Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle (1961)

Scale: 1/48
Initial Release: 2005
Medium: Resin/Styrene
Kit Rarity: 3

About the Design

To test the efficacy of NASA's one-man Mercury spacecraft -- and to rack up an achievement that could conceivably compete with the Soviets -- the American space agency deemed that its first manned spaceflight would be a sub-orbital jaunt using the Army's proven Redstone missile. A direct descendent of the German's World War II-era V-2 program, the Redstone was a simple cylindrical medium-range ballistic missile that had first been successfully launched in 1953, had served as the basis of the satellite launch Jupiter-C in 1958, and had been formally deployed worldwide in 1959.

America's first manned spacecraft, Freedom 7, piloted by Astronaut Alan Shepherd, blasted into space on May 5, 1961 -- almost a month after the Russians launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12. The second and final Mercury-Redstone flight was Virgil "Gus" Grissom's Liberty Bell 7, which launched on July 21, 1961

About the Kit

This conversion kit from Attic Models was released in early 2005. It allowed the builder to combine a Hawk/Glencoe 1:48 Jupiter-C model with Revell's 1:48 Mercury capsule (from the Mercury/Gemini combo kit) to create the classic Mercury-Redstone system.

This model was built from the original Attic conversion set, the Glencoe Jupiter C and the Monogram "Gus Grissom Memorial Combo" set.