KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN.....

10th

8PM UK TIME

SQUARING THE CIRCLE

CELTICA RADIO

SELLING THE SUN

I've just read that someone is selling plots on the Sun for a euro each!

Well, at least they were selling them until Ebay pulled the listing! Now the seller is sueing Ebay! The mind boggles!

I had to look twice at this and wonder if it was April Fools Day! Turns out that the seller has even registered the Sun in their name at a notary public in Spain.

The seller managed to list the solar plots for two years before Ebay pulled the plug. God knows if any were sold! I can guess where all those deeds to the plots went - up in smoke!

Seriously, is it even remotely possible for anyone to own the Sun? If that ever happens we'll be getting bills from Yorkshire Daylight, which would basically be, yes, daylight robbery!

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO :SKYHOOK

Just finished watching the latest episode of TAG, 'Skyhook', here in the UK.

Not a bad episode, although a bit too fast paced for me. The Space Elevator is prominent  in this one, although having a cable stretching from Tracy Island to Thunderbird 5 stretches my imagination a tad!

Every Tracy brother has a part to play, and every Thunderbird,  apart from Thunderbird 4 is involved.

John comes out the hero in this, with Brains  directing the action.

The bloke , the Tracy boys struggle to rescue is the annoying Langstrom Fischler ,  voiced by New Zealander,  Rhys Darby, he of The Flight of the Conchords fame! The target audience, I'm sure will love his tirades and wisecracks, although some might think his character created a joke episode feel to the story .

All in all though,  another fun episode.

THE TOXIC BLAST

PLASMA FROM STYX'S PALPS ENGULFED THE ARK. IT IGNITED.

SARGE

PART 2

JUNE 1Oth

A PROJECT SWORD SCALE CHART?

Inspired by the amazing Thunderbirds scale chart by Chris Thompson helpfully flagged up by reader Jim, I thought I'd start on a similar Project SWORD scale chart. Yikes I hear you shout! Me too!

I have tried this herculean task before a few years back but did not research the sizes, rather relying on my own instinct to keep it easy peasy! You can just about tell that I thought that Saturn V [grey horizontal outline] was a touch bigger than Zero-X [brown horizontal outline].

I couldn't have been more wrong! Using agreed sizes gleaned from the internet here is the beginnings of my Project SWORD scale chart. Not perfect by any means but a start I reckon. 

Zero-X is three times taller than the Saturn V [Apollo Saturn/ Cape Kennedy Set] and astronomical compared to the tiny Dyna Soar! PS. The Starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek TV series wasn't that far off the Zero X at 948 feet or 289m. The modern film versions are two and half times bigger than Zero-X!

Do you know of any other definitive sizes for Project SWORD vehicles, either from the Annual or the comics or anywhere? Maybe NASA for the Space Glider, Moon Prospector etc? These may of course have been ignored in SOLO, TV21 and the Annual!

Even original pictures and illustrations comparing them to the Zero-X, Saturn V or indeed any of the Thunderbirds fleet would help as we know the sizes for all of them.

C'mon readers, we can do it!

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to eagle-eyed Mr. Vreede I've added the lengths of both the Nuclear Ferry and the Dyna Soar. The Nuclear Ferry, in NASA terms, is surprisingly small compared to the ginormous Zero-X. This may of course be different in SOLO and TV21.

THE FORGOTTEN PRISONER OF CASTELMARE

Following on from the Pirates of the Caribbean post I did yesterday, here's an ad for Aurora's Monster kits that glowed in the dark.

The only one I ever got was the Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare, (or Castelmare according to the box) which appeared much more macabre than the others, even though 'The Prisoner' was the only one of the set that didn't appear in film. 

I was quite pleased to learn that Moebius have released a kit based on the original Aurora one.

Gruesome! 

OX SCALE

I've been musing over the scale of the countless Anderson vehicles that featured in his extraordinary vision of the future: 

all the SWORD craft, Skyship 1, Fireflash, all the Thunderbirds fleet etc etc. Just so many. Probably hundreds!

After all my musing I can't think of a single ship that would be bigger than Zero X? What do you think?

ZEROID MISSILE DEFENSE PAD TAKE 2

A while back I featured the Zeroid Missile Defense Pad which originally came as part of the Zeroid Action Set complete with a Zeroid.

This is the Missile Defense Pad on its own as a Zeroid accessory. 

The packaging, which is dated 1970 shows the Zeroid range on the back, including Zeroid Commander Zogg, although no mention of ultra rare Zemo!

The loose contents are all still sealed in the bag, but unlike the original Missile Defence Pad which was a cream colour, this one is bright red, the same as Zeroid Zintar's Lunar Sled.

The alternative coloured Missile Defense Pad.

The original box art for the Action Set.

Some of the box art for the Missile Defense Pad