini%20Paraglider/index.html

 

A collection of photos and artwork here:


http://www.ninfinger.org/models/vault2006/Gemini%20paraglider%20photos/index.html

 

 

And this group plans on taking an old Gemini boilerplate and turning

it into a working spacecraft to launch aboard a Falcom 9 rocket:

 

http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum35/HTML/000383-2.html

 

and here:

 

http://www.aio50.org/UAHproject.php

 

Hope this helps and good luck!  Please let us know what you find out.

 

Regards,

 

Larry

 

  


From: jbcharle at gmail.com
To: dsfportree at hotmail.com
Subject: Speaking of New Mexico...
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:19:35 -0500
CC: ljk4 at msn.com; fpspace at friends-partners.org


Pardon the redirection, but I have to ask if Larry or David or anyone else has or knows of a New Mexico connection. I am looking for something called only a "Rogallo test vehicle" listed in Jim Gerard's "A Field Guide to American Spacecraft" website. This is for a personal project to identify and locate all known boilerplates and test articles of Gemini capsules. (Not actual spacecraft. Not Mercury. Not Apollo. My muse is very specific. )


A few years ago I emailed the Alamagordo museum but they never heard of it. Kathy and I stopped by once en route to someplace else but saw nothing helpful. 


Is there someone who might know something, maybe a retiree?


I have a fantasy about finding a lost Gemini boilerplate, restoring it and putting it on display on Gemini Avenue here in Clear Lake.


Anyway thanks for any info, even if it is a dead end.  

JBC 
(some typos due to iPhone touchpad)

On Oct 28, 2009, at 7:34, David Portree <dsfportree at hotmail.com> wrote:




Larry:
 
I certainly do not object.
 
The ABL reminds me of the metal carrot in one of the Bugs Bunny cartoons; Bugs tries to bite it, drops it, and it opens, extends a flagpole, runs up the flag of Earth, and deploys a brass band that plays an anthem. Then it closes, job done. (And the hulking Neanderthal Bugs eats it later, but never mind.)
 
It also reminds me of a Swiss Army knife; all kinds of attachments unfolding in different directions.
 
Incidentally, the new exhibit is already prepared; it opened May 15. I was contacted just as it opened; the ABL had been misidentified as a component of the Voyager outer Solar System mission. It was already on display with a placard to that effect when I was pulled in to confirm its true identity. 
 
If it had remained misidentified, would anyone have noticed? I wonder.

David S. F. Portree

dsfportree at hotmail.com
dportree at usgs.gov
 
http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/
 
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/DavidPortree/
 



 


From: ljk4 at msn.com
To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:34:52 -0400
Subject: [FPSPACE] What might have landed on Mars instead of Viking



David, I hope you don't mind my touting your recent Beyond Apollo
article on the Automated Biological Laboratory (ABL) which might have
landed on the Red Planet as part of the original Voyager program
developed in the 1960s.
 
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) [link] in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is preparing a new exhibit on space exploration based 
"in large part on material on long-term loan from the New Mexico Museum of 
Space History in Alamogordo. That material included a 1/4-scale ABL model."
 
Images of that model with the article are here:
 
http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/10/abl-images-from-new-mexico-museum-of.html
 
The design, especially the metal petals used for uprighting and balancing
the ABL remind me a fair bit of the Soviet Luna and Mars robot landers.
Did one group copy the other, or did function follow form?
 
Thanks for the article and pics, David.  I wonder if something like ABL
could be used with modern technology for multiple lost-cost solar
system missions?
 
Larry
 
 



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