Rover's Return?

Above is the ARGO Lunar Vehicle as it appears on their website. Recently Argo were "named as part of a consortium designing lunar rovers for the Canadian Space Agency". They also have a Lunar Rover.

Above is Moonstream as designed by student Anthony Sims.

For my money, these concepts have not moved on that far from the Sixties designs, which inspired moon vehicles in SWORD and SpaceX. What do you think?

No More Heroes

Star Brothers

Major General Leonov

Continuing a long-running interest in the Soviet space programme on this blog, reader Andy B has sent me these great paintings from a Russian art book called "The Soviet Character", which for me, do capture the enthusiasm we once all felt for the Space Race.

My gut feeling about interest in Space travel amongst the general public of the UK is that it has waned and continues to wane. I suppose this is to be expected since NASA's space programme has dwindled and seldoms features in the British media. There are also very few space toys in the shops. This is despite a number of excellent TV series on the cosmos such as Professor Brian Cox's. I suspect that it will take something jaw-droppingly dramatic to rekindle public zeal for space flight over and above any brave efforts that commercial outfits like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic and new space nations like China and India may be making.

What do you think? Is it the same in Europe, US and Canada?

And Then There Were Three

It's been another summer of SWORD at Moonbase. I've continued to plug the gaps in my collection and one major step forward for me was a boxed Tarheel Probe Force 3 to complete the trio. Apart from Probe Force 1, which appear to be the least scarce of all the Tarheels, acquiring other Tarheel SWORD has been a very slow process indeed [far harder than Century 21] and the PF3 has been no different. Having discovered it and it's stablemate Probe Force 2 for myself, in the mid-1990's, I have been looking for them ever since. After a wait of more or less 16 years Ebay US came up trumps this June. I was and am thrilled as it completes my collection of the three boxed US Probe Forces. That just leaves the Space Glider and the Moon Ranger now and on current form I should have them both around 2027!

As regards Tarheel's Probe Force 3 the box speaks for itself and features the same fab swirly galaxy box art. A couple of things to point out: 1. the Tarheel logo on the box is the standard T with the small red globe biult in [does it also exist with the T with kids logo as happens with the Space Glider and Moon Prospector?] and 2. there is no maker's mark at all on the toy itself apart from the phrase 'Made in Hong Kong'. I would be pleased to hear about any variations.

If you own a Tarheel Probe Force 3 or indeed any Tarheel SWORD I would be interested to hear how difficult [or not as the case maybe] it was to track them down.

Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the vibration of guns, and a form of black shadows moving. Everyone struggled to the rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding furnace of the west, but nothing was to be distinguished clearly. A mass of smoke rose slanting and barred the face of the sun. The steamboat throbbed on its way through an interminable suspense.

The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness--rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land.

American Dyna

More beautiful Dyna Soar art from vintage clippings and pages seen on Etsy.

Valigursky Ship 1

Illustration by the late great Edward Valigursky. Could be from the pulp story 'Barbarians of Space'. Unsure.

Ed Valigursky was a prolific pulp novel and magazine artist, together with being a respected illustrator of technical books and magazines. Besides his classic Man and Space paintings, most likely pointing to future SWORD and SPACEX toys, there are countless spaceships gracing his covers, many of which are very SWORDesque. I hope to feature more of them from time to time.

Reader Nyrath kindly pointed out this clearer version of the same picture shown above. From a Russian site. We can see now it's called the Empress of Mars.

Suction Crew

In my ongoing search for replacement LP astronauts [HO, gun-metal grey] and aliens for my Apollo Moon Exploration set I came across a great set of rubber suction versions in a shop called Tharp Sajik on Etsy, a really well laid out online marketplace for small craft objects. I was aware that the robot version of our friend WOTAN and his sidekicks appeared in rubber suction form but not that LP astronauts did too so I was very pleasantly surprised. The five aliens and four astronaut colours and poses are shown here [do any others exist?].

Therp Sajik, the shop owner, described how the little fellows were found, which I found really fascinating. Here's the item description in full: "Just made a deal with an old closed gum machine company here in Columbus. The owners found ME on the internet and contacted me to make me a deal I could not refuse. This is a toy originally placed in the display cards for the front of gum machines.

They all seem to have some paint on them to show details or for some weird unknown reason. If the paint is going to disappoint you, then maybe not a good item for you. There are four designs of the astronauts. You are buying ONE design of a random color. Buy more than one design and I start trying to mix colors for you. Here are the four designs and their measurements:1 HOLDING RIFLE 64mm x 20mm, 2 CANISTER ON SHOULDER 70mm x 20mm, 3 BOX PROBE 70mm x 20mm, 4 LEFT HAND UP 70mm x 20mm."

Set to Fade

Having just returned from the former GDR I am brimming with whispered impressions of an almost-faded Soviet past. I found this painting on Dark Roasted Blend which sort of depicts the sense I have that the once-lofty ideals of the GDR 'Plan' can now only be found in hidden corners, fleamarkets and crumbling tower blocks before slowly dissolving into distant memory.

The painting by the way, 'Space Workers', is by Russian artist Gennady Golobokov from 1973. His whispy style reminds me of a teenage favourite of mine, Jeffrey Jones, whose beautiful work graced the pages of the 1970's art tome 'The Studio' [similar to Roger Dean's book Views], where he was joined by Bernie Wrightson and MW Kaluta. You can see Jones's style on his own website.