Own your own space museum

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, blather, Gah., history, Hmm..., models, news, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 162021
 

Difficulty: stuff’s in Finland.

I was directed to an online auction of space replicas. The first items were things like 1/72 scale Space Shuttles and 1/72 scale Saturn V’s and Atlases and Redstones… nice enough, but nothing out of the ordinary.

BUT THEN…

14. Apollo Lunar Module cockpit full-scale replica 1:1

And…

15. Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle full-scale replica 1:1

And…

16. Gemini spacecraft full-scale replica 1:1

And…

17. Space Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle full-scale replica 1:1 (front section)

And…

19. Mercury spacecraft full-scale replica 1:1

And…

27. Apollo Command Module Exterior replica 1:1

And not last and certainly not least:

21. Saturn V scale model 1:10

Gimme gimme gimme gimme…

Where would I put a 1/10 scale Saturn V if I had one? I have no friggen’ clue.

The auction appears to be a bankruptcy auction:

Online bankruptcy auction under the authority of trustee Mr. M.W. Schüller of Lexington Advocaten in Hoofddorp concerning the inventory originating from the bankruptcy of John Nurnimen Events B.V. at Schiphol. The goods are located in Finland.

“John Nurnimen Events” still has a functioning website, but was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands, so I’m a bit confounded as to what’s going on here. On one hand I’m saddened that such a  collection of awesomeness was apparently not a profitable enterprise; on the other hand… it’s Finland. I’m unclear that that would be the best place for such a thing. The specific website for the “NASA – A Human Adventure” traveling exhibition is offline, though it’s archived.

Opening bids on all these things are 100 Euro each. I have no idea what they’ll go for, though I imagine shipping costs could be a bit spendy.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 1:30 pm

Another project: early Convair lunar lander

 art, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

Recently finished, the CAD model for a 1/144 scale kit for Fantastic Plastic. This Convair idea utilized the same “landing boat” that Fantastic Plastic recently released in 1/48 scale. It’ll be a fairly simple kit. The design was illustrated in a number of renderings from the very late 1950’s/early 60’s, used often by or in conjunction with Krafft Ehricke as he tried to sell Americans on the future in space that they would soon have.

The vehicle had a landing boat at the top and a habitat module below it; below that is the stage with three RL-10 rocket engines, with six drop tanks around it. *Presumably,* the tanks, along with the landing gear, would be dropped shortly after launch from the Moon, with fuel in the main core providing not only the boost back to Earth but also a braking thrust to at least slow the ship, because I have *serious* doubts about that boat surviving a lunar re-entry.

 

 Posted by at 7:58 pm

Warp update

 art, models, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

It has been officially decided to go with 1/288 scale for the IXS Enterprise, making the model somewhat larger. Progress continues; the pylons have some more detail, the warp rings have been split into three inner segments, four outer segments, with a wall thickness of about an eighth inch and a hollow within, allowing lighting for those so ambitious.

 Posted by at 12:56 am

Going to Warp

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., models, news, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 102021
 

My first book contract had the due date for the manuscript in July, 2020. But guess what, a pandemic came along and shoved that back a full year. So I got a *second* contract, with a due date in January 2021. But guess what… pandemic pushed it to March. That book is *almost*  done, but I’ve taken a bit of a break from it to work feverishly on a completely different project: a CAD model of the “IXS Enterprise.” This is a notional spacecraft designed by artist Mark Rademaker to illustrate what a spacecraft based on an Alcubierre Warp Drive might look like; NASA has used various renderings of this vehicle quite often for that purpose.

The CAD model, which is being produced with the assistance and approval of Mr. Rademaker and Dr. Harold White of NASA, will be used to 3D print master parts for a 1/350 scale resin model kit to be released by Fantastic Plastic. As originally designed the IXS Enterprise had a length of 62.3 meters (which is being changed due to recent updates in the design) and the overall diameter is 41.3 meters. The model will thus be 17.8 cm/7 inches long by 11.8 cm/4.64 inches in diameter. This will put it in scale with the Polar Lights NCC-1701 Enterprise kit and the Moebius XD-1 USS Discovery kit, along with a whole bunch of ships.

UPDATE: there has been discussion about the scale of the model… chances are fair that it will get bumped up to 1/288 scale from 1/350. That would make it 8.5 inches long by 5.6 inches diameter.

The project to convert the  original CAD model into a printable kit is proceeding at a good pace.

 Posted by at 2:18 am

Now Available: 1/48 Convair Landing Boat

 aircraft, art, history, models, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 032021
 

A model I CADded up last year for Fantastic Plastic is coming along in the process. This was a design that was constantly flacked by Krafft Ehricke of Convair back in the late 1950’s, included in everything from small Atlas-derived space stations on up to lunar landers. The references for it showed the design wandering all over the place in terms of shape and dimensions; whether this was due to the design constantly changing or – as seems more likely – artistic license is not entirely clear. Evidence suggests that the design was improved and evolved to become the “landing boat” for the larger Project Orion vehicles designed int he very early 1960’s by General Atomic. GA was a division of General Dynamics, and there was some crosstalk about various aspects.

Convair Space Station Lifeboat

The model is not yet now available for sale, but will be soon. It will be a pretty straightforward kit in 1/48 scale.

 Posted by at 9:46 pm

XB-46 photos & early F-111 concept

 aircraft, history, models, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Jan 102021
 

A few seemingly random (because they are) photos. First: a display model of an early General Dynamics concept for what would become the F-111.

And then… two photos of the Convair XB-46 in flight.

 

 

I’ve uploaded the full-rez versions of these to the APR Dropbox, into the 2021-01 APR Extras folder. This is available to any APR Patron or Subscriber at the $4 level and above.

 Posted by at 12:17 am

I watch it for the plot

 art, Hmm..., models, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 292020
 

As I’ve made mention numerous times over the years, I am – or at least was, back when I had the time – a builder of models. As such, I watched a lot of YouTube model building videos to pick up new skills, new ways of casting parts, new ways to paint details. A lot of the videos are pretty redundant of course… you can only watch so many vids on the dot filter process using oil paints, for example. Yet there are always new things to see. It’s good to sometimes step outside your own niche. Me, I’d build mostly airplane models, spacecraft, some sci-fi and, long ago, armor. Japanese anime characters? Giant fighting robot mechs? Meh, not for me. Nevertheless, sometimes it’s worth watching videos showing someone building and painting such models. Sometimes there are interesting things to see.

Sometimes two things.

 Posted by at 1:44 am

Now THAT is an expensive Enterprise

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, models, news, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 082020
 

Eaglemoss has released information on their “subscription” model of the Enterprise-D:

It’s big, to be sure, at more than 2 feet long. Like other Eaglemoss kits, this thing shows up a bit at a time (four kits per month), taking you a while to amass all the components to complete the full model. Each kit costs about £11 each (doubtless there’ll be a USD $ option soon enough). Which doesn’t sound too bad, until you scroll waaaaaaaay down to the bottom and click on the FAQ and they kinda shyly point out that this thing is composed of 120 separate kits. That’s  120 times £11 which is… £1320, or about $1770. Yikes. Plus it’ll take 30 months for all the bits to get to you.

This Enterprise was first announced nearly two years ago, if it sounds vaguely familiar. Note that the final product does look substantially better than the earlier-shown prototype.

 Posted by at 11:55 am
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