Imaginary Starships

The New Universe 87, 1970
The next step to foreign celestial bodies. Mars, neighbouring planet to our Earth, is the goal of manned space travel after exploration of the Moon. The journey, which will take many months, requires a new spacecraft system. Reusable space transporters - buoyancy bodies that take off vertically like a rocket but land on the runway like an aeroplane - operate as a ferry between Earth and a space station in Earth orbit. The nuclear-powered launch vehicle is stationed near them. A space glider serves as a feeder for the crew and passengers and piggybacks on the command section and lounge during the journey to Mars. Once the spacecraft has swung into orbit around the planet, the astronauts transfer to the lander at the head of the launch vehicle, whose re-entry section later returns to the mother ship from the planet's surface, as in the case of the lunar module. At the end of the expedition, the launch vehicle remains in Earth orbit while the space glider returns the astronauts to Earth. Space transporters replenish the fuel of the launch vehicle, which is maintained by the space station crew and made ready for a new mission.