The entry contains links to information about conceptual designs of the 50's. You can also do your own research using the Internet and maybe you can get lucky with leads to find basic models or concepts that drove the inspiration in part of some Star Wars spacecraft.

To understand the design of todays many pseudo real space models one should look to the 1950s and especially to guys like Willy Ley as an inspirational force for creative designers. Willy Ley was a force in making space age stuff popular in the 1950's. Among other things the writings of Willy Ley and speculative engineering of Wernher Von Braun envisioned a space station in orbit of the Earth and helped make the concept of a space station popular as thrilling words. With his writings Willy Ley truely inspired many creative designers.



This post is indirectly related to the science fiction of Star Wars.

A few months ago I had this funny oppertunity to do some research on the legacy for conceptual design of spacecrafts.

I always loved spacecrafts and aeroplanes since school. Occasionally, I would sometimes wait for my dad to finish teaching his lessons at that same school. I would sit and wait at the schools library and meanwhile read books with facts about aircrafts and spacecrafts. I joined the Aviation Book Club at age 15 to read publications from Bill Gunston. Today I still attend Air Shows. Well, I used to build model kits at a young age but discontinued that particular interest. However, my Star Wars pal continued that interest and today he is a very excellent Star Wars model builder. He is actually able to sell his work to stores that put them in their displays as decorations.

Last year my pal started anoying me with a model kit he remembered we as kids used to play with in my room. I did not recall it. He would not let it go and requested I had to go look for it on my parents attic. However, I rejected to invest the time to do so immediately. Finally after 6 months he send me a picture of the model Cosmic Clipper from Airfix. I finally recalled the looks of it. Now, for some reason I got interested with the background story of that model and was amazed what you could find on the Internet if you dig deep enough.

Apparently Cosmic Clipper can "also" be tributed to space flight visionary Willy Ley. Among things Willy Ley can be credited as early as in the 1950's for his vision of a two-part space flight system as in the Space Shuttle - an orbiter and a booster.

To understand the design of todays many pseudo real space models one should look to the 1950s and especially to guys like Willy Ley as an inspirational force for creative designers. Willy Ley was a force in making space age stuff popular in the 1950's. Among other things the writings of Willy Ley and speculative engineering of Wernher Von Braun envisioned a space station in orbit of the Earth and helped make the concept of a space station popular as thrilling words. With his writings Willy Ley truely inspired many creative designers.

You can read my post on an airfix forum here:

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=3957&start=0

The entry contains links to information about conceptual designs of the 50's. You can also do your own research using the Internet and maybe you can get lucky with leads to find basic models or concepts that drove the inspiration in part of some Star Wars spacecraft.

Additionally, the post has another entry that contains some references about the flying saucer conceptual design. Where did the popular shape of a disc come from? I would like to see hollywood do a story on the Andreas Epp and Skoda track as well as John Frost and pre-pioneer Thomas Townsend Brown.

The spaceships and vehicles of the Star Wars universe were revolutionary in itself; George Lucas insisted everything in these movies must have a "lived-in look."

BTW To look for one of the original inspirational forces for creative designers in modern space art Chesley Bonestell may be worth a look. He is often considered to be the father of modern space art: http://www.bonestell.org/