Red Star in Orbit

I recently found a great new space history book, which details 100 great spaceships that made space exploration possible - 'Space Craft' by Michael H. Gorn. Rather than re-using existing photographs of craft that have been published before, it mainly relies on excellent technical illustrations of real and proposed craft. It was quite an eye opener for me as I thought I had seen all the main craft that had put man into space, but the book shows early designs for the likes of Mercury and Gemini capsules and also shows what was going on behind the iron curtain,

It was this historical detail which interested me most, as although many other books allude or suggest that there were other flights and probes sent up by Russia before Gagarin, detail is invariably scarce. Space Craft shows these undocumented and secret craft in surprising detail

and shows how the Soviets were able to make so many attempts in such a short period - it was by using a modular approach to spacecraft and re-using parts and designs from earlier ships. The Soyuz module for example is still in use sixty years later to re-supply the ISS and the basic design has changed little in this time.

One of my favourite craft has always been the Vostok capsule and I was surprised to see how the basic core elements had been used in many different configurations, to make probes as well as manned craft. The illustration in the book showing the many types of craft developed around the Vostok capsule inspired me to make my own version, with bits from the scrap box and a gas cannister from a beer can.

Half a toy cement mixer, some xmas beads and a handful of model parts and I had a passable model. A quick blast of grey primer, a bit of weathering and three straight pins for antennae, sealed the deal. I knocked up a simple base from a disk and an xmas bauble and glued on a small soviet hat badge for authenticity.

It sits nicely on my space book shelf now, next to my earlier Lunik and Sputnik models