TWA Moonliner: Early Civilian Space Flight Rocket
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2021
- The TWA Moonliner was a concept for a rocket-shaped commercial airliner developed by the Trans World Airlines (TWA) in collaboration with Walt Disney Imagineering. The idea was born in the 1950s as part of a promotional campaign called the "Rocket to the Moon" attraction at Disneyland.
The TWA Moonliner was designed to resemble a futuristic rocket ship and was intended to serve as a symbol of the Jet Age and the exciting possibilities of space travel. It stood approximately 80 feet (24 meters) tall and featured a streamlined, silver body with TWA's logo prominently displayed on its side. The interior was envisioned to have luxurious accommodations, offering passengers a unique and memorable flying experience.
Although the TWA Moonliner was never built as an actual aircraft, a 1/100th scale replica of the concept was constructed and placed in Tomorrowland at Disneyland Park in California. It served as an eye-catching centerpiece for the Rocket to the Moon attraction, where visitors could explore the interior and imagine what it would be like to travel to the moon.
The original TWA Moonliner replica at Disneyland was eventually replaced by a new attraction called Mission to Mars in 1975. However, smaller replicas of the Moonliner can still be found as decorations in certain areas of the park.
Overall, the TWA Moonliner represents an iconic and imaginative concept from the early days of space exploration and aviation, capturing the excitement and optimism of that era. 
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Ah, the 1950s - when nuclear-thermal propulsion in-atmosphere, and thermal management during re-entry, were considered "no problem". ;-)
Still, VERY cool video from Hazegrayart, as usual - I really liked the double sonic-boom just before landing!
I can hear the tumors growing in my brain just from watching this video
I'm wondering if that was a sonic boom or the engines starting it really does sound like a double sonic boom but its moving slow. IDK maybe its both.
@@SpacemanTarian42 This is a fake CGI video, you dope.
If you're already okay with nuclear thermal propulsion, you probably get your thermal management issues addressed for free, just use your rockets to shed some velocity before you land. What's another 10km/s when you've got twice the ISP?
"Thermal management" apparently STILL isn't a problem according to some :) Ok now he has to do the TWA ROMUBUS which replaced this :D
Excellent. I would've loved to have seen the full scale model that used to stand in Tomorrowland at Disneyland.
Reminiscent of the vehicle flown by Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century!
I want to see a Starship in Tomorrowland! Would be a fantastic homage to the Moonliner.
Good idea
You know what Disneyland needs in Tomorrowland? A Starship. Actual rocket. Actual futuristic stuff. It'd be amazing.
Deliver by suborbital hop right into Disneyland. Of course with passenger.
@@deregapreyahvattaffdiff just spacex things
A tall empty shell with nothing inside? How's that different from the TWA Moonship? (Which was a huge empty shell with nothing inside :) )
@@randycampbell6307.... Starship has fuel tanks, plumbing, avionics, etc inside - not to mention actual engines on the bottom.
.... You do know that the rocket has flown before right?
@@WasatchWind And the rest of it is empty space with no systems, (not even mock ups or mass simulators) nothing to make it in any way an operational vehicle. Yes they've flown the 'engines-and-tanks' and nothing else which is not how you 'test' a reusable vehicle since the whole POINT is to, you now, TEST the actual vehicle. In fact it doesn't have the required plumbing or avionics for an actual vehicle and without the proper weight, balance, aerodynamic and heating loading FOR an operational vehicle it's simply (and literally) an "empty shell".
It's odd that folks don't understand how little this 'test' program has actually done to advance the design, mostly due to the total LACK of design effort for "Starship"
I like the legs design and how they unfold.
legs are nice, yet as elon would say, they're not needed if the launch vehicle's gonna be landing the same place it launched from, cause that the pad can easily double as a stand for it
Reminds me of 2001 a space odyssey, like those pan am shuttles
Similar concept, except that the space shuttle going to the space station in "2001" almost became reality as the X-30, whereas the lunar shuttle was designed to only operate in the vacuum of space.
