New Moon Landing!

 NASA are sending astronauts to the moon again! 

Next Year! 

Four of them. 

Hard to take in after such a huge gap.

Maybe it's the first step in creating a MoonBase? 

I wonder if it will be huge global event this time?

What do you think?

Birthday Rover: Holiday Haul

Another find in the Cyprus toy store was this pair of Matchbox copies, presumably made specifically for the Jumbo store. There were four in all, including a small Shuttle and a NASA patrol jeep. Ive not been able to find the official version of the moon rover here, but I do have a rocket transporter version if the crawler.

Both are nicely detailed and well made, more biased towards plastic parts than is usual for Matchbox, with plastic bases rather than die cast.

The rover is quite light and has a nice open cab, which could potentially offer room gor customisation.

The crawler has an elevating radar scanner and english decals.

NASA: the Mars Report: Six Decades of Exploration

View Web Version | February 2025 The Mars Report from NASA — your source from the Red Planet, continuing six decades of unparalleled exploration and scientific discoveries. This newsletter will bring you mission updates, spacecraft news, science findings, unique Mars imagery — and a vision for the humanity-defining possibilities NASA's presence on Mars will unlock.   FEATURED Planning the First Launch Ever from Another Planet NASA is on track to return scientifically selected samples from Mars, announcing plans to proceed towards confirmation. CATCH UP Keep Track of a Busy Planet Nine spacecraft explore Mars right now. NASA operates five of them — two surface rovers and three orbiters — and you can track their progress at any time. They talk to each other, and help each other talk to us, relaying their messages and data streams to Earth. EXPLORE Weather Report: Ice Avalanches with a Chance of Explosive Geysers Martian new year brings dramatic changes — exploding jets of gas, windblown dunes, and more. We track it all from afar, with spacecraft like NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. WATCH MORE ON MARS Meet the Sample: 'Silver Mountain' Perseverance rumbled out of Jezero Crater to explore the uncharted rim, discovering a fresh vantage point — and a very unusual rock. Meet the rover's 26th Martian sample, "Silver Mountain." VIEW THE COLLECTION Another Record: Going the Distance Ingenuity, the plucky helicopter grounded by a broken rotor, managed one more distance record — 1.8 miles for its last communication with the Perseverance rover on Nov. 26, the farthest communication between two vehicles on the surface of Mars. ALL ABOUT INGENUITY Did You Know? Up a Dusty Trail As of January 2025, Perseverance has rolled 20.35 miles (32.76 kilometers) to collect 26 samples of rock and regolith as well as one air sample. DRIVE ON WITH PERSEVERANCE IMAGE OF THE DAY Olympus Mons Mars' Olympus Mons, a volcano nearly three times higher than Mount Everest, was featured in a recent "Celebrity Jeopardy" question. VIEW IMAGE DOWNLOADS Free posters. Collect them all. MAVEN 10th Anniversary Spirit and Opportunity 20th Anniversary Curiosity 10th Anniversary ROVER MISSION UPDATES Get the latest details, direct from mission team members. Perseverance Blog READ THE BLOG Curiosity Blog READ THE BLOG JOIN THE CONVERSATION Explore Mars Facebook: @NASAPersevere, @MarsCuriosity, @NASAMars X: @NASAPersevere, @MarsCuriosity, @NASAMars

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THE NEW NASA PROSPECTOR MINING SCOUT CONCEPT

 I like this new Prospector design concept by Marc Senger.

It even folds up and takes off! Do you like it?

ANT THRILLS

 I caught these old NASA prints on old auctions so kept the images.

The Grumman MOLAB on its test bed travels, a superb lunar concept workhorse known to Project SWORD fans as the ANT.

Do you any old NASA prints like this?

THE TARHEEL COVER: MAKING AN IMPACT

The recent revelation that was the American Tarheel Project SWORD dealers catalogue I've been pondering the possible origin of that strange and huge disco ball on a stand to the right.

