On a Roll!

Its a new year and a new revelation from the land of the surprising sun. Blogmeister Terry has supplied this really obscure Imai kit, the Discoverer. Its been sold at auction in Japan as a made up kit, but sadly missing the large dish antenna array on the top. Still, its a really weird uniwheel concept. You can see that the idea was seriosly considered at some point in the early space race as illustrated by this issue of Junior Scholastic from 1961 shows. The image is courtesy of John Sissons glorious 'Dreams of Space' blog.