Manama Apollo 13

More from the stamp state, a beautiful moon base. 

The rear cover sheet depicts moon modules and astronauts reminiscent of Ed Valigursky (see labels).

MEXICAN MOONBASE CEREAL MODELS

 I saw these a while back on the Spanish auction site Todocollecion.

Seen once before years ago here on MC,

they are Mexican cereal models 

in the R&L space style.

These models appear to be

based partly on the space vehicles

and moonbase art

of Ed Valigursky, the NOVA rocket, the Booster Rocket, MEV2 and the Moonbase modules.

Below we see a chromed garage module with a ramp, which I believe to be a model of  Valigursky's rendition of this shown beneath it. I can see the MEV2 vehicle inside the chromed model.

A lovely lot and one which I'd love to see fully assembled.

Operation Soap Dish: My Home Made SpaceX Moon Base HQ: Legs and Co.

 Moon Base tinkering is going apace.

Attaching the cross-pipe to one module ....

... and then all of them. No peeking!

The base legs came courtesy of the Missus's craft cupboard.

Beads and later googly eyes!

..... which stuck on a treat before being painted lunar silver.

And everyone loves Nutoka on the Base!

Some of the smaller details fettled today too:

This chip is covering an unsightly rock-hard blob of super glue on the top of the cross-pipe, which I tried to remove but ended up squeezing three off. Legs that is.

Its a sort of maintenance hatch I guess.

The pool table was a lot of fun. The Missus' crafting micro-balls came in handy, although I got carried away! The cues look like they've been dipped in pea-soup, so I may replace them, although once the lid's on you won't see the mess I don't think!

I added a pin and some staples to the sides of this console to cover abandoned drill holes. They could be an antenna and a seat. That console suddenly looks a lot like a car battery!

On the recommendation of Bill I had a crack at a sort of doorway for the garage. I couldn't cut the lid for fear of splitting it so I opted for a door-frame capable of holding a ramp for vehicles.

An experiment. Fingers crossed. 

By way of a complete distraction I spent an hour fiddling with a crane. I tried to create one to attach and detach from the side of the garage but to no avail. I ended up bodging this crane rig, that will hopefully lift the MEV2 in and out of the garage.

It ended up looking like a container ship!

Finally and a bit mushy I guess, but it felt right. I inserted a piece of our late dog Blue's bereavement card we got from the vets into the TV screen, Lincoln Continental-style. 

Basically blue sky and a cloud.

Thanks Bill for the idea.

Once fully assembled, all these bits will be joined in the modules by some HO scale seated figures I've ordered from Ebay. They're en-route to Moon Base as we speak!

Watch this Space Base.

Operation Soap Dish: My Home Made SpaceX Moon Base HQ Garage Module

 The garage is a basic affair, essentially a floor and a stopper to secure a SpaceX toy vehicle, in this case the brilliant Valigursky MEV2.

There's also room for a radio and a six-pack of Becks if any of the staffers want to tinker too!

Next juncture, Modules assemble!

Watch this Moon Space!

We Land on the SpaceX

These line drawings in the vintage We Land on the Moon colouring books are always a thrill, as so many are vehicles we know and love, especially from Triang SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut toys.

See what you think. Links to the fabulous and long-running Dreams of Space blog.

http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/we-land-on-moon-coloring-book-based-on_7.html

http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/we-land-on-moon-coloring-book-based-on_4.html

ED VALIGURSKY'S ROBOTS

The sci-fi illustrator Ed Valigursky was keen on pincer robots with thin arms.  His creations in the Fifties and early Sixties have a distinct style. Not sure it would have translated well into toys but here are two examples of Ed's thin armed pincers he did as book covers.

The Conquest of the Space Sea 1955

The Cosmic Computer 1964

Have you got a favourite robot like this?

ED VALIGURSKY ART ON US TV

 Artist Ed Valigursky was a regular blog icon in MC's early years when we were discovering new things about Project SWORD and Triang SpaceX toys' box and card art.

He hasn't featured much recently so here's a video of an American antiques roadshow episode where some of his original art was discussed.

What do you think?

BY GUM! IT'S A NOVA STAMP!

Here's another old and beautiful Manama stamp from the Apollo 13 series, this one showing the Nova rocket we know and love as part part of the SpaceX I range of toys.

Almost certainly copied from Ed Valigursky's original art its still a fine illustration and looks great on its fiery cosmic background.

Manama put out some superb stamps. Do you agree?

VALIGURSKY MAN: THE MALE COVER HERO OF ED VALIGURSKY

Ed Valigursky, US space artist and imagineer of the SWORD Booster Rocket, Spacex MEV2 and Spacex Nova Rocket, was a prolific pulp book and magazine cover illustrator during the 1950's and 60's. 

Looking further at his book cover art, Mr. Valigursky was obviously keen on rockets, robots and monsters. He was also keen on painting young people of both sexes and in particular a dark haired spaceman. 

