America’s Lost Space Program What the real 2001: A Space Odyssey might have looked like. Built using blue-print references, the Convair Super Nexus LV.3. As an added touch of realism I’ve given the vehicle a Saturn-V style paint job and markings. The Super Nexus is arguably the largest booster ever to receive serious consideration. Standing 600 feet tall Super Nexus was capable of a direct-launch delivery of 1 million pound payloads to the lunar surface – other missions included space-station construction and support operations and interplanetary mission payload launch. First stage consisted of 20 thruster segments arranged around a truncated-plug -- forming a single massive segmented engine. Nuclear Lunar Transfer Stage consisted of 2 6 million pound Gas-Core (Open Cycle) Nuclear Thermal Rockets. A design variant with a chemical second stage would loft a staggering 2 million LBS to LEO. In a typical mission scenario the vehicle would launch from the Earth’s surface, park itself in a temporary Earth orbit, boost itself to the moon, park itself in a 20-mile altitude lunar orbit, then de-orbit to an altitude of 2000 feet, where it would hover. The payload would then separate and land itself; the Lunar-Transfer stage would then boost itself back to Earth and put itself in Earth orbit.