This isn't just single stage to orbit, it's single stage to the moon, and nuclear! Love the Apollo 8 style Earthrise.
I remember seeing this rocket at Disneyland and going into the ride, it was fantastic. It was really inspiring for a young kid like I was then.
I wonder if Hergé had based the moon rocket sketched in his Tintin comic books on the Moonliner? I see lots of resemblance between the two apart from the retracting landing gear!
*CORRECTION: Tintin's(or rather Prof. Calculus or Hergé's) moon rocket actually came earlier than the Moonliner, so John Hench must've combined elements of both Hergé and Von Braun's designs into conceiving the Moonliner!
The rocket in Tintin actually came first! Herge's moon rocket first appeared in 1950, while the Moonliner didn't go on display until 1955.
@@Peterincan So it appears that John Hench must've combined elements of both Hergé and Von Braun's designs when he conceived the Moonliner! The atomic engine was also on Hergé's rocket!
@@Peterincan And Herge's Moon Rocket may have been inspired by the design of Luna, the rocket from George Pal's film 'Destination Moon', also released in 1950, and had pre-release images out for at least 6 months before.
Though fair's fair, Herge did his own research to make sure hos design was accurate.
Both show the undeniable influence of WWII Germany's V2.
@@tsmgguy To be fair, both the US & USSR's earlier rockets were also based on the V2. The Redstone/Juno 1/Jupiter C was derived from the V2, and so were the Soviet R2 & R5!
I guess the artist knows the exhaust from a nuclear rocket would never be green, but is doing so because it looks cool! Very fitting. Rule of cool and all that.
Just add some green coloring duh
@@fernandoqueirozpopovic7024 Just a big tank of triethylborane for show!
@@fernandoqueirozpopovic7024 Lol! It was sponsored by Disney after all.
@@dirkstarbuck6126 I know but jokes need to exist from time to time
@@noecarrier5035 Why not pentaborane? You can afterburn it with atmospheric air, it has more hydrogen content, better ISP...
Who are the *LOSERS* who down-voted this incredible work?! Astonishing...
Jeff Bezos and his fake accounts
Always lots of trolls on RUclips. Annoying.
Flat Earthers.
@@kirkc9643
Why?
@@arrow1414 Because it looks like Starship and reminds him that he is nowhere near having something reach orbit. And he has a very small you know what and doesn't like losing.
You brought my long time dreams to life! AWESOME!! I remember the standing Moonliner (Star of Polaris) at Disneyland as a kid. In 1998, I was invited to a re opening of Tomorrowland party and met it's designer, Imagineer John Hench. He told me how the steering vanes are from the V2, and as they were designing the interior from the top down, they "ran out of room" by the time that got to the engines, and so, they made it "nuclear". TOTALLY love this! Would loved to have seen the 1955 TWA launch facility, and it land on at a TWA Moonbase. So cool!!!
Heck! Launch it from the TWA Airport in New York City!!
I'm gonna tell my kids this is starship
Amazing simulation. Von Braun & Walt Disney would be proud to watch.
I really do love retro-futuristic rocket concepts so cool, I love how you tied this to Von Braun with using the same launch site, as normal such an epic render, it would have been cool to see this land on the moon but anyhow it was an epic video, we all love you lots. :-)
admins based
Amazing how easily recognizable this rocket is. I still remember my 1st look in 1969 at 9 years old. This video really took me back.
Amazingly rendered, I didn't expect to feel nostalgia like this, from something that's decades older than I am. Thanks!
That is SO COOL! - Thank you so very much. I love this rocket, and other rocket designs of the 50s. Beautiful animation and a glimpse in to what might have been!
Beautiful boron-greenish playback of a good-old-days single stage rocket (or torchship) fantasy!
Great as always.
Thank you for creating this. So great.
Thank you so much for doing this I messaged a couple weeks ago asking for this. Awesome!!!
No problem!!
