Crewed Mars Mission on Philip Bono's Mars Glider

In the year 1960, Philip Bono, a highly specialized Space Vehicle Design Specialist affiliated with the Boeing Airplane Company, formulated a conceptualization of a pioneering manned spacecraft intended for Mars. The outward visage of this spacecraft was fashioned in a manner which exhibited similarities to the X-20A Dyna-Soar single-seat orbital glider concurrently under development at his organization on behalf of the United States Air Force. However, Bono's cerebral rendition of the Mars glider embodied noteworthy dimensional dissimilarities when compared to the Dyna-Soar -- namely, it was of an enormity that was capable of accommodating an eight-man "expeditionary force," and nearly 40 tons of supplies and equipment. The prodigious Mars glider boasted a flat-bellied physique that spanned a monumental 125 feet in length, and an impressive 95 feet across its delta wings.

The Mars glider, once fully assembled and loaded with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, stood at a towering height of 248 feet, weighing in at an impressive 4150 tons. This colossal spacecraft was encompassed by six elongated outboard booster rockets, designed to enshroud and conceal the short booster, living module/rocket stage, and the majority of the aft portion of the glider.

Bono's original vision of the Mars glider was equipped with scientific instruments that would enable it to scrutinize the Red Planet's surface and atmosphere. This glider would harness the power of its wings to generate lift, and it would have been controlled remotely from the mother ship. The spacecraft would have been launched from a mother ship which was stationed in orbit around Mars.

Even though the Mars Glider concept never came to complete fruition nor was it ever launched, it nevertheless played a consequential role in the technological advancements of other Mars exploration technologies. Additionally, this epoch-making conceptualization inspired a plethora of forthcoming space exploration concepts.

[stuartyoung]

😍Beautiful work, as always!
I never previously knew about this concept. Since it wasn't until July 14-15, 1965, when Mariner 4 completed its flyby reconnaissance of Mars, that we discovered that Mars has 1-100th of the atmospheric density of Earth, Mr. Bono can be forgiven for selecting a glider configuration for his crewed Mars lander. (Earlier crewed Mars mission architectures made the same assumptions - notably Wernher von Braun's "Marsprojekt", and the lifting-body design of Aeronutronic, a defense related division of Ford Aerospace).

[jstrotha]

I never heard of this concept before. Beautiful as always, keep up the good work.

[lloydbush]

With that music at the beginning I half expected to hear: "Hello, I'm Michael Anis and this is Episode 266: Apollo 13 – “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” – Part 1..." It just gets me in the right mood.

[AnneSmile-cvyl]

Thank you Bravo congratulations more amazing missions, breathtaking with tears. Thank you once again

[RedHopt]

i got so many rabbit holes going into deeper rabbit holes, i don't know where i began anymore.

[russellharrell]

I remember spending hours looking at the mars mission article in my World Book. Part of that mission profile was extending a boom from the landing craft and spinning the entire craft for gravity during the cruise phase. The video shows a more updated architecture with a reusable nuclear booster?

It’s a joy to see something from my childhood imagination rendered in an awesome animation

[kspencerian]

Gorgeous use of actual Mars renderings and images. The view during descent over Tharsis was very Kubrick-style. I recognize the landing site; it appears to be Curiosity's home, Gale Crater, as the backdrop of Mt. Sharp is my computer desktop background. Phil Bono would be proud of this.

[OuterSpaceChannel_sub]

This video is absolutely mind-blowing! The universe is even more fascinating than I imagined. 🌌

[ajds]

Stunningly gorgeous. Movie quality - I was transfixed.

[doltsbane]

Kind of reminds me of the ship from the movie "Conquest of Space". So many unrealized ideas for winged spaceflight. Another interesting space plane concept was the caret wing waverider that Terence Nonweiler proposed back in the 1950s.

[robertevans]

Great job....that would be a sight to behold on launch day...maybe about 30 miles away, want to keep my hearing....

[sandym]

Greatly enjoying these CGs of past space explortion ideas

[randycampbell]

Well I guessed right :) And as always an awesome rendition of a plausible mission

[Sir_Uncle_Ned]

I’m impressed by how well everything is thought out. Atmosphere too thin to slow down enough? Pop a chute to get the drag you need! No runway? No problem, just land vertically! Don’t want to drag the now dead weight of empty fuel tanks and useless engines? Just cut the glider in half!

[jonasgabrielsilva]

Aerospike SRBs + Aerospike Stages + shuttle mk2 = my 1st duna mission

[chialeux]

Extra credit for showing the craft pointed backwards during Orbital Insertion.
So many movies and videos show spacecraft still pointing forwards with thrusters on - as if they wanted to crash into the planet.

[scottncy]

It's always a good day when I see a new Hazegrayart video.

[julesjackson]

I like how this shows Mars’ atmosphere as blue, not orange, as it sometimes is not

[dl]

See a notice and drop whatever else I'm doing...as always incredible except it's all totally believable. Thanks and cheers.

[barcelonabcn]

This is a nice one, very intelligent by the way is done !...