Space Ship Designer - 1

McCall documented the contemporary space program, but he also was called on as a visionary of future technology for various projects. When the Buck Rogers TV series was being developed, decades ago, they asked McCall for some space ship designs specifically for 25th century needs. He put some real thought into the designs, but I think for the most part they were ignored by the producers.

When I met with McCall, I asked him if, when he designed the look of spacecraft, he made schematic blue-printish sort of drawings to lay out the various functions of the vehicle. He laughed and said no way, he would just improvise the painting as he went. But some of these drawings show that he leaned that way for certain projects.

Some of these spacecraft seem entirely believable. As humanity moves into the future of space travel, I hope engineers might look back to some of McCall's concepts and think, 'hmm, with a little work, this just might work.'