We know the backstory to Project SWORD. Bill's excellent Saturday TV21 comic tales builds on it every week: the Earth is dying and a new Earth must be found.
But what was the back story to SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut? More or less the same? Where the two ranges interchangeable? Was TV21 describing a SpaceX comic story too?
Both toy ranges had Earth rocket launching facilities, planetary surface exploration vehicles, reconnaissance craft, nuclear ferries and a Moon Base.
But the SWORD toy range only had 21 vehicles at a push. SpaceX had 37 [both figures the subject of much discussion before on this blog]. At any rate, SpaceX was a larger toy range.
Did the extra SpaceX vehicles widen the back story to the line? What do you think readers?
One final thought for a Sunday morning, if the Earth was dying and or dead, where did SWORD and SpaceX get their fuel from? The new Earth?
I think spacex celebrated the buzz of pure exploration, the excitement of stepping on a new world like Armstrong. As with most space toys of the period, it was capturing the zeitgeist of the era
ReplyDeleteI'm with Bill on that I think. The adverts all echo the excitement of space exploration as opposed to a probably less appealing (sorry) doomsday scenario.
ReplyDeleteA more prosaic backstory would be that Jack Rosenthal figured he could make better money by selling large volumes of cheap toys than by selling relatively fewer upmarket toys.
Best -- Paul