Twenty First Century Booster

 Here's the original Century 21 Toys Project SWORD Booster Rocket from 1967.

It was battery operated with mystery action.

The blue fuel tanks all detached. 

The large coffin box is illustrated with a rendition of Ed Valigursky's LIFE painting. The box included a paper SWORD manual and a plastic pin badge.

The rear red exhaust bell lit up and the silver exhaust rod detached.

The front miniature space plane was spring loaded and could be ejected, a very neat feature of this impressive toy, one of the larger ships on the SWORD toy fleet.

Do you have one?

Images courtesy of Sally Antiques.

Cheap and Booster: Hover's SWORD Rocket

Although we don't see much by way of Project SWORD these days on MC, it is the reason I started the blog in 08.

So it was nice to see an old friend on a Brazilian toy site.

This is the Hover clone of the Century 21 Booster Rocket  (from Project SWORD), which some of you may have. 

It's an audaciously gorgeous knockoff, rebranded Project NASA, of the highest quality, which I assume at the time was cheaper than the UK original and easier to get hold of in mainland Europe perhaps. 

The only real difference being the colours, the original C21 having blue tanks and a pale grey body. 

In many ways I prefer Hover's!

You may notice the diabolo spinner label on the left of the illustration. That's an Italian importers label seen on many SWORD clones destined for the Italian market, of which there are quite a few.

Have you a Booster Rocket? 

Here's a few more Hover snaps I saw on auction.  Can there be a more blatant and wonderful Project SWORD clone? This ain't no cheapo knockoff! 

The World of Tomorrow

 Back home now I've been told by Google to free up space in my photo store or else!

So looking through my archive I found these great shots of pages from a book, The World of Tomorrow I saw online. 

By Robin Keroll, it's all new to me. I don't know the artist but I do like the imagery. Do you?

The cover reminds me of Booster Rocket fuel tanks.

This gleaming van is very Syd Mead.

A whiff of Eagles here?

And it's biggest fan. That little red craft better watch out!

Anyone got this book?

WON'T GET FUELED AGAIN

Old toys are by nature fragile. Its a wonder any survive at all!

Here's a boxed Project SWORD Booster Rocket on auction that has lost some parts on its long journey to the present. 

Although it has all its cylindrical fuel tanks, the rear exhaust canopy and the exhaust, as well as the front probe are missing in action. The box has picked up some grime too.

Here's a Booster that's seen far less action over the years. Its remained complete and the box looks great too.

Have you got damaged and much better versions of the same toy readers?

Anyone got anything totally mint and boxed?

SHOMBERG'S BOOSTER

I love this illustration by the late great Alex Shomberg for his Second Chance cover picture in Satellite magazine.

The tanks on the ship recall those of the Project SWORD Booster Rocket completely! Shomberg's craft could easily be a Booster re-fueller!

What do you reckon?

There's more Shomberg here:

https://images.app.goo.gl/YMB9iiqSeHTyo3tw8 

AKIMOTO BOOSTER

 

I love this Booster rocket art by George Akimoto from 1960. Its fabulous!

Do you like it?

TV BOOSTER

 

I love this old art of a futuristic nuclear family watching a Booster Rocket on TV!

The image is courtesy of Dreams of Space Blog.

Do you know of any artwork like this?

JOHN SENTOVIC ART FOR CONVAIR GENERAL DYNAMICS

I've been admiring these gorgeous old illustrations I saw on Ebay and Pinterest I think.

They were painted by John Sentovic of the USA in the late 50's/ early 60's.

They were commercial illustrations for Convair General Dynamics.

There's so much of all the iconic space toys we love in these early artist's impressions.

Do you like them readers?

LA CONQUISTA DELLO SPAZIO 1977

 

I liked this Mattel Giochi board game when I saw it on an old sale. I kept the pic 'cos I liked the futuristic box art. Does anyone recognise the style?

is that a small Booster Rocket top left? 

I wonder if this game was available outside Italy too?

WOW! WHAT A BOOSTER!

Check out this dramatic footage on the BBC of NASA's new mega booster! You would not want to git in the way of that!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53990051 

NEW BOOSTER

Bill B found this online, from a new book called Space 2.0 - could be the Booster rocket might make a comeback!

https://www.space.com/space-2-0-book-excerpt.html

MARTIN'S RESIN BOOSTER ROCKETS

Martin makes beautiful resin models of the Project SWORD Booster Rocket.