The Rocket that launched the imagination of thousands of young boys! I remember seeing this Disneyland display in the early 60's as a preteen! It was utterly fascinating and sparked an interest that has lasted a life time. It didn't have to be full scale to be appreciated - like every thing at Disneyland, it did not matter that it and the Castle and the Matterhorn were only scaled structures, it was what the mind imagined when seeing them! Thanks for the memory refresh Hazegrayart!! 😁👍
THANK YOU for doing this! I am a former TWA employee, and it was a thrill to see that kind of a dream realized. I bought a big toy Space Shuttle and put stick-on TWA logos on it. And put in on the shelf in my cubicle! You may not know that a mock-up of that very rocket stands today in downtown Kansas City, MO, on the roof of the former TWA building there. TWA is gone, but the memories live on.
Wow, amazing work as always
Awesome as always! Thank you!
TWA is a great airline! And I love aviation too!
Awesome re-creation and tribute.
Absolutely fantastic !!! I had the Strombecker model kit in the 50's
There’s a lot of this concept that is finally getting realized through starship. There’s also a lot about it that should get realized through starship, like landing legs and being able to land anywhere with a asphalt/concrete-like surface. A matter then of figuring out a way to deliver fuel tank materials, welding supplies and cryogenic equipment to produce LOX and methane out of the air. Ingress and Egress would be done with a ladder/airport firetruck able to put out any fires. Emergency egress could be done with a chute like that used to exit a skyscraper in an emergency. The less GSE equipment needed to set up and the more mobile it can be made, the faster remote launch sites can be constructed for P2P.
I absolutely love those landing legs.
Beautiful video, well done man.
Really nice job on this!!!👍
An excellent animation! 👏
This is the real deal we been waiting for
Except the engine would have to be open cycle gas core reactor. The one that actually spews radioactive cloud from the nozzle 😁. Normal nuclear thermal rockets do not have enough thrust to weight ratio to lift off.
@@yumazster just joking tho, I already know about that
@@Hygix_ I know 😁
They are futuristic SpaceX rockets!
Omg I love twa more and more
Love the TWA!
Great video. I'm assuming that this is a 4-6 hour round trip tour of the Moon with a low altitude pass over the lunar surface. Probably well heeled customers, so you're going to have to feed them a gourmet meal with, of course, a decent Bordeuax.
I have some First Class TWA plates. The menus were incredible!
Wouldn't the gees to get to the moon in two hours crush all the passengers..?🤔🖖
@@danielgregory3295 ....not in First Class
thing couldn´t even reach LEO
Just imagine how radioactive the launch site, landing site, and atmosphere would get from this thing.
Not very. Even open-core NTR doesn't actually let out THAT much 'fallout' from core ablation, and something this advanced is probably using a closed-cycle engine design like LANTR. I'd be more worried about the conventional toxicity of whatever green schmoo is coming out the end of it. Is that some kind of borane for a TWR boost? Looks nifty, but even the world's militaries didn't want to mess with that stuff more than necessary, let alone a civilian spaceline.
Just a minute here.
I want a show of hands, who had "this" ship, on their wish list, on a list at all, much less even that anyone considered this amusement park design anything more than that.
Hmm...thought as much.
You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man!
So innovative!
AMAZINGNES!!!
I recognize your intro music from the US Army Ceremonial Band! "Salute to a New Beginning."
🚀 Another great vid 👏😏
Radiation goes brrrrrrr
This reminds me of a certain book involving a young journalist, a cute dog and a mad scientist.
Fantastic. The design aesthetic reminds me of the 1970s.
I can't help but think of Tom Lehrer's razor-sharp satirical song Wernher von Braun: _"'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!' says Wernher von Braun."_
The golden days of first love for the world of rockets!
THIS IS COOL!
This Rocket has very good design
Be great to see you do a rendering of the whole flight of the Orion Clipper from Kubrick's 2001?
Why the green exhaust? Strange propellant or stylistic choice for 50s nuclear rocket?
