Mars Vehicle

1964

In March 1964 the Soviet magazine Around the World (Вокруг света) published an item under the heading “Martian” Technology:

The age of space flight excites the engineer's imagination. A Moscow university student, A. Bankovsky, chose a rather unusual topic for his graduation project: he drew up a blueprint for a “Martian” helicopter.

This piece of “Martian” technology is intended to serve as a link between teams of scientists and a base on Mars for reconnaissance, photographing the terrain, and transporting cumbersome freight.

Today it seems amazing that people back in the 1960s believed that humans were on the verge of inhabiting other planets and that “apple trees will be growing on Mars,” a line from a song popular at the time. A. Bankovsky seems to have been convinced that any day research teams would be taking up residence on the red planet, and that the whole enterprise would be large enough to require the handling of “cumbersome freight.” It would be interesting to have a contemporary aerospace engineer take a look at this blueprint – how would it appear from today's perspective? And what did our young student grow up to become?

The internet informs us that there are Bankovskys all over the globe, some working in high tech. Did our wide-eyed visionary wind up leaving the land of his birth and putting his creativity to the service of other countries? That would certainly be Russia's loss.