Orion Rising

Toy collector and Kubrick afficianado Arto recently reported his latest find, an original release boxed kit of the Airfix Orion spaceplane. Discovered in an antiques shop in Finland, this wonderful kit is untouched and carries the stunning original artwork on the box. Later releases of the kit dressed the iconic ship in a ridiculous red, white and blue livery. This first release shows the ship as it appeared in 2001, with the Pan-Am airlines livery.

This stunning kit is probably my first encounter with a space themed model, even before I was aware of the film itself, I had often spotted the sleek unfamiliar shape of the Orion amongst the warplanes and tanks on the shelves of model shops. Amongst the catalogues my dad collected, the Orion is a regular appearance in the Airfix editions and always on a well-thumbed page. Another early model I came across while studying the catalogues was the Revell Moonship, a classic rocket design, in similar pose on the box, blasting off towards the moon.

Clarkes famous novel recounts the sequence of launching the Orion from Earth base by means of an air-breathing first stage, which is never seen in the movie. This huge craft is described in detail, but has never been visualised as a model. Model Maker Ian Walsh made a prototype from card, with a view towards creating a scratchbuilt version. His excellent site has a number of articles on the ships of 2001.