The ISS has been around for 16 years now , and we ’re used to the idea of having a permanently - manned place in orbit . But in the decade leading up to its conception , NASA float dozens of other ideas for a station — some of them prescient , others seemingly ridiculous to our eyes .
These image have been around , in some case , since the 1960s . But onFlickr , NASA has made it easy to see them all in one place thanks to its Space Station Concept record album . jibe out a few high spot below — imagine , the ISS could have been built inside the hollow shell of a used - up fuel armoured combat vehicle .
Here ’s a entrancing concept from 1977 . Once the Space Shuttle had reached reach , the master fuel cooler — now empty — would “ unwind ” a solar array , with the station put together next . The tank itself would become the hollow shell that agree the ascendancy pith , “ a space operations focal level for missions to the Moon and Mars , ” NASA explains .
This 1960 concept was designed to be used with Apollo hardware — it would give astronaut a spot to bob once in orbit and set up solar panels to power mathematical operation . In truth , the conception is not so very far off from the ISS .
Inflatable habitats have been a constant dreaming for NASA — all the way back to 1961 , when this epitome was actually fabricate by Goodyear Aircraft Corporation . The idea was to take the drop module into eye socket and then inflate it , creating a distance for up to two astronauts .
A fretwork of skeletal struts would support this idea from 1984 , which NASA describes as the “ roof ” conception :
The “ roof ” was covered with solar array cells , that were to generate about 120 kilowatts of electricity . Within the quint - shaped beams there would be five modules for living , laboratory space , and extraneous area for instruments and other facilities .
SNAP - II was an experimental nuclear magnate supply that NASA developed to power its lunar probe in the 1960s . This concept for a space station would have attached one of the SNAP reactors to a long pole , intended to give the tenuous human race inside the post a wide enough place from the reactor .
“ The majority of former blank space station conception created artificial gravity one way or another in orderliness to imitate a more natural or intimate environs for the health of the astronauts , ” NASA explain . This concept for an unreal gravity station , from 1969 , imagined it being get together from sure-enough stages from the Apollo trade .
The melodic theme behind this very former construct — from 1960 — was to launch the station aboard a Titan rocket . Then , astronauts would arrive via a Gemini space capsule . It went surprisingly far , as NASA explains , until it was set off for its incredible price :
The program was cancelled by Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird in 1969 after the estimated toll of the programme had rise in excess of $ 3 billion , and had already expend $ 1.3 billion . Some of the military astronaut take for the computer program then transferred to NASA and became some of the first people to vanish the Space Shuttle , include Richard Truly , who later became the NASA Administrator .
The Solar Power Satellite was NASA ’s concept for husbandry energy in geosynchronous orbit , 36,000 miles above Earth . A 1976 draught shows how NASA think using a immense lattice of solar panel to call for sun — then convert it into energy , to be transmit to Earth via microwaves .
The Space Station Freedom , shown here in Alan Chinchar ’s 1991 concept art , was an early interlingual rendition of what would become the ISS : Intended to be a for good - man orbit station with a crew of four , it would be a accommodative projection between the US , Canada , Japan , and a chemical group of European countries .
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