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1974 Japanese Sci-Fi image of a Space Tug by Shigeru Komatsuzaki. Whilst it looks aggressive and attacking, it appears to be a rescue vehicle.

Space Tugs by Sokolov and Leonov c1965.

A depiction of an Unmanned Orbital Free-Flyer, similar to the 1982-4 Telepresence Servicer Unit (TSU) concept. Image source: projectrho.com

Detail: Image source: projectrho.com

Artwork by Don Davis for “Icarus Descending” (1973). In the story the tug is delivering a large nuclear device (helpfully labled “DANGER”) in order to divert the asteroid Icarus from a collision with Terra.

Space pod from the anime Macross. Image source: projectrho.com

United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol cruiser from the TV series Quark, 1977.

Image by Robert McCall.

Space 5, Sci-fi anthology by Richard Davis, 1979.

Image similar to 1958 Lockheed Astrotug.

Image from some NASA document.

The manipulator arms are just grapplers in this concept. Image from Getty Images.

A Lunar lander, probably in a lunar orbit, using an extendible arm to transfer a disable astronaut in space. Concept by Grumman.

Manned Space pods similar to the 1978 Manned Remote Work Station (MRWS) by Grumman.

One-man rocket propulsion device with manipulator arms to hold cargo. From the youth nonfiction 1961 book, “What Does An Astronaut Do?” by Robert Wells.

Pilgrim-1 is a model kit. Pictured is the One-Man EVA craft (OMEVAC), also called Astrotug or “Little Toot”. Image source: via projectrho.com

Illustration from the children’s book “Space Flight The Coming Exploration of the Universe”, published by Golden Press, New York, 1959.

1957 Lion Annual cover. Now that’s a Space Robot.

See other early Space Teleoperators here.

See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.

Illustrations from the book “Travel To Distant Worlds” written by Karl Gilzen. The illustrations are dated 1955 and are by Nikolay Kolchitsky (Николай Кольчицкий) .  The Space Tugs are manned and have what appears to be simple mechanical arms.

The covers to both the Soviet version and the English version of the book.

Another similar illustration by the same artist, again of a space station being assembled using space tugs with mechanical arms. Magazine is the Soviet youth-oriented magazines “Tekhnika Molodezhi” dated 1955.

See other early Space Teleoperators here.

See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.

Space Tug – 1949

The above image from a 2010 calendar with Bürgle's illustrations. I don't know if the Space Station illustration was previously published and if so, where? The caption suggests it was unpublished at the time.

The Space Tugs are being used to hold and manoeuvre large panels during construction.

Klaus Bürgle – Image by Tommy Laeng.

The graphic artist Klaus Bürgle created in the fifties and sixties of the last century a rich imagery of the future. The exploration of space was certainly his favorite subject, but many of his images also show futuristic cities and transportation.

Bürgle was born in 1926 in Stuttgart, where he attended from 1948 to 1951, the State Academy of Fine Arts. He was educated by professors Rössing and Schneider. After a year working in a graphic studio he became independent in 1953.

His technical interests soon meant that Bürgle is specialized in technical and scientific subjects and created for a variety of popular science books and magazines cover images and interior illustrations. He also worked for scientific television series.

Bürgle's 2010 Calendar cover.

Notes: The concept of a man inside a space capsule using manipulator arms largely came into being as a result of the logistics of getting man to the moon and beyond. The Space Station idea was conceived by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the early 20th century and then by Hermann Oberth about two decades later. In 1929 Herman Potočnik's The Problem of Space Travel was published, the first to envision a "rotating wheel" space station to create artificial gravity. But how to build a space station? Wernher von Braun was possibly, and probably the first to fully articulate the approach. When Walt Disney wanted to make his Space films (1954), von Braun was his consultant, and von Braun's ideas on construction were visualised in the form of a "bottle suit" with arms.  Von Braun was thinking about space stations in 1952, possibly earlier. I have not read or heard of Tsiolkovsky, Oberth or Potočnik mentioning space tugs or the like.  The earliest idea I've found to date is the illustrator Klaus Bugle, who, in 1949, produced some illustrations on space station construction and showed space tugs with manipulator arms. Was he illustrating von Braun's ideas, or are these his own?

More Bürgle illustrations of interest.

A depiction of unmanned moon crawlers originally for the Surveyor program. The crawler on the right-hand side is actually the Sperry luna crawler.

Above image from Hobby magazine no.3 1962.

See other early Space Teleoperators here.

See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.

American space tug. Study 1971. The original Boeing Space Tug design of the early 1970's was sized to be flown either in a single shuttle mission or as a Saturn V payload. Optimum mass was found to be 20.6 metric tons regardless.