Adds a bit of color to a mostly monochromatic vid. 🚀📽️📺👀
🌌🔭
My new absolute favorite in this series of work. I have a (still unbuilt) model kit of this spacecraft (the Glencoe "Mars Liner" re-release) and have always loved its lines.
Very Good job here.
Behold, the greatest rocket of all time!
That is the same rocket design that Walt Disney put in his Tomorrowland at Disneyland when it first opened! and it is still there!
Needs a little bounce back of the landing gear at the end-- seems to me the spring of the gear should operate like a shock absorber, here it comes to a dead stop which seems counter to physics. Unless there's something unusual in the gear that's going on there I suppose. Otherwise, pretty cool. Best rocket design ever.
The last few seconds of the flight remind me of something...
This was excellent! As an aside, the model kit of this classic spaceship is currently available, based on the original Strombecker molds.
If I may make a request, I would like to see similar videos featuring the designs of other Classic 1950's Spaceships; say the XSL-01 designed for Revell by Ellwyn E. Angle, or some of the designs developed by Krafft A. Ehricke for Convair, such as the HELIOS, which was also the subject of a Revell Model Kit. Maybe even some of the designs of Willy Ley which were the subject of some Monogram space kits, too.
Thanks for posting this, and please keep up the good work!
Yes I was just going to post about the model kit. It's currently produced by Glencoe Models IIRC.
@@MrHws5mp You are right. This is currently in production by Glencoe Models. One thing I like about this video is it shows the TWA Moonliner in flight mode with the landing gear retracted. Combined with the aftermarket reissue of the classic Revell "Swivel Aircraft Display Stand" from the Atlantis Model Company, it should make for a striking in-flight version of this iconic rocket.
Burning TEA-TAB engine!
I am surprised Howard Hughes didn't actually build this. I used to work at Hughes Aircraft, and heard a lot of stories about Howard.
Oh those halcyon days when adding 'nuclear' made anything possible... But even a nuclear engine needs to push out mass - so what exactly was coming out of the back of this rocket?! And why was it fluctuating so much??
Lovely video though - especially the cockpit!
Nuclear thermal rockets is a real technology. NERVA Developed many of such engines in the 70's, and they have incredible Isp. Up to 900 seconds therorecticly, which is double that of regular rockets. Basicly a nuclear fission reactor heats hydrogen to thousands of degrees, and the présure forces it out of the backend. So no cumbustion, no need to bring oxidizer. If we wanted to, we could make such rockets today, and they would have SSTO capabilities. However, crashes are quite common in space travel, and it could spread radioactive material in a large area. Therefore, many people propose that we could assemble a NTR in orbit, and the use it to travel between planets.
@@valdemarhoejlund6506 Nuclear engines like the Nerva have poor thrust, however, meaning you really can't use them to take off.
@@TheOwenMajor the NERVA XE had a thrust of 246663 Newton, so a lift of about 24 tons. It had a weight of 18 tons. So while it could take off with 5 tons of hydrogen, you are right that it has way too low thrust to weight. Hopefully though that could be improved in the future.
@@valdemarhoejlund6506 I think DUMBO, a competitor design to NERVA, had a way better TWR.
INCRÍVEL.ESPETACULAR.
I'd bet the passenger cabin would be lined with some kind of special material to keep the reactor's radiation from leaking in...
Uuuuuh, you left off "FANTASY" Moonliner! 😱😝😁🤪🤣👍👍🇺🇲
BUT, I still want one! 😁👍👍🇺🇲
Amazing work! What source did you use to make the Moonliner model?
YEEES
Cool Animation
There’s green engine thats cool
I liked the presentation for its faithfulness to the period concepts in a CG presentation. I especially liked the 'spaceflight music" that enchanced the 'sense of Wonder' mood. Is the composer of the score known or was it a public domain audio file?
The U.S. Army Herald Trumpets perform "Salute to a New Beginning," composed by SGM (Ret.) Dennis Edelbrock.