He did an article about the process some years back.

I was so impressed with his latest two photographs of his model that I asked if I could share them here.

So with Martin's AOK I hope you like them too.

You can see more about the model itself on Ebay.

TANKER OF FATE

Vincent Di Fate's Tanker Ship

1981

MoSF

An update on the Booster Rocket!

Vincent di Fate was born in Yonkers, New York. He's 73.

Do you like it?

Here's the artists's official website

http://www.vincentdifate.com/

Do you know Di Fate's work?

BOOST TO THE SYSTEM: THE PROJECT SWORD BOOSTER ROCKET

The Booster Rocket was one of my favourite toys as a kid in the late Sixties.

It was the multi-fuel-tank rocket from Project SWORD.

It first appeared in SOLO comics as part of the strips and also the toy itself featured in ID charts and competitions.

Here's one such competition in SOLO August 1967. The Booster Rocket is picture C. All you had to do was name it and the others! 

I was six at the time, didn't read SOLO but fortunately got a Booster anyway thanks goodness!

The toy itself was magnificent. Its blue fuel cells could all be detached  and the whole thing could be disassembled. In fact it came like that in its box.

With batteries in place and by turning the larger red button it would roll along the floor with an illuminated rear red exhaust. The rather cool looking silver jet at the front could also be ejected from the nose via the front red button.

All in all a fantastic toy and one which I loved to play with as a young Project SWORD captain.

A number of other Booster Rocket toys exist and courtesy of Bill B here are the four of the five we know of [the fifth is a miniature rocket found in the Thunderbirds 7 kit, also on the blog]

From top to bottom: Century 21 original, Hoover clone, SpaceX miniature and R&L style cereal model from Mexico [built and painted].

Perhaps the best-known artistic representation of the Booster Rocket was Ed Valigursky's wonderful painting in the Man and Space book well-known to space fans.

Multiple-fuel-celled space rockets have a long history in vehicle design and like the Project SWORD toy these early designs influenced scale models like this Convair Manned Lunar Reconnaissance Vehicle released by Strombecker and designed by Krafft Ehricke.

Booster Rockets designs have also provided pulp book cover artists across the world.

This Agente Espacial No1 ship is like a streamlined version of the Valigursky/ SWORD design.

This Galaksija craft appears to be a simplified rendition of the Strombecker/ Ehricke design. The cover artist has thrown in a 2001 Space Odyssey astronaut as well for good measure.

Have you got a Booster Rocket?

SPANISH BOOSTER ROCKET

A beautiful rendition of the Booster Rocket on this Spanish paperback cover AGENTE ESPACIAL No.1.

Do you like it?

GALAKSIJA BOOSTER ROCKET

I like this Booster Rocket on the cover of the Yugoslavian Galaksija magazine.

Its dated February 1975.

You can view all the pages in this and other Galaksijas as they have all been scanned online!

http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?all=GAL_75_02

strombecker booster rocket

Hi Woodsy

[spotted on Ebay. Is this the] origin / early version of the Valigursky illustration? - that lead to the SWORD booster rocket? 

Cheers 

Jim

Ed Valigursky's painting below

Woodsy asks:

Has anyone got a built up of this Strombecker and the SWORD Booster Rocket at home so we can see them together?

WOTAN wades in: The Plastic Fantastic site is a fab resource for vintage new garage kits. Here is the page for the Strombecker model: 

http://fantastic-plastic.com/convair-manned-lunar-reconnaissance-vehicle-by-strombecker.html

RUIMTEVAART PISTOOL AND THE BOOSTER ROCKET

I saw this APOLLO pistol on the Bat today. Its Japanese with a Dutch title, RUIMTEVAART PISTOOL MET VONKEN.

What immediately struck me was the similarity between its barrel and the rear engines of the Project SWORD Booster Rocket pictured below: silver and red. What do you think?

BANDAI SPACE SHOT GAME

Nice Mars Booster Rocket on the box of this Bandai SPACE SHOT handheld game.

[Yahoo Japan]

MOONBASE VIDEO: THE FLYING SPACE ROCKET DISPLAY CARD FROM JAPAN

Here's my latest Moonbase Central Production. In this video I look at something I was really pleased to get recently from Japan. the Flying Space Rocket display card. A bit of a SWORD curio, watch the film and let me know what you think.