![]() ![]() Fisher also rigged cryobeds in which the astronauts undergo long trips in stasis, as well as hydraulic seats that rotated 360 degrees. They were then waterproofed with an extra hard coat of fiberglass-a necessity given what Nolan had in mind for them. Scott Fisher and his special effects crew then engineered hydraulic landing gear and airlock doors into the hulls of both ships. Crowley gathered a team of highly skilled artists to hand-sculpt from steel and polystyrene a 46-foot-long Ranger and a 50-foot-long Lander. Once the designs had been tested in 3D visualizations and their interlocking details were carefully engineered, the next step was fabrication. Connected through a system of airlocks and a curved continuous floor, each of the ship’s 12 capsules serves a purpose in the overall mission-four engine pods, four permanent pods containing the living quarters, cockpit, cryogenics and medical lab, and four landing pods to be decamped on a planet’s surface. The Endurance ring module emerged as a great segmented wheel, with a central hub, that would spin at a rate of five times per minute to generate 1G gravity through centripetal force. ![]() “I brought in some acrylic blocks, which we combined in different ways until ultimately laying out a geometric shape that formed a ring out of 12 pods,” Crowley says. The Ranger and Lander were both designed to fit snugly into the Endurance’s ring module mothership: a multi-faceted design challenge Crowley and Nolan cracked using low-tech methods. So the seats had to rotate 360 degrees for the astronauts, and the cockpit is cramped and front-heavy to make room for the cargo.” “It’s a workhorse designed to carry cargo out of the Endurance and deposit it on a planet’s surface, which it does upside down. “If the Ranger is a German racecar that can zip down to a planet and back, the Lander is a heavy Russian airlift cargo chopper,” Crowley describes. Next came the Lander, a large, angular behemoth built for strength not speed. To refine the model generated by the 3D printer, Crowley brought in a team of sculptors to carve out further detail in its undercarriage, landing gear, engine, airlocks and other necessities without compromising its sleek, curved silhouette. The Ranger-the fast-moving shuttle of the Endurance-was the first shape to emerge. “We both grew up with NASA and know the excitement of a rocket launch, so we were after something that would feel new and somewhat advanced, but familiar and relatable,” says Crowley. Nolan and Crowley began the process of designing the film’s trio of aircraft-the Ranger, the Lander, and the Endurance-by embarking on a research expedition through the past, present and future of aerospace, which took them through hours of IMAX documentaries on the International Space Station (ISS), a tour through entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX facility and Dragon spacecraft, and a walk in the shadow of the Space Shuttle Endeavor, now retired to the California Science Center.
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