Bonham’s just wrapped up another one of their “no you can’t afford these” space history memorabilia auctions. Among the interesting stuff I looked at, sighed over and wished I lived in a world where somehow I was rich enough to afford, there was this item:
The other items listed all have their sales prices listed (like the $269,000 Sputnik model… yow), but this item seems to still only have it’s estimated price of $1500-$2500. My guess is that that means it didn’t sell. And if it didn’t, maybe it’s because it was advertised as being something far less interesting than it actually is. Consider: the description goes thus:
GEODETIC SATELLITE MODEL
Large scale model of a Geodetic Satellite. 37½ inch tall plexiglass pole topped with 16½ inch tall conical satellite with ten 21 inch long folding blue panels.
Employed by the United States Navy, the GeoSat was an Earth observation satellite launched in 1985. The goal of the GeoSat mission was to provide information on the marine gravity field.
Which, yeah, I guess that’s nice, but it’s not really one of the more exciting satellites out there. By the way, here is a geodetic satellite rendering:
And here is the model that was up for auction:
Are there similarities? Sure. But you know what that model *isn’t* a model of? A geodetic satellite. It’s a model of this:
Yup. That there is the business end of an SP-100 space nuclear reactor.
Now, I don’t know that the model is *really* anything special… the payload it’s attached to is dreadfully small and dull. It’s not like it’s attached to a neutral particle beam weapon or something similarly intriguing, and the SP-100 was hardly a classified program. But still a nuclear reactor powered spacecraft has *got* to be more interesting than a geodetic satellite, yes?
See also: