Parts is Parts
I dug into the Strang Institute’s files from early on in the Ellie on Planet X Program. Here’s a diagram of Ellie’s parts and pieces. You’ll notice she looks a little different here – that’s because this drawing was done before her design was finalized by the Institute’s engineers. So if you were wondering where her Thermal Emission Spectrometer was, now you know!
Man, I just love these illustrations, Jim! Fantastic. As usual your use of color is just spot on. Keep em coming!
Amazing!
I detect a design flaw, solar panel skirting, while cute, would be shadowed more often than not, whereas a solar panel cape would offer comedic positioning possibilities.
“skiritng” LOL
Also, there are people who would’ve killed to have a CPU like that in their hands in the 70’s
Lastly, I always imagined Ellie to be… smaller. More like an 8-year-old
@RJFerret: As I always say, if its gender is uncertain, put a skirt on it! Plus, because the skirt goes all around, there will always be at least one part out of shadow. (and yes, there are satellites that use this logic)
So freakin neat!
Thanks everyone! I really have fun doing this kind of thing and hope to include more.
@ RJFerret: I wish I had thought of the solar panel cape! What an awesome idea. I think that Ellie’s panels were made particularly efficient though. I’m not an engineer, but those scientists really knew what they were doing.
@ Frank: You would not believe some of the stuff they came up with over the years here at the Institute. I’ve said too much already!
I never measured her height, but Ellie’s somewhere in the vicinity of three feet tall. And I was surprised at how tall an eight year old is, not having kids myself. One of my co-workers here at Mission Control has a seven year old daughter that’s nearly four feet tall!
Wait, does that mean her original designers (her mother and father, if you will) were dwarves?
I think that’s exactly what it means.
Note that her Titanium Alloy Shell has been lifted up – her actual top when assembled should be closer to the level of the top of the visible CPU. Note also that there is some effect of perspective since she is closer to the viewer. Based on that, and given her height at the top of the Titanium Alloy Shell as about 3ft, I would say that “Dad” is a little bit over 5 feet. A short fellow, but hardly a dwarf. “Mom”, I think, appears to be squatting down to more closely examine the CPU, so it is difficult to estimate her standing height, but probably similar to that of “Dad” and therefore also not a dwarf. Just sayin’.