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Scott P. Sullivan Book: Virtual LM: A Pictorial Essay of the Engineering and Construction of the Apollo Lunar Module
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After serving a tour in the United States Marine Corps, Scott decided to pursue an education in the field of engineering. In 1986 Scott received his Associates Degree in Mechanical Design and Engineering Technology from ITT Technical Institute in Phoenix. He worked for various companies such as McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company, Intel, and Honeywell as a technical illustrator, drafter, and mechanical designer. In 1993 Scott wrote and illustrated a nationally distributed comic book entitled The Bad Penny. He created the comic book art using a CAD program designed for architectural drafting called AutoCAD. Scott was also running his own business creating patent drawings for various companies and law firms, creating all of Rayovac's patent art for a two-year period. |
Scott moved on to product design in the engineering consulting industry, where one of the high points was getting to go to Warner Brothers studios and set up several sets of futuristic looking office furniture his company had designed to be used on one of the key sets of the motion picture A.I. directed by Steven Spielberg.
Scott had always has a fascination with America’s manned spacecraft program, and when he was a child he watched nearly all the live Apollo launches from his parent’s home in Phoenix Arizona.
Scott was particularly interested in the mechanics of the spacecraft and no matter how many documentaries he watched or books he read, he was always left with countless unanswered questions. Scott started his own research project to learn as much as he possibly could about these amazing machines that took man to the stars. Part of Scott’s project would entail reverse engineering the entire Apollo Command and Service Modules as a way to intimately learn every aspect of the spacecraft from a virtual perspective. The project quickly took on a life of its own and what evolved from it was the book Virtual Apollo.
Having finished Virtual Apollo in February of 2003, the natural progression was of course the Lunar Module which soon followed as Virtual LM in October of 2004.
The CAD models that Scott created for the two books were so accurate, that NASA, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin all purchased copies of them for their research in the “Back to The Moon” project currently underway.
Scott was also called on from Hollywood to assist in recreating the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon for a scene in the film “Hancock” starring Will Smith. After producing 102 pages of build to print drawings suitable for constructing a full scale set of the landing site, the scene was unfortunately cut from the film.
Scott currently lives with his wife Claudette in Cave Creek, Arizona and is employed as a Mechanical Design Engineer
