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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Atlas Booster With Mercury Capsule







Here are some images of Yee Old Revell's 1/110 scale Atlas Booster with Mercury Capsule.
I am often amazed at how much intricacy some of these old kits have even when compared to today's model kits. The launch building on this model is just one example.

From Wikipedia"

Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8) was an early manned space mission, part of NASA's Mercury program. Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., orbited the Earth six times in the Sigma 7 spacecraft on October 3, 1962, in a nine-hour flight focused mainly on technical evaluation rather than on scientific experimentation. This was the longest American orbital flight yet achieved in the Space Race, though well behind the several-day record set by the Soviet Vostok 3 earlier in the year. It confirmed the Mercury spacecraft's durability ahead of the one-day Mercury-Atlas 9 mission that followed in 1963.

Planning began for the third orbital mission in February 1962, aiming for a six-or-seven-orbit flight to build on the previous three-orbit missions. NASA officially announced the mission to the public on June 27, and the flight plan was finalised in late July. The mission focused on engineering tests rather than on scientific experimentation. The mission finally launched on the morning of October 3, having been delayed two weeks because of problems with the Atlas booster. A series of minor booster problems during launch and a faulty temperature controller in Schirra's pressure suit were the only technical problems noted during the flight. The spacecraft orbited in both automated and passive flight modes for prolonged periods while the pilot monitored it and carried out some minor scientific experiments. After six orbits, the capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean half a mile from the recovery carrier, and was hoisted aboard for Schirra to disembark.

The scientific results of the mission were mixed. The astronaut returned healthy and was released after nine hours of confinement in a low-gravity environment. Observation of the Earth's surface proved unproductive, however, because of heavy cloud cover and bad photographic exposures. The public and political reaction was muted compared with that of earlier missions, as the Cuban Missile Crisis quickly eclipsed the space race in the news. The mission was a technical success: all the engineering objectives had been completed without significant malfunctions, and the spacecraft had used even less fuel than expected. This confirmed the capabilities of the Mercury spacecraft and allowed NASA to plan with confidence for a day-long flight, MA-9, which had been an early goal of the Mercury program.


10 comments:

Pat Tillett said...

Even in the photo, it looks like a ton of detail. Nice one Warren!

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks Pat.

Diego said...

Hi Warren,

Go preciousness model. I love to do

-Warren Zoell said...

Creo que este equipo está a punto de volver pronto en libertad si no estoy confundiendo.

Anonymous said...

This is cool. I have this kit and I should build it one day.

Dave

-Warren Zoell said...

Is it an original or re release?

Entre Nous said...

Love it! In between everything else I have finally changed something in my computer which allows me to FINALLY comment again. Yay My son ordered the radio control box for his huge plane and is now all upset about the government limiting range.
*sigh*

-Warren Zoell said...

What happened to the Tug Boats?

Anonymous said...

I built this model as child 50 years ago, I used to imagine walking around on it, climbing the stairs...

-Warren Zoell said...

It's one of the great old kits.