<![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @oldandintheway: You're clearly reading the wrong blog, dude.

Sharpless

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I loved Salvage 1. When I heard about Google sponsoring the prize for a commercial trip to the moon, Andy Griffith was all I could think about.

Pouncer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Holy crap, I had forgotten about Rickety Rockett.

The Thunder Road IS named for the Bruce Springsteen song, the Third Kid (TM) said it in the movie.

Marcus

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Skunky: you might be old enough to know, that most of those weren't parody's like Spaceballs was. To me that disqualifies the winnebago.

I vaguely remember salvage 1. I had no idea that was andy griffith in it though.

trekkie

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I remember watching Starblazers as a kid and loving it. As I got older I suspected it might have had a subtle political message. The Earth is being nuked with "Planet Bombs" The only solution is to resurrect the Japanese navys super battleship and turn it into a Spaceship/Battleship/Carrier to save humanity from the radioactivity. Like I said it's very subtle.

rcreveli

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I'm pretty sure Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo" was built from junk.

antipaganda

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I'm not sure if this would really count, but what about "Red Planet?" Old Soviet-made mars probe gets stripped down, powered up with a futuristic power cell from a crazed robot and flown into orbit like an escape pod. Pretty good use of junk.... just like reusing Sojourner as a walkie-talkie :)

comp_wiz101

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I think ALL of you people have WAAAAAAAAAYYYY..too much time on your hands.......

oldandintheway

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @stray: I don't think that was actually constructed from junk, in the show's continuity, such as it is. It was built by the Gizmonic Institute.

I know, it's just a show and I should really just relax.

Sharpless

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> You forgot "Outerscope 1," a show that terrified me as a small child. (The homemade spaceship ran on yeast.)

lightninglouie

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> OMG, I can't believe I forgot about the rocket from Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man."

I must be slipping.

nygenxer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> "Spaceman Spiff" is the MacGyver of sci fi: Calvin converted his cardboard spaceship into both a transmogrifier and a time machine using only a magic marker!

Let's see Kaylee or Scotty or Q pull THAT one off.

nygenxer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Of course, the SDF-1 ("Robotech") is clearly the Rocky Balboa of decrepit ships made functional.

nygenxer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> The Draconians upgraded Buck Rogers' dead space shuttle was upgraded after it was defrosted.

Likewise, in "Red Dwarf" Starbug 1 was upgraded by rogue symbionts.

Oh, and Dr. Who's Tardis is another rescue from the junk heap.

And so was the spaceship from the first book of "Mission Earth."

Wow. Looks like I should've taken Shatner's advice a bit more seriously.

nygenxer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Serenity was rescued from a junk yard.

In Futurama, The Awesome Express Ship made from a wagon ("There's a crack in the hull here. That could cause explosive decompression." "Put a sticker on it.") [Also, The Planet Express Ship & the ship pwned by the Enterprise crew.]

In the old Battlestar Galactica, a viper & a cylon ship is hacked together to save a pregnant woman, marooning Starbuck. (Yeah, not the best episode.)

Would anything from the Transformers planet Junkion count?

In "The Doomsday Device" (classic Trek), Scotty makes a useless hulk workable enough to draw fire away from the Enterprise...

Say, I wonder why I spent Valentine's Day with my cats.

nygenxer

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> There was a kids show called Alphabet Soup, a sort of super-urban version of Sesame Street, that had a recurring sketch about some kids and a ventriloquist dummy flying through space and time in a rocket made of garbage, if I am remembering correctly.

AstroZombie

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> i'm sorry but we will have to censor the comment by avatar posthaus, we do not acknowledge the existance of harry pooter on this site.-blurey

blurey

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Garrison Dean:

The aliens revealed were a little weird watching it as a kid- and it felt even more aawkward when you find out they were only kids themselves. Now they feel a bit anti-climatic, but I don't think it spoils the picture.

"Flight of the Navigator" is another great example too, although it suffers a bit compared to "Explorers" because it does feel a little dated at times and it's defeintely skewed toward a younger audience (when they aren't talking the math and science.) But it's something I'd probably show to my kids [some day] well before I'd show Harry Potter.

Maybe it's just me, but films in that time had a bit more innocence, even when they delved into more serious subject matter.