That shot where you pan up from Earth with the rocket and we see the moon... the moon is WAY too large (looks too close) but... love the overall video. I guess it fits with the very optimistic view of who soon "commerical space travel" would be coming at the time Von Braun designed this idea.
Starship's imaginary dad
👏
Why was this never built?! 😱😁👍👍🇺🇲
Woah
single stage to the moon and back, well imagine if that was possible
It's using an atomic propulsion system. Read the video description.
@@Eidolon1andOnly no way it could leave the atmosphere
Thunderbirds are go!
The only way I see this working is the nuclear salt water rocket concept, and not being afraid of spewing fallout all over the launch pad!
My dad worked for Ozark and then TWA so he would have worked on the simulators for this.
elon’s grandad
Amazing how this design wasn't actually that far from being feasible. Just the deletion of the buldging cockpit, those massive useless landing legs, a gimballing nozzle and a massive booster to get it into orbit! opps, I just describe SpaceX's starship...
I think it'd work well with the landing legs...
However, I do think that the rocket could use multiple thruster pods along the body so it could be maneuvered during flight.
So it’s an ssto too lol
sstm!
@@paulhaynes8045 sstomb - single stage to orbit, to the moon (and back)
Did you scan the old Strombecker kit, the onne Glencoe has been repopping for 20-some years?
My only quibble is that the ship didn't roll and pitch.
Would the exhaust from an engine of this type be green in real life? Great video as always though
"Hear me out, what if we subjected our passengers to 4 times their weight while they are cramped in terribly small spaces for 8 days only for them to see the moon but bigger."
"BRILLIANT"
Worth it.
I'd still buy a ticket for that...
After all, I'd get to see the moon up close!
Please Vulkan (Hercules) super heavy lift rocket vehicle video
I love your channel
I wish I knew what the music 1:38 - 3:20 was, it's beautiful
Golly, is that some kind of tripropellant LANTR pumping pentaborane? May as well afterburn with FOOF rather than LOx while we're at it! :P
Great work!
Whats up with the green flames. Is that a related to a specific kind of fuel?
Yes, they are burning plotdeviceium...
@@someusername1 A.k.a pentaborane (real-life fuel).
What softwares do you use for these videos sir?
anyone else remembering Tin-Tin with this
This is a great piece of animation there's no doubting that but I'm actually glad we never tried any of these nuclear thermal rockets (or airplanes) as even if the exhaust could be made relatively radiation free just one explosion would have scattered nuclear-core material over a wide area. Yes the ISP is amazing but stage1 nuclear should be kept on the drawing board IMO. Now deep space is another matter altogether and I think nuclear is the way to go here or something like VASIMR.
Hey what about a 2001 Orion III video?
Great video! Does anyone know the name of the music at 1:38?
- That Disney Rocket at the entrance to Tomorrow Land was a disappointment to me when I finally saw it.
- Mostly because like the Disney Castle at the park enterance, ,it was just a 1/3 scale model & so shattered the illusion that it was the real thing.
How sad!! A mind full of imagination would have allowed you to make that a memory of a life time like it did for me in 1962 as a preteen. It was the spark of interest that has lasted a life time!
Eek, pretty sure a green flame usually implies the rocket is running engine-rich!
The folks in McGregor will fix it.
Or running on boranes.
@@caav56 Nice, wasn’t aware of that type of fuel!
This is not accurate, it suppose to directly head toward moon terrain and land straight away Instead of orbiting it
Accurate of what? Did it fly irl?
@@davidhunter6706 bruh it's a joke, what I mean is, usually a rocket like this will straight fly to the moon and straight up do a landing
I’m getting Fallout Vibes especially from the nuclear rocket engine.
Is operating these things how we get to the Super Orion video?
interesting
Atomic rocket exhaust would make launch area a barren wasteland. No green fields.
It's been a year and I still have yet to find out the Name and Artist of the music that begins @1:43 in the video. If anyone knows please help.