The first kit in the Apollo 50 Project is the reissue of the 1969 kit, Man in Space, a constant scale 1/200 of the first five manned U.S. launch vehicles. The kit includes the Mercury Redstone, the Mercury Atlas, the Gemini Titan, the Apollo Saturn I-B, and the Apollo Saturn V. The original kit featured a cardboard diorama of the launch facilities used to put these rockets into space, including the giant gantry for the Saturn V; this reissue includes this cardboard display as well (though I won't be using it).
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| Inside the box |
I'll be working chronologically through these kits, starting with the Mercury vehicles and their two launchers, the Redstone and the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles re-purposed to put men in space.
Since this is a reissue (that is, they've pulled the molds out of storage, duplicated them for modern styrene manufacture, with no alterations from the originals), the details on the parts is minimal and not always entirely accurate. For this kit, I'll be suspending my "highly detailed" stipulation for this project; I want to keep the nostalgia and simplicity of the original kit. I have found that the styrene in this kit is a bit soft, so it's not holding the minimal details it does have very well, and it's very easy to "overwork" the plastic. I'll need to take care not to significantly mar the final product.
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| Mercury Redstone parts |
First up, Mercury Redstone. This is the smallest rocket in the constant scale kit. From base to the tip of the escape tower, it's only about 4.5". Don't expect much detail on this one. Also, being so small and a launch vehicle of very basic design, there are only a few parts for the whole kit. But on the plus side, and a nice result of creating new, modern molds, there is very little flashing on these pieces. The mold seams are very minimal and required only light sanding. The overall fit of most of the parts is quite good, but there are some seam gaps that require filling. The escape tower is the lone exception to the mold quality; there was a prominent seam line along one face of the solid representation of the strut tower. As a consequence, there is no molded cross struts on this side, so there will need to be some creative painting to get this look right.
Next, the Mercury Atlas. As one would expect, the capsule (Mercury) is identical to the parts for the Redstone. So, all the same issues here. The Atlas launch vehicle was needed to lift the Mercury astronauts to a height and speed that would allow them to achieve orbit, something the Redstone did not
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| Mercury Atlas parts |
have the power to do. Thus, this booster has some more heft to it and that's reflected in this small kit. We also see the first detail part (external fuel line) of these small rocket kits.
Also, the engine nozzles are visible on this launcher, so we have separate parts for those. The flashing on these pieces was a bit worse than the Redstone. Additional sanding was required to smooth those areas. However, the fit of these pieces was quite good, and no filler was needed. I left the center nozzle of the main engine off the model for now, as the mounting rod will go up through this area of the model. More on mounting later.
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| Almost fully assembled! |
Having no white putty on hand, I had to use the old standby, Squadron Green Putty, for the filler. I expect most of the green you see here on the model to be sanded away tomorrow, after drying. If all goes well with cleaning up the filler, these two rockets will be ready for primer tomorrow.
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| Green putty filler for the gaps |
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