His hero is classicly handsome, often uniformed and very versatile, a sort of Rock Hudson type in space. There's often a high collar or some red somewhere too. 

Here's a sample gallery of this Valigursky man below  - was it a self portrait? You will find many more googling the artist's name.

Similarly handsome and uniformed females graced Ed's covers and a good example was on the front of the Ace Double, Wandl the Invader.

Do you like Ed's space men and women readers?

MEV-2 PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS

There have been a number of MEV-2 -like vehicle design paintings and illustrations.

My favourite has to be Ed Valigursky's illustration, which I've blogged about many times. Anyways, here are 3 artworks of MEV-2-like vehicles: top - Ed Valigursky artist, middle - Corgi 007 Moon Buggy rear box art [artist unknown] and bottom - Lunik soviet toy box art [artist unknown]

Here are some black and white line drawings sketches of MEV-2 type vehicles: top - US Patent Tri-ang SpaceX Jack Rosenthal, middle - Triang SpaceX MEV-2 advert, bottom - Ken Adam sketch 007 Moon Buggy

Ken Adam designed his Moon Buggy for the James Bond blockbuster You Only Live Twice. There are a couple of websites with his original pencil sketches shown.

https://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/news/james-bond-moon-buggy-and-original-props-auction

Alamy photo of Moon Buggy sketch [from which the above sketch is shown]

BLOW BALL RADARS

Looking at this blow ball pipe on You Tube I immediately thought of an antenna array I'd seen on at least 2 old space designs.

Check out the rear antenna on this MEV2 concept from artist Ed Valigursky [our masthead]

and even more blow ball-like is the array on the back of the Corgi 007 Moon Buggy!

Just a theory. Feel free to blow holes in it! ha ha

ESTRELA ROBO COM TELE VALIGURSKY BOX ART

I got excited about this rare Estrela robot when I first blogged it years ago

This Brazilian Horikawa-Estrela robot is the only one I know with Ed Valigursky Spacex-related imagery on the chest TV and the box.

There's a Booster Rocket on the box front and a MEV-2 on the TV!

But this is only the second decent box, albeit a repro on Ebay, I've seen on all sides online, I think, so I saved the pics.

Its this side that's just brilliant.

Closer we can now see that its the MEV-2 and the Booster Rocket on the side.

How cool is that!

You got one?

For much older posts about this including the TV drum and a similarly illustrated tin rifle then click on the labels below.

Here's an older pic of this box art from the blog years ago.

SINISTER BARRIER AND THE LAMA SPACE CANON

Excited by finishing my scratch LAMAs I thought I'd look at it's first appearance [as far as I know] on the cover of the Sixties edition of Eric Frank Russell's novel Sinister Barrier.

The cover art is by that bastion of SWORD and SpaceX inspirations, the late great Ed Valigursky.

I really like Ed's cover LAMA. I've no idea if such a cosmic canon appears in the story but I think Ed's looks better than the SpaceX toy. 

The light blue body, the more electrode-like black turret and the red checked rear end, reminiscent of the red check nacelle tops on the SpaceX toy ATS, all make for a really appealing vehicle. Why did Tria-ang choose metallic red instead?

The pilot is prominent too, which is less so on the toy I feel, although I have only ever seen photographs and not the actual toy!

It's probably just my poor eyesight. As a result I didn't put much effort into a pilot figure at all in the two LAMA's I scratchbuilt. Just a white pin head in the green one! Lazy!

Interestingly Sinister barrier, the title of the book, is taken from an excellently-written passage within it:

The scale of electro-magnetic vibrations extends over sixty octaves, of which the human eye can see but one. Beyond that sinister barrier of our limitations, outside that poor, ineffective range of vision, bossing every man jack of us from the cradle to the grave, invisibly preying on us as ruthlessly as any parasite, are our malicious, all-powerful lords and masters – the creatures who really own the Earth!

There must be some sort of canon in the story as this different - almost telephone speaker -like  one appears on this particular cover. Has anyone read the book? Can you shed light on the meaning of the canons?

Although the above cover wasn't one of Ed Valigursky's he did paint more space canons. 

Here's another one of Ed's, the turret of a sort of hover tank on the cover of Philip K. Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon.

What do you think of this vehicle?

I can't think of any other cosmic canon-type toys from my generation. The exception was of course the Firebolt Laser Canon, which was one of the main vehicles of the Major Matt Mason toy fleet. I adored my canon as a kid and can recall vividly inserting Captain Laser's solid feet into its slots.

LP made a miniature version of the Firebolt. It was released as part of Imperial Toys' 1970 Apollo Moon Exploring carded series. A lot less detailed than Triang's LAMA, it is possibly on the same toy scale. It would be interesting to see the two canons together of anyone has both!

Here's LP's cool mini canon on its own as photographed on the blog by Scoop in 2012.

Can you think of more space canons or laser canons readers?