Luna rocketship, Destination Moon (PegasusHobbies 9111)
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Luna rocketship, Destination Moon (PegasusHobbies 9111) |
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in storage |
A smooth silver 1930s-style finned 1:144-scale Luna rocketship, from the 1950 film "Destination Moon", made by Pegasus, as model number 9111. The company also make a smaller 1:350-scale version (model number 9110)
"Chromed" variants
Both have been released in limited special editions with (chrome?) plating (9311 / 181PE06, PE for "Plated Edition" for the larger model, and we think, perhaps PH9410 for the smaller pre-silvered model).
The "chromed" version is obviously going to look quite beautiful straight out of the box ... as long as you don't look a the upper side-seam. Which might not be visible anyway, if the model is placed up high.
However, the silvery "special editions" only seem to be available from retailers in the US. If you live in the UK, you may find that when sourcing a "metallic" version from the USA, the postage and packing may cost almost as much as the model.
The movie
Destination Moon (1950) was produced by George Pal and Walter Lantz, and was based on the 1947 novel "Rocket Ship Galileo", by Robert A. Heinlein.
George Pal is chiefly remembered for his 1953 sci-fi classic "War of the Worlds" (1953). However, along with Lantz, he also created the character of Woody Woodpecker, which helps to explain the film-within-a-film, where a Woody Woodpecker cartoon is used to explain the simplified principles of spaceflight to the project's industrialist financial backers.
When making Destination Moon, Pal was in a similar situation to Gerry Anderson years later: he had started by making puppet animations, had learned the technical side of filmmaking, and now wanted to move on to making "proper" films. For someone with that background, science fiction was an obvious choice, as the "star" of the movie would be the spaceship, the sets and production design, and the special effects, all of which could be gotten right by people used to modelmaking and animation. As long as the script was okay, and the actors did what they were supposed to do, the "wow factor" of the film would be technical and safely under control, and there would be very little to go wrong.
With one of the best-looking spaceships in modern film, and placing great emphasis on the claimed technical accuracy of the film's details, Destination Moon was heavily promoted and gained significant press coverage and public interest before its release, and as a result, did rather well.
The spaceship
Although lots of science fiction films and illustrations had featured silver-finned single-stage rocketships that were basically variations on the Verner von Braun "V2" rocket, the Luna spaceship in Destination Moon was particularly nicely proportioned, even if it did feature the most impractical ladders in science fiction built into its side.
According to the movie plot, Luna was powered by a nuclear reactor, with water as a propellant, and the reactor converting the water into high-velocity superheated steam. This mans that the spaceship is technically steam-powered.
The model
Pegasus Hobbies make two main versions of the Luna, one in 1:144-scale (#9111), and one in the smaller 1:350 scale. These are also available in chrome-plated "special editions" (). We weren't able to source a shiny silver "special edition" Luna in the UK, with all retailers having stock appearing to be in the US, so we had to settle for the standard version.
The parts
As an exercise in extreme minimalism, the model has very few parts, and is designed to make it as easy as possible to get the best possible results. Moulded in hard, grey, shiny ABS plastic, the body and wings are surprisingly thick and heavy. The two-piece bodyshell is split lengthways, with the split coinciding with the two main opposing fins, to minimise the length of visible seam. The three fins are moulded as essentially single, double-sided pieces, with the exception of the teardrop-shaped pods at the ends, which are too thick to mould solid: one half of each pod is incorporated into the wing, the other half-pod glues on top.
The two main fins fit into position with substantial mating pegs and holes, the holes surrounded by an empty channel to take excess glue, to minimise the effect of glue coming out through the join. As an example of how seriously the designers have taken their job, the fins are only connected to their moulding sprue at points that, in the finished model, end up inside the spaceship and are not visible on the finished model. Similarly, the point-end of the bodyshell halves, prone to shipping damage, came in our pack with special internal packing-pieces, held in place with a tough tear-off (shrinkwrap?) film. The high-gloss-finished unpainted bodyshell did arrive with a tiny amount of visible scuffing from jostling with the other components, visible when you held it up to the light ... but probably thinner than a single coat of silver paint, and invisible in the finished model.
The two window-pieces (one each side of the body-shell) need to be glued to the insides of their respective shells first, preferably with a non-fogging glue, then the two halves glued together around the side fins and internal thrust nozzle. Finally, the third fin and the opposing leg are fitted, and the model is ready to paint and plonk onto its "lunar terrain" base.
Since the bodyshell will want to be glued together (and the seam "finished") before painting, and the windows will need to be glued to the insides before this, the windows are going to want to be masked off before painting.
Two hatch outlines (thankfully inset as "cracks" rather than protruding!), above and below the window, are moulded onto one side of the bodyshell: they perhaps aren't as deep as they could be, but a faint wash of black paint in the cracks could fix this.
The only thing the model really lacks in an indication of where the ship's retractable ladder-rungs magically appear, sliding out of the ship's side when the pilot enables them. Then again, in the film, the rungs are designed to be flush and near-invisible when retracted, so this is a minor quibble.
Conclusions
While superficially a very easy build, the kit is designed to be as nice a display model as possible, and an expert modelmaker can still gain satisfaction using their skills to make the last traces of the upper side-seam disappear before painting chromey-silver.
A 1:144 (twelfth-twelfth scale) kit, this might look nice next to a 1:144 Saturn V rocket.
Customising
A "ladder" transfer might be nice.
An obvious upgrade might be to pop one or more tiny little wireless LEDS inside the exhaust nozzle, and hide the powering-coil under the hollow plastic lunar surface, so that the engine lights up when the rocket is on or just above its base.
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