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Name: Jasmine D.
ProgramYear: 2004 Submit Date: Jun 11, 2004 Review Date: 
Final Project Description
I decided to do my final project in lesson 4 Some Assembly Required on, "Build a model of the wheel shaped Space Station envisioned by Wernher von Braun." During the Cold War, the military visions of Space Stations were overwhelming. German Scientist, Wernher von Braun, who worked for the Americans had a valued plan. America could establish observation posts in space, showing Communist plans for creating orbital launching pads for the United States missiles. One unique plan, the nuclear powered Space Station, could had given America a new approach to space.
This nuclear powered Space Station included three coats of paint, filling, filing, sanding, and buffing with fine steel wool between coats. Very fine copper wire unwounded from a small motor armature because it doesn't kink and knot up, very tough, and takes paint well. The 250 foot diameter rotates to create gravity artificially. It was set to orbit 1000 miles above Earth. It acted as headquarters for the final ascent to the moon and the journey to Mars. The outer rim, the wheel, was used to be living and working quarters for fifty man crew. The inner section, the hub, would serve as an approach to the station through the air-lock. The Large Spokes were the elevator shafts. The Small Pipes condensed the turbo-generator and air conditioning plant. The turbo-generator supplied the station with electricity through heat given off by a nuclear reactor. The wheel was designed to turn three times a minute which was divided into nine sections. The nine sections were headquarters and communication, weather observation, military, emergency hospital, astronomy, calculating machines, maintenance and air conditioning, botanical and zoological, and living quarters. The whole structure would have been prefabricated and tested on the ground, then dismantled and transported in sections by unmanned cargo rockets and reassembled again in orbit. it was to be covered with metal plates to protect the station and its personnel from meteorites.
This dream for Wernher von Braun was crushed when in 1961 the Russians launched the first man into space. Even though it never succeeded, it succeeded plenty other things like: the ISS, first man on moon, and many discoveries by America. Hopefully when I become an Aerospace Engineer, I will be as successful and popular like Wernher von Braun by my creations.
Sources
Busscher, Wendy and Auturo Sanchez. We Are Not the First Space Station. 2004.
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