More to the point, I've been pondering the spidery base it has and I believe its this... the surface lander baseplate of the Moon Prospector concept shown here in 1961 in Newsweek a cover painted by Jo Kotula. You can just see half of it behind the Prospector.

Here's a much clearer NASA concept drawing, where the baseplate is very distinct, the legs spread out like a spider. NASA called it an Impact Absorber, a device to assist in landing the Prospector - the Roving Vehicle - on the Moon as part of the SURVEYOR programme. It would have made a great toy accessory [anyone care to make one?]

The bendable legs are even clearer in this related 1960 NASA  concept, the Stationary Packet, where the Prospector has yet to disengage from the plate and rove. 

The bent legs are almost a mirror image of those beneath the big 'disco' ball on the Tarheel SWORD cover above.

I can't ID the Tarheel disco ball and its lollipops but I think this explains their spidery base.

What do you reckon readers?

NASA Armoured Vehicles

Here is a video from Mark Felton Productions on the use of the M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier by NASA.

In the event that something went wrong on the launch tower, astronauts could leave their rocket or the Shuttle, get in to a metal cage, then descend down an escape line to a bunker 1200 feet away, jump in to a waiting APC, and drive away, protected by the armour of the vehicle.

Rescue crews also used the M113, and NASA had a small fleet of them. This was the standard US Army troop carrier at the time, and has seen action in countless wars.

The vehicles shown in the video are a light green, but I recall seeing photographs of all-white vehicles in a space magazine many years ago. That was the first time I had heard of NASA using armoured vehicles.

Being such a widely used vehicle, there are many kits of the M113 series, in various scales. So modelling one of these vehicles would be fairly straightforward.

There are some changes, such as the strictly military equipment being removed, like the folding bow plate at the front; and the fitting of extra lights. As far as I know there are no kits of the NASA vehicles, which seems really odd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH8IKG9cjU8

Paul Adams from New Zealand

NASA MOON LANDING 8PM TONIGHT UK TIME!

 Watch INTUITIVE land live on NASA's stream!

Gorblimey! I'm excited!

https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/intuitive-machines-1-lunar-landing/

Goodbye Ingenuity

 NASA's Martian copter is no more.

It's reddened  rotoring is sadly over, joining Man's scrapyard of dead space tech.

So long chopper.

THE MATCHBOX SKY BUSTERS DREAM CHASER

The Matchbox Dream Chaser has been mentioned before on Moonbase Central, but it seems to be a fairly hard model to track down. 

I finally found one, so I thought you might like some photos of it. 

Not exactly a pretty craft, with its upturned nose, but a welcome addition to the ranks of Real Space models.

The Dream Chaser is a small, re-usable space shuttle, built by the Sierra Nevada Corporation in America. It is intended to produce both unmanned cargo, and manned versions (with seating for up to seven astronauts). The first mission is now due in 2022, a little later than originally planned. It will be used to carry cargo and personnel to the International Space Station. The launch vehicle being a Vulcan Centaur rocket.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for the craft.

Dream Chaser - Wikipedia

The Matchbox Dream Chaser is part of the Sky-Busters line, and was first released in 2019, model number SB143. Length 91 mm. The black base and engine bells are metal, with the rest of the model being either black or white plastic. The cockpit windows are opaque, so there is no interior. The black plastic undercarriage is fixed, and the wheels do not revolve. The tampo printing is well done, in red, blue, black, and yellow.

The information cast in to the underside comprises the model name Dream Chaser - SIERRA NEVADA, Matchbox, © 2017 Mattel, the number SB143, MADE IN THAILAND, and a tiny elephant.

The card for the original 2019 version had a cloudy sky background, and a red stripe at the bottom. The 2021 card is orange, with the planet Earth providing a background to the model. The craft themselves appear to be the same.

Matchbox Wiki page for the Dream Chaser.

Dream Chaser (SB-143) | Matchbox Cars Wiki | Fandom

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Addition: Hot Wheels branded Skybusters!