Convair Moon Lander (1958)
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Scale: 1/144
Initial Release: 2024 Medium: Resin Kit Rarity: 2 Height: 8.25 Inches |
About the Design
In the wake of Russia's launch of Sputnik in October 1957, America's top aerospace companies flooded the media with concepts for orbital and lunar mission spacecraft designs intended to show that America was still very much in the Space Race. Among these space-focused companies was Convair, maker of the Atlas ICBM, which released a series of illustrations showing how its technology could be used to land a man on the moon.
Convair's proposal was for a large, integrated ascent/descent vehicle that could be carried aloft by its own Atlas rocket and then sent onward to the moon by a separate booster stage. Carrying six large external fuel tanks -- similar to those envisioned by Werner Von Braun for his own lunar lander earlier that decade -- the craft would carry two astronauts down to the lunar surface where they would live and work in a small habitat module. For the return to earth, the now-empty external fuel tanks would be jettisoned and the remaining central rocket would lift off and return to Earth. The main craft would then be abandoned in orbit as the two-man crew used a lifting body-like "lifeboat" -- the same design Convair proposed for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) -- to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and land on a flat desert plain or salt flat. |
About the Kit
The Convair Moon lander kit was released by Fantastic Plastic Models in spring 2024. The kit included a combination of cast resin and 3D printed components. Also included was a decal set that allowed the builder to choose from a variety of marking schemes that reflected styles from the 1950s through the 1980s.
This kit was built from an original issue. |