MOONBASE CENTRAL

Friday, 19 February 2021

WILL OSBORNE'S MARVELLOUS DAN DARE AND SUPERSONIC BUILDER SETS

Hi All. A couple of space construction boxed sets. The Supersonic is a Moko product, as in Moko Lesney. The Dan Dare Space Ship Builder was made by Bartrams. Both are from the 1950's.

Enjoy,

Will O.

JON DAVIS TV21 ARTIST: RIP

Jon Davis's son has been in touch to pass on the sad news that his Dad, Jon, passed away on the 29th November last year.

Among many other accolades and achievements, Jon illustrated many Project SWORD stories for Century TV21 comic, some of which have featured here.

His family have a tribute website for Jon, which includes many personal photographs and original artwork.

https://ethanejd7.wixsite.com/jondavistv21

Our sincere condolences to the Davis family.

DON'T FAWCETT AGAIN! THE BIONIC ANGEL!

A few years ago in 2017 we visited a local car boot sale and I wrote about it at the time. As we've mentioned Charlie's Angels recently and as I liked the post so much here it is again!

I came away with a very tall loose action doll.

The seller told me it was a Farah Fawcett figure of Charlie's Angels fame.

I didn't know the name of it myself but thought it might have been a Mego or similar. She was 18 inches tall and very unusual.

Once I got Farah home I googled her.

I couldn't find anything when searching for Farah Fawcett 18 inch doll.

I changed tack and added Bionic Woman as Farah was the late wife of Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man.

It worked!

It isn't a Farah Fawcett doll at all!

Its a Jaime Sommers doll, the real Bionic Woman of the TV show [pic: Vectis]

The 18 inch action doll was called 18" Super Size Jaime Fashion Doll and made by Denys Fisher in 1977.

My Jaime is unboxed and missing all of her accessories like her ring, earrings, shawl and shoes but she does still have her gold evening dress for bionic nights out.

It is one of the more exciting finds I've made at a boot sale. For some reason they are often dolls, a Sindy dress being top dog of my finds. Or is that top doll?

I'm unsure if there were different releases of this Jaime figure in the US and UK though.

Does anyone know?

Here is another Hot Wheels 2021 model that I found in the shops in November 2020. It is from the Screen Time series, and is model 2 of 10 - the X-34 Landspeeder from Star Wars. It is a copper brown, with red lines.

The bumpers, interior, and rear engines are silver-grey, with a clear windscreen. There are grey 'paint chips' on the body, and the port engine is missing its cover, showing off the dark grey engine. The model runs on four small brown wheels, and the copyright date is 2020.

Hot Wheels have already done many Star Wars models in various special lines, but this is the first one to be included in the basic Mainline.

Paul A

Thursday, 18 February 2021

Mars 2020 - Tango Delta

After a tense few minutes and a fabulous multi media cast, Perseverance is safely on Mars, transmitting an initial image from Jezero Crater! Go NASA and JPL!

My Favourite Martians

Well here we are on the day the latest probe approaches Mars. Just this week, an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates has entered orbit, along with the latest Chinese mission, which will also attempt to land a rover later this year. The memorable events prompted me to look back in my dilapidated space scrapbook, from childhood, to find an old clipping from a newspaper which had been left over in my grandma's house. It shows a full page spread from the first successful Mariner mission in 1965, when I was just 3 and utterly unaware. Five years later, with my Mums help, I scoured the pile of old newspapers for any space related clippings, which found their way into the scrapbook. As the photograph was disappointingly unimpressive to my young eye, I decided to help it a little with some red crayon.

Today, representations of Mars, both real and artistic, are so much different and with the advent of digital media, its possible to visualize even small details on the surface at my leisure.

I wonder how it must be to see the developments in space exploration as a child now, with nothing left to the imagination and maps, charts and videos of the remote world available at the touch of a button. As a boy, I was amazed at how books showed the surface of Mars and proposed the existence of 'canals' on its mysterious surface.

If you compare Bonestell's beautiful vision of the red planet as seen from Phobos, with the warts and all photograph on the cover of the Haynes Manual, there is very little actual resemblance, aside from colour; even though Bonestell was the de facto space artist of his day.

Other, less well known artists populated the raft of space books available in the sixties with images based on photographs taken with terrestrial telescopes, or used Schiaparelli's 1862 map as a rough guide or presented Percival Lowell's wild theories about canals.

Lowells three books are available as pdf's here:

https://archive.org/details/marsasabodeoflif00loweuoft/page/108/mode/2up

In the 1950's, prior to any successful space probe launch, artists were even more extravagant in their visions, such as these lavishly romantic paintings in the Collins 'Timothy's Space Book', a quaint series of books in which the young boy is shown the wonders of air and space travel by his dad, replete with suit, trilby and pipe.

Watch Perseverance landing this evening (19.00 gmt onwards ) on social media, tv and Youtube, and I wonder if the full significance of the amazing achievement will dawn on generations of children today, or might it just be glossed over as the latest in a long line of technological achievements designed to extend mans footprint on the world ? I for one, will be watching in some fashion, but in the back of my mind, I can still retain the wonder and amazement of being able to 'see' the surface of a world which glitters faintly in the light of dawn and wonder if in my own lifetime, humans will actually visit and be able to wipe the dust off their robotic precursors who paved the way to the mysterious red planet.

WILL OSBORNE'S DAN DARE COLLECTABLES

Some Dan Dare collectables tonight. A tie, a pocket watch, a boxed radio station and the ultra-rare Codeg Hydroplane boxed.

Will O.

Interview with Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane

Hi Woodsy

Max from Max's Models has a new video up, featuring an interview with Mike Mullane, who flew three Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s.

Served in Vietnam with the USAF, and flew over one hundred reconnaissance missions. Lots of really good space shots, flying over brightly lit cities, and a view of the emergency escape system from the launch tower, in which the Astronauts get into baskets, and whizz down a wire to a protective bunker.

He will also answer questions posed by Max and his viewers. I have only just started this, it runs for nearly an hour and a half, but thought it would be of interest to you. Now to get back to Max.

(2) Astronaut Mike Mullane chats with Max's Models - YouTube

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Adams from New Zealand