The Sum of its Parts

Woodsys recent find of the nifty Apollo Rocket, which bridges the gap between Probe Force 2 and the Nova series rocket, was a bit of a revelation. This Xmas, the benificent Woodstock presented me with my own Apollo, which gave me the chance to appreciate it first hand. The first thing which sprang to mind when I saw it, was not its elegant retrofuture styling, but the main engine cover at the rear.

In a similar fashion to the earlier post about the Airfix Vostok, I recalled the small Apollo CSM from the Airfix Saturn V kit, had quite a bit of detail lavished on it and beneath the command module, the bulkhead of the service module had some very nice detail visible.

Seeing the Apollo rocket, I recognised this distinctive pattern and checked with a similar toy, the Clifford Apollo Moon Landing set. Not only did the CSM have exactly the same panel, but it was an identical size!

It is possible that the makers of the rocket simply looked at contemporary toys - Probe Force, Nova Rocket and its namesake the range of Apollo toys - and simply 'borrowed' elements from each one to create a hybrid rocket which they could sell on the back of moon landing fever.

Its not outside the realms of possibility that they even looked at Star Trek for inspiration, as the side engine nacelles could easily have been inspired by the Enterprise.

Whichever way you look at it, its a neat little period toy, which i'm very pleased to have in my personal fleet!