Dove Single Stage to Orbit Vehicle
Phoenix & Dove
Web site by: Phil
Broad
"Doppelganger" was Gerry Anderson's first venture into the world of feature film production. He had always wanted to be a feature film producer but his only open door seemed to be in the arena of children's programing. After many years of successful productions, which slowly became more and more serious in content and style, he was finally given the go ahead for a full length feature film. "Doppelganger" was the result and it demonstrated his ability to turn out a solid piece of well written and tightly directed entertainment for the "big screen". The film would be purchased by Universal Pictures and later distributed in the U.S. under the new (and less imaginative) title "Journey to the far side of the Sun".
The Spacecraft
Two principal vehicles are featured in this film, the "Phoenix" interplanetary probe and the "Dove" single stage to orbit vehicle. Both these craft are already available to the European space agency "EUROSEC" when the story begins so we are left to assume that they are tested designs, built for previous operations. The Dove represents a type of craft which might be used by an agency which is only interested in getting a crew into space rather than the more ambitious goals of going to other planets. It only carries a crew of two and there is no visible area for transporting a separate payload. We could assume that there is a small payload transfer area immediately behind the cockpit, perhaps with enough room to sit up to 4 additional crew when the craft is being used as a space station transfer vehicle. That would be a logical mission for this type of craft but it is essentially useless for any other planetary operations because it requires a dense atmosphere to achieve controlled fight and landing.
This brings us to the Phoenix which transports the Dove to the new world in the film. The Phoenix is also shown to be a two man craft with a large bay in the rear for transporting oversize payloads. This design is far more versatile than the Dove, it is shown to be modular in construction (it has an escape tower which would be used to pull the manned capsule at the nose free of the vehicle in the event of pad-abort emergencies) and has a large bay which could be used to transport almost any payload desired. It also uses much more efficient nuclear rocket engines as its main propulsion. We could assume that Phoenix type craft are typically used for Lunar transfer operations in which they carry a small tail-landing vehicle for the final stage from orbit to the Lunar surface. With such large payload bays they could also transport oversize elements for the construction of orbiting habitats. In fact we might see Phoenix type craft used for a wide range of operations. The command capsule could also be changed with designs carrying a larger crew or additional specialized equipment as required.
The last element is not a vehicle per se, rather it's a heavy lift booster which is seen launching the Phoenix into Earth orbit. This monster would probably have twice the thrust and twice the payload (around 200,000 pounds+) of the earlier Saturn V. It would still use liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen fueled engines but would probably be about half again as big in diameter, if not more. The Saturn V would look sleek by comparison to this un-named brut. We don't see the engines at its base but we would be safe in assuming that it is a cluster configuration of at least six main engines if not more. Like the Saturn V it also appears to be a three stage booster design with the Phoenix mounted as a forth stage/payload.
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