NASA Nuclear Shuttle 3D model

The Nuclear Shuttle was one of several interrelated transportation elements described in NASA's Integrated Program Plan for the Space Transportation System. The IPP was NASA's grand plan for post-Apollo human spaceflight, featuring an array of reusable launch vehicles, spacecraft, orbital tugs, landers, and space stations, enabling a sustained human presence throughout the solar system. The Nuclear Shuttle itself was to be the primary means of transporting crew and heavy cargo beyond Earth orbit, including to lunar and Martian orbits.

Several versions of the Nuclear Shuttle were proposed by contractors, this model specifically is based on McDonnell Douglas's Class I Hybrid concept. It featured a large primary hydrogen tank, as well as a separate module with a smaller secondary hydrogen tank (which served to lengthen the column of fuel in between the nuclear reactor and the crew, reducing radiation exposure) and the NERVA nuclear-thermal rocket engine. The primary tank would be launched on a partially-reusable heavy-lift vehicle (with LEO payload capacity comparable to Saturn INT-21), the secondary tank/NERVA module would be delivered by a Space Shuttle orbiter and docked to it in orbit. The tug would be reusable for ten round trips between Earth and the moon before its nuclear power source was depleted

Model also includes a notional logistics module that the Nuclear Shuttle may have carried, analogous to the Multipurpose Logistics Module

Use of unapplied modifiers and instancing have been used to reduce model size and enable easy editing. All materials and textures are packed into the .blend file, and a zip file containing the needed image textures is also included