Posthaus

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> What, no Satellite of Love from "Mystery Science Theater 3000"?

stray

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @dantebays: @SeattleVlad: Yeah I thought Thunder Road was from the Boss song.

Grrsn Dn

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Actually, the John Varley book is "Red Thunder" and so is the ship. They built it out of railroad tank cars.

SeattleVlad

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> The Blackbird from BSG.

bukdogg

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Posthaus: Yeah it really does age well. Everything leadng up to the actual reveal of the alien is as good as it gets in sci-fi, childrens movie or not. Even as a kid I didn't mind the alien, but always felt it paled in comparison to the mystery and wonder that led up to it.

"Flight of the Navigator" was another good one, but still a bit more kids movie than this. They dealt with real Sci-Fi Nut meat... Math, physics, time travel, now kids are all magic.

Grrsn Dn

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> The original Millenium Falcon design model was made using junk the guys at ILM found around the shop and in their garages at home. Supposedly there's a bunch of hood ornaments on it and a hubcap.

Ok, not technically what you were looking for, but it meets the spirit of the article. :P

I never knew so many big names were in Explorers, I'm going to have to rewatch that.

Chiper

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> In a terrific short, A Grand Day Out, Wallace and Gromit build a spaceship out of wood and sheet metal and deck out the bridge to look like a living room. Why? To travel to the moon for a snack. After all, the moon is made of Wallace's favorite thing...cheese!

drift_marlo

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> And while we're making suggestions, would Farscape-1 technically count?

All it was before Moya was a rocket-powered experimental lifting-body. But it was eventually outfitted with Leviathan sourced tech for propulsion and controls. (What exactly was never fully explained, I suppose it basically used components from a transport pod, since it was alluded they and Leviathan's were materially similar.)

And BSG's Blackbird?- which was basically bits from dead Viper's and engines of civilian origin under a new spaceframe and skin.

Posthaus

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> The Thunder Road is from a John Varley novel of the same name.

dantebays

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Garrison Dean: "Explorers is a great movie made in a lost art of great childrens movies with high concepts and respect for the audience."

I don't think I could have said that better. It has also has aged pretty well.. unlike a lot of 80's Sci-fi.

Posthaus

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Wow Salvage 1 was real? I always thought it was a fever dream from my youth.

Pwnieboy

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> The Delta Flyer from Star Trek: Voyager was made out of spare parts, and the episode 'Drive' from season 7 shows how it was the Mach 5 car of the space lanes.

iomegaman5

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @CargoCult: I remember seeing pics of Skylab as a kid (I was born the year it was retired) and wondering why they would put a helicopter in space...

Skunky

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Git Em SteveDave: Titan AE...let us never speak of it again.

goldfarb

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Skylab.

Originally intended as a Saturn V 'wet workshop' fuel tank, with mesh floors and other fittings for use by astronauts once the fuel had been burned and the tank refilled with a breathable atmosphere - the underlying rocket (itself left over from the Apollo moon programme) proved sufficiently powerful to launch this repurposed fuel tank directly into space, with no fuel inside.

Still, this space station's sun-shield and one of its large solar panels got damaged on launch, requiring extensive repair work and a big, reflective sheet strapping to its exterior.

Big, orbiting hunk o' junk - and it was real!

CargoCult

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> MADBALLS!?! You guys are good.

Explorers is a great movie made in a lost art of great childrens movies with high concepts and respect for the audience.

oh, and my favorite Repurposed Spaceship...
[www.negrospaceprogram.com]

Grrsn Dn

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @NefariousNewt: Deslock still ranks as one of my all-time favorite villains.

augie1

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> What about that one from that movie with the voice of Drew Barrymore in it?

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy->★

]]> ★]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> I love Explorers.

I have nothing else to add.

extracrispy

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> You forgot the phonex from "Star Trek: First Contact." The first faster than light ship was made out of an old missle.

bluelola

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> V'GER from Star Trek: The Motion Picture

goldfarb

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> @Skunky: Oh shoot. I knew I was forgetting something....

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> What? No mention of the Winnebago from Spaceballs?

Skunky

]]> <![CDATA[The Greatest Spaceships Made From Scrap]]> Spacecruiser Yamato was the show that brought me to anime. I even have a book of original animation cels. I thought the idea was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And that main gun! Damned cool!

NefariousNewt

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