Leonora Christine scaled one in one thousand

This is the spaceship where it takes place the hard science fiction novel Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson. It is perhaps the longest lasting and most massive spacecraft of the entire science fiction. It was designed using SolidWorks 2018 with a sketch of the side of the ship that I cannot track where is originally from, and following some description from the story. The model was designed in four scales: 1:500 ; 1:600 ; 1:1000 ; 1:3000 . The first three scales are divide in ten parts, while the last and smaller one is divided into four parts.

The file's names explained: name_1_x_10_y.stl is 1 : x * 10y. So _1_6_10_7 is 1:600000000 or one in 60 million.


Parts of the model

The size of Leonora Christine
Although you can get a good idea of the shape of spaceship with the description in the book, the author never gave a solid clue about it size. At first I compared with other Bussard ramjet based spacecraft, and I calculated a 2000 m length for the Leonora Christina. However this raise a problem: a spaceship of this size must be craft in orbit, most likely in a low Earth orbit, which maximal height is 2000 km. In the book the main characters see the ship orbiting from Earth's surface as a "small star"; an object of that size, orbiting that close, would be more resoluble than a simple point. The naked eye can resolve as low as 1 minute of arc so, I took this info to calculate a max size of 580 m. On the other hand, the tip of the spacecraft would not be as visible as the rest of it; so to approximate an "effective diameter" of the light reflected by the ship I "blured" an image of the model side view until I had an ellipsoidal spot. This blur spot is about 75% the original length, so the new calculated length about 770 m. Anyway this is a max size, but I think it is a good estimate, because the habitable part is 50 m diameter in its wider section, comfortable enough for 50 people.

The Leonora Christine with its simulated light reflected.


I spend part of my time making these models, letting them available and free for everyone. If you want to support my work, you can contribute with me here:

Other astronomical objects



Object


Scale [1:x]
K = 103 (thousand)M = 106 (million)G = 109 (billion)


Image




Inner Solar System



Mercury
20M, 60M,
120M



Venus
60M,
120M,
250M



Earth
60M,
120M,
250M



Luna
10M, 20M,
60M



Mars
20M, 60M,
120M



Phobos and Deimos
200K,
500K




Artificial



Salyut 7
40, 48, 80, 160




Near Earth Asteroids



Moshup and Squannit
8K,
20K,
40K



Ra-Shalom
20K,
40K



Castalia
8K,
20K,
40K



Bacchus
8K,
20K



Bennu
3K,
8K



Ryugu
3K, 8K,
20K



Geographos
40K,
80K



Phaethon
40K,
80K



Itokawa
3K,
8K



Eros
80K, 200K,
500K



Nereus
3K,
8K



Mithra
20K,
40K



Golevka
8K



Toutatis
40K,
80K




Main Asteroid Belt




Gaspra
200K



Annefrank
40K,
80K



Braille
20K,
40K



Vesta
2M, 4M,
10M



Šteins
40K,
80K,
200K



Iris
2M,
4M



Hebe
1M,
2M,
4M



Lutetia
500K, 1M,
2M



Julia
1M,
2M,
4M



Mathilde
500K,
1M



Juno
2M,
4M



Ceres
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