In 1957, Darrell Romick of Goodyear produced the “Meteor Jr.” design for a three stage fully reusable manned launch vehicle, a smaller version of the “Meteor” design from 1954. The designs were straightforward, with simple but gigantic delta wings.
The Air & Space Museum Udvar-Hazy facility has a Goodyear display model of the Meteor Jr. vehicle on display.
The Space Station V CAD model is just about done. And not a moment too soon… the complete unified model clocks in at 190 megabytes. It’s big enough that my computer is just about to the point where it’ll just give me a blank stare when I try to do something with the model. The conical faces of the hub need some detailing, the Orion III needs a fair amount of surface detailing (note: that part won’t be detailed enough to print off as a model on its own… it’s being made to be detailed enough at 1/1400 scale), some noodling around will be needed with the structures flanking the “spokes” (I’m assuming at this point that those bits will have to be photoetch).
As can be seen, the model features the “unbuilt” rim. Photoetch parts are planned for the skeleton of the structure shown in the movie. I understand that additional completed rim parts will be provided so that the station can be shown in its final finished form.
A few years back I got to poke around a little bit in the NASM Garber facility. Lighting was not the best and some areas were photography-discouraged, but there were a few things that I got some photos of. One was a large model of an early Boeing Dyna Soar configuration. It may have originally been a wind tunnel model that was repurposed into a display model, or it may have been a display model from the get-go (kinda big, though).
The hub of the SSV is just about done. The parts in yellow shown below will have to be done in photoetch. The hub will be in four parts… two identical “faces,” and two different central parts. These are hollowed out to help reduce the volume needing to be printed and thus the cost of the kit.
The little purple sphere is just a modeling aid as opposed to being something in the kit.
The Space Station V kit will come with at least 2 Orion III spaceplanes. The question, of course, is how to scale the Orion III with the station, since there is no official size for either. One stated diameter for the SSV is 1,000 feet, which was apparently a size specified before filming. That’d be fine, except that apparently Kubrick thought that the Station looked small compared to the Orion III, and had it optically scaled up by a factor of two, leading to a diameter of 2000 feet.
The Orion III is also officially unsized. However, I believe that a good case was made for a span of 109 feet by Ian Walsh of Stargazer Models, described here. And so, one of the Orion III spaceplanes will be scaled to the station by a ratio of 109 feet/1,000 feet, as shown here:
This is clearly wrong when you look at how the two objects scale against each other as actually filmed. However, it’s actually a pretty good match, and it really looks like this was how the two were originally intended to be scaled:
On the other hand, when they are scaled to a ratio of 109/2,000, they look fairly right compared to the screen.
So at least these two size of Orions will be included, so that the model builder can choose their own scale for the kit. Depending upon production costs, a third or even a fourth intermediate size of Orion may be included (such as one to depict the station being 1500 feet in diameter).
Work continues.
One of the more interesting model kits to be released in recent years was the “Famemaster” 1/100 scale model of the Saturn V. It was interesting not only because it was big, but because it was a cutaway model showing the innards of the tanks on all three stages. Assembled well, modified somewhat and properly painted, it can build up into a damn fine museum piece.
The two biggest problems with the Famemaster Saturn V were that it was expensive, and that it was not released in large numbers. A single production run a couple years back quickly vanished. At long last, though, it’s back. A number of online source have it for $300 or more, but Amazon has it for $250. It probably won’t be around all that long this time, either.
So, if’n yer interested, buy now. Feel free to use the link below…
I’ve heard this evening that the Pluto 1/72 model from Fantastic Plastic got off to a good start in terms of sales. Now keep in mind that this is a “garage kit” model, albeit a very well produced one, so “good sales” mean something different than, say, a Monogram model kit. One of the upshots of this sort of kit is that production runs are typically measured in dozens, not thousands. This means that if sales are surprisingly good, the whole production run can be snapped up in a week or two. So if you were interested in one of the Pluto models, it might make sense to go sooner rather than later.
The old 1/32 scale Renwall Blueprint model of the M65 “Atomic Annie” cannon with prime movers has been re-released by Revell. I’ve spoken to a local hobbyshop owner who believed that there won’t be many of these made.
I *still* think these would be neato next to a 1/32 scale SICBM Hard Mobile Launcher…
Plugging away on details now.
