Boeing Space Operations Center

[Triton]

Metal model of the Boeing Space Operations Center in the hands of private collector Jerry Brouillette. Source CollectSpace.
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000361.html

 

[Triton]

Text by Marcus Lindroos of the late Space pages.

The Space Operations Center was proposed by NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Center in 1979. Like most other space station studies from the mid/late 1970s its primary mission was the assembly and servicing of large spacecraft in Earth orbit -- not science.

NASA/JSC signed a contract with Boeing in 1980 to further develop the design. [Second image] illustration is from 1981. Like most NASA space station plans, SOC would be assembled in orbit from modules launched on the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle depicted here delivers a resupply module for the SOC crew; the tour of duty would have been 90 days.

[Third image] Closeup of the SOC pressurized crew modules. The box like structure (top) contains a space tug for missions to geostationary orbit. NASA originally estimated the total cost to be $2.7 billion, but the estimated cost had increased to $4.7 billion by 1981. SOC would have been operational by 1990.

[Fourth image] Boeing’s Space Operations Center habitation module.

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Text by Marcus Lindroos of the late Space pages.

Marcus' material on the Boeing space station concept is available at http://sites.google.com/site/spaceodysseytwo/Home/space-stations-and-manned-spaceflight-in-the-1980s-and-90s.