This is my build of the Moebius 1/144 Convair NEV (Nuclear Exploratory Vehicle). While it looks like the old Strombecker kit of the same, it’s not – this is a completely new mold. This is a pretty simple kit to build with thick pins and attachment points that almost make it a snap-tite kit. It’s …
The Hawk Manned Orbiting Laboratory kit was a neat kit based on a Convair proposal. I’ve always liked the re-entry “dorito” vehicles and scratchbuilt my interpretation years ago. I sold that model shortly after I made it and have always wanted to recreate it. After years of procrastinating, I decided to re-interpret the re-entry vehicle …
In the 60’s, the Hawk corporation released a conceptual model of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). It was based on an Atlas booster and had a clear nose section and a detailed (for the time) interior.My favorite feature of this model were the two lifting body re-entry vehicles. Sven Knudsen has scans of the Hawk …
“Destination Moon” is a classic Science Fiction movie from 1950, and the first attempt to make a plausible, scientifically correct movie about space travel. The nuclear powered spaceship Luna became an icon. Skyhook Models sells a series of small and simple resin models of spacecraft from classic 1950s SF movies. Their kit of the “Luna” …
The Space Taxi This is my version of the Monogram 1/48 scale Space Taxi. I’ve always wanted to build this kit but I wasn’t willing to pay collectors prices, which always seemed to be at least $80, if not more. I was very happy when the kit was reissued in the late 90’s. The Space …
I bought the Dragon 1/72 Mercury Redstone kit primarily for the Mercury capsule. The capsule exterior is nicely detailed but it has no interior; far worse, it has no heatshield. The retrorockets and the open nose door are on the sprue, so I don’t understand why they left the heatshield off. Since I couldn’t build …
The Moonship from The Conquest of Space, by Chesley Bonestell and Willy Ley is a classic, iconic rocketship design from the 1940s and 50s. I used artwork in The Conquest of Space, the Moonship chapter in Spaceship Handbook (Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers, ARA Press, 2001) and a print of the Moonship drawings from …
The Conquest of Space, by Chesley Bonestell and Willy Ley, was one of my favorite books as a child; I checked it out often from the library. Bonestell’s artwork has always been an inspiration. I recently obtained my own copy of the 1958 edition of The Conquest of Space and one of the ships illustrated …