Mars in an Afternoon

I recall watching George Pal's space epic 'Conquest of Space' years ago, which for the fifties, had amazing special effects. What chiefly caught my eye was the wonderful deep space vessel hanging in orbit near the space wheel. The craft is loosely based on Werner Von Brauns project for a manned mission to Mars and consisted of a huge booster section and a 'flying wing'. In Conquest, the central rocket fuselage detaches and returns to Earth,  but Von Brauns version made an atmospheric re-entry.

Collier's magazine covered Von Brauns Moon and Mars ships in exhaustive detail at the time, with lots of lavish illustrations by Chesley Bonestell.

Compared to the much later LEM, Von Brauns ships were massive multi-crewed beasts, with fuel tanks supported in a rigid framework. I had been toying with the idea of building a model of something in this style, and picked up the re-issue of the Lindberg Moonship kit.

However, when I was looking for a birthday present for my grandaughter and found a toy golf set with ping-pong balls in a handy carrier. Seeing it I immediately saw the potential for a Von Braun style model.

Using the container with the balls inside as the fuel tanks, I knocked up a space plane from kit parts and joined the two up.

The model sat on the shelf for a few days, but due to what seems to be an 'Interstellar' like gravitic anomaly - whereby everything in the man cave seems to end up falling on the floor - I dropped it and broke off one of the fins and the radar dish. It was consigned to the repair box for a few months, but yesterday, I found it again and effected a few repairs. A few new parts and a bit of heavy handed weathering and its on course for Mars once more!