The Tug could be outfitted with a variety of kits to serve in many roles, including as a manned lunar lander. Aerobraking for recovery in low earth orbit was considered for further study, but the baseline used RL10 engines to brake into earth orbit for refurbishment and refueling at a space station. All further work was cancelled by NASA in 1972, but resurrected as the aerobraking Orbital Transfer Vehicle in the 1980's.

Space Tug Systems had to be compatible for both utilization as (1) upper stages and payload components for the Saturn V vehicle and its derivatives and (2) as upper stages and payload components for the Earth-to-Orbit Shuttle (EOS). Primary applications for the Space Tug/Saturn V Systems would be for transportation of large payloads to lunar orbit and interplanetary missions. The Space Tug systems would be utilized as payload components for the above missions when used in conjunction with the nuclear shuttle. The majority of the Space Tug missions would, however, be in conjunction with the EOS. The baseline EOS considered for selection of the compatible Space Tug inventory was one with a 4.57 m diameter by 18.29 m long cargo bay. The maximum capability of this baseline EOS was specified as 24,500 kg to a 28 deg 185 km circular earth orbit. Later EOS design criteria, however, established the EOS capability to the 185 km. 28-1/2 deg inclination orbit at 29,500 kg. This larger EOS would allow utilization of a larger Tug propulsion module. The study had shown that the desirability of a larger propulsion module was generally questionable unless the size could be increased to on the order of 40,900 kg. However, if the aerobraking mode was proven feasible, this larger EOS capability could allow either placement or retrieval of 4500 kg of payload to or from geosynchronous orbit with a single EOS launch.

Considering the overall mission requirements and the required compatibility of the Space Tug with the other elements of the Space Transportation System, an inventory of Space Tug elements was selected. This inventory could accomplish, when assembled into the proper configurations, the overall mission spectrum. The selected Tug inventory consisted of the following components:

• Primary propulsion modules with a 18,000 kg propellant capacity (designed for earth orbit missions).
• Expendable drop tanks with 18,000 kg propellant capacity.
• Secondary propulsion modules with a 7,600 kg propellant capacity (designed for earth orbit missions).
• Astrionics modules (designed for earth orbit missions).
• All purpose crew modules (outfitted as required for the various missions).
• Cargo modules which use the shell of the all-purpose crew module.
• Doughnut cargo modules (to carry experiments for the manned lunar landing missions).
• Kits as follows:
  • Payload retrieval and placement adapters
  • A manipulator arm kit.
  • Staging adapters and separation mechanisms.
  • Clustering adapters (to provide for clustering of propulsion modules).
  • Plug-in astrionics for specific mission requirements.
  • Insulation and micrometeoroid kits (for increasing the thermal and micrometeoroid protection of the primary propulsion modules for the extended time of lunar landing missions}.
  • Reaction Control System Booster Kit (to increase the reaction control system thrust for the lunar landing mode}.
  • A landing leg kit (for lunar landing).
  • Radar kit for lunar landing.
  • Auxiliary power supply kit (for lunar surface operations. )

Source: here.

Diagram of the Boeing Space Tug Crew Module (CM). Credit: Boeing

Above 2 images by Mark Wade.

OTV Turtle 2
Space Tug. This illustration (from 1984) depicts a manned space tug [Ed:using the 1971 Boeing design] returning to a space station from geostationary or lunar orbit. The vehicle passes through the Earth's atmosphere to slow down; its aeroshell is heated to thousands of degrees by kinetic friction. The small cylinder is the crew module. You can see the manipulator arms mounted on top.
Credit: NASA

See a similar 1970 Space Tug concept here.

See other early Space Teleoperators here.

See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.

Re-useable Space Tug Concept Report dated 1970

Manipulator Kit only for manned space tug.

The initial operational capability (IOC) date for the unmanned earth-orbit tug was Jan 1980,
the manned earth-orbit tug for December 1980 (includes Manipulator Kit), and the manned lunar tug for April 1983.

The Space Tug is modular in design.

Space Tug – Earth Orbit Applications Managed by Marshall Space Flight Center, the Space Tug concept was intended to be a reusable multipurpose space vehicle designed to transport payloads to different orbital inclinations. Utilizing mission-specific combinations of its three primary modules (crew, propulsion, and cargo) and a variety of supplementary kits, the Space Tug was capable of numerous space applications. This 1970 artist's concept represents a typical configuration required to conduct operations and tasks in Earth orbit. The Space Tug program was cancelled and did not become a reality.

Above images sourced from here.

Note: It has been suggested by others that the artists concept here (above) is of a Boeing design. I have not seen actual proof of that as yet.

MSFC is Marshall Space Flight Center.

See other early Space Teleoperators here.

See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.