Cutaway of the proposed Hermes mini space shuttle. Courtesy of European Space Agency.
https://i.redd.it/7g2d4twxfz2f1.jpeg
Cutaway of the proposed Hermes mini space shuttle. Courtesy of European Space Agency.
https://i.redd.it/7g2d4twxfz2f1.jpeg
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Neat! [Here’s a higher resolution cutaway you might enjoy, too.](https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2003/07/hermes_cutaway/10201534-2-eng-GB/Hermes_cutaway_pillars.jpg)
Just to be clear to everyone: this was proposed in **1975**, and was abandoned as a concept by 1992.
It had begun pre-development in 1988 and in 1990 began to fully develop with the first crewed flight expected in 2003 – but ESA wanted to better finance Ariane 5 plus it reached an agreement with the Russians to use the Soyuz, the Cold War was over and ESA did not see the need to have its own crewed spacecraft.
It had also been significantly redesigned after the Challenger tragedy, which significantly lowered its performance – more safety systems had been added to it, it had become heavier and more complex.
It’s crazy how close ESA came to having its own crewed spacecraft. The [ATV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle) was also human rated but was never used to transport people.
As someone that tried to build Hermes in KSP, you will actually see many different cutaway… because there are at least 2 revisions, if not more.
This is my version based on V1 of Hermes: [https://kerbalx.com/Jestersage/Talaria-+-Ariane-5](https://kerbalx.com/Jestersage/Talaria-+-Ariane-5)
As I wrote a long time ago:
>As for the Hermes, you will notice it has the airlock/dock in the mid-front position, instead of the rear docking port which most replicas use. The reason is that I actually want to replicate the Dassault 1985 draft, which has an unpressurized cargo bay. **What most people see with the rear docking port is a major revision that took place after the Challenger disaster,** which aside from halving the crew capacity down to 3 (so the front cockpit can be ejected during an abort), also made its cargo bay pressurized and not opened to the vacuum of space (how else can the crew go to the rear? There’s no magic teleport IRL), as well as having a disposable service module at the rear that contains the airlock/docking mechanism.
Read this: [http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_europeen/hermes/index.htm](http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_europeen/hermes/index.htm)
The then-planned alt design for KSP I had in mind is actually the [Kliper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliper), but then I was busy with work. It actually utilize the same “service module+rearward airlock” design the version 2 Hermes
I still have a Hermes sew-on patch, somewhere. One from Stewart Aviation.
Could have been.
But cash.
And big concern : “Humans in orbit ? What for ? Is there anything we need someone up there ?”.
They better have enough supplies for a trip to Mars, earth, Mars and back again
Didn’t the concept end its life as a proposed lifeboat for the ISS?