Space History

[chopper_nut]

" I would love to get another of those." I found one .... on Mighty Ape of all places , not the original , but close enough.

Dragon do an OK one of Gemini as well as Mercury and Apollo. Not really accurate but a pretty good representation.

[Ian Warren]

I found a model (1/72) of the Gemini capsule , and space walker at Mighty Ape ..... i did post this , this afternoon , but it seems to have been deleted.
Well i cant see it (my post ) anyway.
I might buy it , just for old times sake .... not the original , but looks good.

Edit: My first post just showed up..... whats going on here ???

There are a few models , 1/72 I'd give that a miss , hells I could put a more exact model together here at 'Barbie Doll' size

[Splitpin]

True ....1/72 is very small .
Ok , I'll hold off ..... lets think about the 1/4 scale Must be plenty of drawings/plans around .

[chopper_nut]

http://www.dragon-models.com/d-m-list.asp?sid=43

Here's dragon's inventory. The 1/48 stuff is pretty good. I've got the CSM. The 1/72 is still pretty impressive.

[Ian Warren]

Have many plans and drawings here making it easy ... typical me

[Splitpin]

" I would love to get another of those." I found one .... on Mighty Ape of all places , not the original , but close enough.

Dragon do an OK one of Gemini as well as Mercury and Apollo. Not really accurate but a pretty good representation.

Nick , thats the one i found (Dragon) ..... but Im sure Ian and i can come up with a good (if not , exclusive) alternative , now that i think about it.
Thanks for the input space/ chopper guy

[Splitpin]

http://www.dragon-models.com/d-m-list.asp?sid=43

Here's dragon's inventory. The 1/48 stuff is pretty good. I've got the CSM. The 1/72 is still pretty impressive.

Damm you Nick ...... 1/48 CSM

[chopper_nut]

Yeh it's pretty good. A few little inaccuracies but as a display piece it looks the part

[Ian Warren]

Wonder how I'd go with the 'Eagle' Lunar Module parked in my front yard .. Ferrymeads replica would be a goodie.

[Splitpin]

Nick , i found and got 3 great dvd's from mighty ape ..... one is the last shuttle flight , one on the mission to repair hubble , and one called "oasis earth" about a pure mapping of the earth mission .
Your more than welcome to them if you ever get back to this side of the tasman ..... amazing .

[chopper_nut]

I think I've seen them. They might be stashed away in my 'vault' of NASA footage.

[chopper_nut]

Apollo 7's S1b lifts off the pad.


'Snoopy' and 'Charlie Brown' station keeping on Apollo 10


Ron Evans in the CSM 'America' closes on Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in LM 'Challenger' on Apollo 17


The last "Apollo" flight. Apollo Soyuz Test Project lifts off the 'Milkbottle stand' carrying Tom Stafford, Vance Brand and Deke Slayton into orbit.

[Ian Warren]

They are impressive photos!

One link you must post here Nick and Ideally suited, is the tracks and landing sites off the Apollo program you showed me last time you were here.

[chopper_nut]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/#.VSGjzpOm0ZN
Although it's on NASA's site, NASA only launched the spacecraft. The pictures were taken by the University of Texas' (I might be wrong on that but it's a university's spacecraft) LRO

[chopper_nut]

Some more pre - Apollo shots.


The Mercury 7. From Left to Right, Scott Carpenter, Leroy 'Gordo' Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Donald 'Deke' Slayton. Today, only Glenn remains above ground.


5 May 1961, the American space program gets off the pad. Alan Shepard lifts off atop a Redstone for a 15 minute sub-orbital flight named Freedom 7.


John Glenn at the Cape during pre flight training.


Friendship 7 with John Glenn is the third of the Mercury flights, the first manned flight to use the Atlas booster and the first to orbit the earth. 20 February 1962.


The Right Stuff. Gordo Cooper poses for a pre mission photo shoot. Faith 7 was the last of the Mercury flights.


The original Gemini 9 crew portrait. Prime crew in the front Elliot See (L) and Charles Bassett (R) and the backup behind of Tom Stafford (L) and Gene Cernan (R). See and Bassett were killed trying to land IFR in St Lois when their T38 crashed into the McDonnell factory where their Gemini capsule was being assembled. Stafford and Cernan became the prime crew and altered the flight rotation that eventually put the Apollo 11 crew together.


Gemini 9 with Stafford and Cernan splashes down June 6 1966.


Gemini 11 liftoff September 12 1966. Note the mock up Saturn V SA-500F in the background.

[Ian Warren]

Some more pre - Apollo shots.

The Mercury 7. From Left to Right, Scott Carpenter, Leroy 'Gordo' Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Donald 'Deke' Slayton. Today, only Glenn remains above ground.

Its amazing to see the list off names, John Glenn , man that boy .. guess the same with Chuck Yeager , for some reason they seem to last and out live everyone else, the F-106 guess would have to be the BEES KNEES 50 years ago

[chopper_nut]

Yeh I guess they were pretty hot ships back then. Probably still are now really. NASA used quite a selection of aircraft until Tom Stafford got them to take on the T38 over the F4. That's the great thing about that Moonshot doco is that it has the Mercury 7 with the exception of Gus Grissom obviously.

[chopper_nut]

A bit of Apollo history that a lot of people don't know about. Apollo 12 launched into rain showers and probably came closest of all the flights to having to abort. At around 30 secs into the mission the friction of the vehicle traveling through the dense clouds created two lightning strikes that knocked out the electrical system of the CSM. A quick thinking EECOM by the name of John Aaron saved the day.

[Ian Warren]

Strange so long ago now the Apollo projects , even the Space Shuttle is almost distant memory.

[cezeta]

A very interesting book about the soviet space program.

Rockets and People, by Boris Chertok

This book, in four volumes, have some interesting information about the dark side of the Space history.

Also, the books of the space historian Asif A. Siddiqi are great.