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Thursday, July 19, 2018

Earth and Sky

Here are some images of a globe set up of which I cobbled together using acrylic spheres which can be purchased at any decent craft store for cheap, and parts gleaned from my spares box.
The globe and sky images I downloaded and resized from a wonderful site called paperPino.
They have a good variety of globe downloads as well as other paper crafts.
A great site. I suggest you check it out.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

The Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

Here are some images of Larson Designs 1/144 scale The Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov from the movie 2010 Odyssey Two "The year we make contact".

From Wikipedia'

The Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov is a fictional Soviet spaceship in the novel 2010: Odyssey Two, and its film adaptation 2010. It was named after Soviet Air Force General Alexey Leonov, the first man to walk in space.
In the book, Leonov is described as being equipped with a Sakharov drive, a fictional new method of propulsion that makes it possible for the craft to make a round-trip to Jupiter. The craft also uses a large heatshield to aerobrake in Jupiter's outer atmosphere, saving fuel. In recognition of Alexei Leonov, after whom the craft is named, there is a framed painting by the cosmonaut in the mess room. The Russians are said to view gravity as more or less a luxury and the Leonov does not have artificial gravity. The ship was originally to be christened the Gherman Titov, but was changed later for undisclosed reasons; a character in the film version offers the cryptic explanation that "people [presumably referring to either Titov or someone involved with the current mission] fall out of favor", but does not elaborate.
In the film, Leonov is shown to have a large rotating midsection providing artificial gravity and has a large ballute in place of the heatshield.
The model of the Leonov for the film was designed by Syd Mead.


Saturday, July 14, 2018

MIR Space Station

Here are some images of Heller's 1/125 scale MIR Space Station as it appeared in the early 1990's.

From Wikipedia"

Mir (Russian: Мир, IPA: [ˈmʲir]; lit. peace or world) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. Mir was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996. It had a greater mass than any previous spacecraft. At the time it was the largest artificial satellite in orbit, succeeded by the International Space Station after Mir's orbit decayed. The station served as a microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and spacecraft systems with a goal of developing technologies required for permanent occupation of space.
Mir was the first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit and held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at 3,644 days, until it was surpassed by the ISS on 23 October 2010. It holds the record for the longest single human spaceflight, with Valeri Polyakov spending 437 days and 18 hours on the station between 1994 and 1995. Mir was occupied for a total of twelve and a half years out of its fifteen-year lifespan, having the capacity to support a resident crew of three, or larger crews for short visits.
Following the success of the Salyut programme, Mir represented the next stage in the Soviet Union's space station programme. The first module of the station, known as the core module or base block, was launched in 1986 and followed by six further modules. Proton rockets were used to launch all of its components except for the docking module, which was installed by a US Space Shuttle mission STS-74 in 1995. When complete, the station consisted of seven pressurised modules and several unpressurised components. Power was provided by several photovoltaic arrays attached directly to the modules. The station was maintained at an orbit between 296 km (184 mi) and 421 km (262 mi) altitude and travelled at an average speed of 27,700 km/h (17,200 mph), completing 15.7 orbits per day.
The station was launched as part of the Soviet Union's manned spaceflight programme effort to maintain a long-term research outpost in space, and following the collapse of the USSR, was operated by the new Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA). As a result, most of the station's occupants were Soviet; through international collaborations such as the Intercosmos, Euromir and Shuttle–Mir programmes, the station was made accessible to space travelers from several Asian, European and North American nations. Mir was deorbited in March 2001 after funding was cut off. The cost of the Mir programme was estimated by former RKA General Director Yuri Koptev in 2001 as $4.2 billion over its lifetime (including development, assembly and orbital operation).

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

USSC Discovery One

Here are some images of Moebius models 1/144 scale USSC Discovery One painted as it looked in 2010 odyssey two "TheYear We Make Contact".

The reason for the Discovery's yellow appearance is due to proximity to Io.
Io is loaded with volcanoes which constantly expel sulfur into the atmosphere. And due to the light gravity Io has sulfur makes it as as high as Discovery's orbit. Due to this sulfur accumulation is what caused Discovery's orbital decay.

From the Novel by Arthur C Clarke"
‘My fellow Americans - I sound like a politician, God help me - came out of hibernation without any problems, and are both looking forward to starting work. We’ll all have to move quickly; not only is time running out, but Discovery seems to be in very bad shape. We could hardly believe our eyes when we saw how its spotless white hull had turned a sickly yellow.
‘Io’s to blame, of course. The ship’s spiralled down to within three thousand kilometres, and every few days one of the volcanoes blasts a few megatons of sulphur up into the sky. Even though you’ve seen the movies, you can’t really imagine what it’s like to hang above that inferno; I’ll be glad when we can get away, even though we’ll be heading for something much more mysterious - and perhaps far more dangerous.