Some of the models featured in The Book are now part of a long-term display in the Space Gallery of the Science Museum in London. They are all part of 'Manned Spaceflight' and can be seen in the cases that run 'behind' the full-size mock up of the Apollo Lunar Module
The main display ..... and close up of the 'fifties' section.....
.....and in the last display - how about vacationing on Mars?
Viking Lander courtesy of RealSpace Models, bucket and spade from Toys R Us.
This image is now historical , as the bucket and spade was changed - not in my humble opinion, for the better - to a miniature deckchair...
A book is only ever 'complete' for the nano-second after the last full-stop is in place! This certainly applies to CREATING SPACE and new material was already being discovered before the book went to print. Consequently this page will contain updated information, which - you never know - may eventually be incorporated in a Second Edition?There are also, I'm afraid, a few glitches that have crept in - totally unintentionally!! - and these too are corrected and/or modified here.
CORRECTIONS
[NOTE : I have now decided to omit literals here - spelling and grammar- unless they involve a person's name or job description.]
PEOPLE
Page 2 : I omitted to fully credit David Hardy for the photo of Arthur and me. He IS included in the general thanks, but the photo should have had his by-line -" Photo - David A. Hardy". Apologies to Dave.
And in an attempt to balance things up - here's a photo of Dave, also at the Minehead Exhibition, with one of his painting depicting life-forms on the third planet of a G-type star.
David Hardy's work can be found on his Astroart pages.
Page 5 : Dedicatee, Andy Yanchus, was actually Projects Manger at Aurora, not 'Product', as that was someone else! Page 257 : The 'Rick Sternbach Studio' Web Site URL has changed - it is now www.spacemodelsystems.com
Page 347 and 348 : Sven Knudson name is just that - Knudson, not 'Knudsen', though I'm apparently not the only one guilty of the misspelling....
TEXT and CAPTIONS Page 82 : Captions for the lower two photos. The caption under the Airfix Saturn 5 (right) is actually for the AMT Man in Space set (left). The current caption on the left is a repeat of the upper caption page 72.Pages 106 and 107 : I goofed with two captions here - and both times credited the wrong company to the individual models. Both the Lunar Prospector kit (page 106) AND the Viking Lander (page 107) are RealSpace Models products, NOT Lunar Models.
Apologies to Glenn Johnson for this - though he got his own back in pointing this out to me (several times...!) at the 2002 US IPMS Nats. And please let me know if you spot any more - email <mat@smallspace.demon.co.uk>
QUERIES
There were quite a few queries I couldn't solve before The Book went to print. One is illustrated here. Above are the boxes for three versions of the Soviet/Russian A-Type Launcher. The problem is that all the kits are from the same tooling, maybe with extra parts added, but there does not appear to be any connection between the three companies? Left is APEX, middle AER-MOLDOVA and right MAQUETTE. If anyone does know if there is some connection between the companies, or whether just the tooling moved, I would be grateful to know. contact
UPDATES
New details about existing models, as I indicate in The Introduction, are bound to turn up from time to time, but I wasn't expecting such a significant modification to the information so early. This first piece of new information concerns that smallest division of space models - the unmanned satellites of Chapter 8 'Messages from Orbit' - and one of the very few 'conventional plastic' kits of that subject matter - the Hawk 'Explorer 18'.
I did mention in the text itself, page 99, that the kit had first been issued as 'Space Explorer' in a different box. However what I wasn't aware of at that time, was that this wasn't from Hawk, but an entirely different manufacturer. This was a company called the Tam-Toy Co, based in Ellicott City, Maryland. Tam-Toy produced the kit in 1965, pre-dating the Hawk release by three years. The kit's contents are basically the same as the Hawk, although the markings are produced as peel-off decals, not Hawk's water-slide. In this original version, more is gone into with regard to the 'educational' aspect of the model and besides the instruction sheet, a separate page gives details of the real Explorer 18's mission and experiments.
The Tam-Toy 'Space Explorer' kit - the first issue of what was later issued by Hawk
Hawk acquired the kit from Tam-Toy and added it to its existing unmanned satellite catalogue, which immediately increased by 100%. (It doubled from one kit to two!)
Both versions of Monogram's Willy Ley designed 'Space Taxi'.
Left - the original 'Space Taxi', right, the reissued 'Space Buggy', (only the second version is pictured in The Book). Differences include decals; colour schemes and the latter issue has some parts - astronauts, engines and 'cages' - chrome plated. The SSP issue reverted to the original 'Space Taxi' version.
This is the only one of the four 'Willy Ley Space Kits' to have been issued in two versions.
Boxes for both versions of Testors Area 51 UFO. 1994 issue (left) and 1996.
There is more to the second issue of the Testor 'Area 51' UFO than first seemed apparent. Besides the change of the overall title, the second issue included the 'Grey' figure (initially available separately), but omitted the "full color book". Some box details also change as can be seen. The oddest differences however were on the back of the boxes. Here the explanation text is in the three major languages of North America - English, French and Spanish. However although the English text remains almost identical first to second issue, (there are a couple of subtle changes), the French and Spanish translations change quite considerably - especially when it comes to transliteration of technical terms?
Ogonjek, the Russian kit manufacturer's 1:30 scale Soyuz. This is shown in 'The Book' in its 'green' guise, however it often appears in exhibitions in a white and light blue colour scheme with orange accessories, shown here (left). It is partially based on the full-size version on display at the National Space Center, Leicester, UK, (right) although details do differ. In 'The Book' it is likened to Soyuz 5, although it is closer to Soyuz 4.
HOME