Curiosity Killed The Chat

It's true, the London Olympics were a huge success and brought the World together wonderfully  this summer. For me, however, the greater triumph was the landing of Curiosity on Mars, a feat equal in significance to the Moonlanding and one which may one day pave the way to a manned landing and who knows, even a Mars Base and dare I say it, a New Earth! NASA's new adventure has got me hooked and the latest images from the martian buggy depicting Mount Sharp, as big as our own Moon's tallest peak and towering in the distance, are simply stunning.

 

 

I find it almost mind-bending that a man-made vehicle is driving around Mars and I'm so grateful that I'm around to experience it. I'd love to sample the excitement down in Times Square where NASA streams it's feed on a huge screen. I only hope Neil Armstrong was able to see some of the footage of Curiosity before his own epic lunar chapter closed.

 

 

After the disappointment of a faded Shuttle program and chatter of NASA's redundancy, it feels like the '69 Moonlanding allover again as Curiosity takes us all on a drive up Mount Sharp's slopes and the inclines of our yearning minds.

Above: Mount Sharp or Aeolis Mons on Mars as seen by Curiosity.

 

 

Below: graphic of Mount Sharp's location at the centre of Gale Crater, 96 miles across, in which Curiosity is roving.

images: Wikipedia/ NASA



Like Peas In A Pod

Reader Chris recently pointed out the resemblance between Star Trek's Shuttle Pod NX-01 [picture from the brilliant Fantastic Plastic] and Imperial's Apollo Moon Exploring space pod below.

Reading Fantastic Plastic's description of the Star Trek NX-01 kit  remarks on the passing resemblance to the hovercraft in Logan's Run, so I've included a picture of it here too to see what you think.

ioffer

 

 

Any more similar space vehicles to these three?

LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF PROBE FORCE 1

Far on the outer rim of SWORD collectables lies the exotic gem that is Randy Rayder In Outer Space, an LP combined with a comic book from 1969 by See Hear. The central vehicle of the soundtrack's story is ATHENA 1 aka SWORD PROBE FORCE 1 to you and me as pictured above in an extract from the comic book. The entire comic features elsewhere on the blog but you may not have heard the LP before. For a taste of the wild side click here and click play on the audio player. Enjoy the craziness of Randy Rayder In Outer Space!

INTERCEPTED

vectis

 

 

The Japanese often linked SWORD with UFO in their Imai Kits. I don't think there is actually any link at all between them [?] but it's a neat idea. So neat in fact that slapping a SWORD badge on this Dinky UFO Interceptor makes it a Probe Force Interceptor!

I recently saw a black missile for this toy. How many different coloured missiles were there?

One of our Parachutes is Missing

The Project SWORD Apollo Saturn toy rocket is the only SWORD toy with a parachute. This chute, attached to a small hard transparent capsule, is made of a thin carrier-bag type plastic and coloured white with red check squares. You can see it tucked into my box above. I imagine that the parachute and capsule were often the first parts of this toy to vanish into the void!

So the recent appearance on Ebay of a loose parachute, amongst some Saturn spares, was unusual. I know a couple of Swordies who needed one. The scarcity of loose parachutes led me to wonder if there were acceptable alternatives for the collector. Could other contemporary toys have included one?

The similar Sears and Tomy Apollo rockets presumably both had the same parachute as the Century 21 SWORD version. These two pictures, above and below, of a loose Sears parachute I saw a few years ago on Ebay certainly suggest at least the Sears one is the same perhaps, but as I own neither toy its hard to say. Can anyone confirm this?

Looking further into 'space', we find plastic parachutes on many toys from the 1960's, but all appear to have red stripes rather than red check and include:

.....the Askews model capsule pictured above [may not be red stripes!]

....and above, the space paratroop [the header card shows a red striped chute at least]

 .....and above and below two versions of Marx's Project Apollo with 'manned recovery capsules'

Despite there being countless cheap party favour paratroopers in the shops, a thorough surf was unable to locate any toys - old or new - sporting a red check parachute like the Century 21 Apollo Saturn. I did however find a red plastic carrier bag with the required red pattern being stocked on Ebay as pictured below [contact me for the link directly lest we cause a sudden rise in 'spare' SWORD chutes appearing on said site!]. The dimensions would have to be checked but, by George, it might just do! Obviously you would need to cut to shape, attach the strings and have the C21 space capsule, finding an alternative to which, will prove an even more herculean task I fear!

Ad Mission

Just back from my hols and catching up with all the great posts whilst I've been away. I love the new advert from 1967 that Andy B has unearthed in Wote's Ad Astra above bottom [re-shown for convenience of comparison]. As Wote says, it appears to be a variation of this half-page ad, which appeared in TV21 issue 145 [28th October 1967] as seen above top.

 

 

The Nuclear Ferry cab interior illustration could even be a photograph? What do you think?

Booster Fleet

 Well I never need much of an excuse to look at the Booster Rocket, so heres the whole currently available fleet. The C21 version, Hover orange version, Spacex and R & L cereal premium. The C21 and Hover are both the same size, same as the boxes below, the disparity is a just the camera angle.

Scouting for Ads

The search is on - Mike B prepares to launch the Scout fleet to find the missing Buster ad. Scout Force is ready for take off from one of the auxilary strips at Glenn Field.