A STAR TO STEER HER BY

 

Collectable space ephemera has become more popular since the anniversary of the moon landing, as the event becomes a much greater part of social history, especially as plans are in place for a return to the moon in the next few years. As a result, more and more material appears for sale on ebay, as people discover old files and scrapbooks, tucked away in cupboards and drawers. Although some of the material is overpriced and overrated, there are still items to be found quite cheaply, which are of quite profound interest.

As I have noted earlier, during the run up to the moon landing, space information was everywhere, from foodstuffs to toys, commercials to newspapers, as being a hot topic, it was almost guaranteed to secure attention. In a recent lot of ephemera I picked up was a large document, the same shape and format as a 33 rpm record album cover (although there is no indication that a disk was included) from Wiggins Teape Paper manufacturers. The 'Lunar Orbit' pack is undated, but appears to date from around 1969.

As Wiggins Teape are a paper company, the folder functions as a sampler for various paper types and weights, with one of the stocks being named 'Orbit'. The folder has images from Apollo missions and the moon on the cover and contains a range of loose items printed on various stock weights. In the pack are a fold out moon landing Flight Plan, based on the official NASA resource and what appears to be facsimiles of data sheets from the mission.

These include biogrqphical data on the Apollo 11 crew members, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and another foldout of the proposed landing area on the moon.

Its impossible to gauge if the pack is complete and it is probable that pieces are missing. There are two sheets of comms chatter from Apollo 8 included on lighter paper stock and a series of images of the LEM landing sequence, printed on card.

Other items include stats on Earth and Lunar orbit characteristics, as well as a quotation printed in embossed type on another grade of board. The emphasis seems to be on promoting the paper stock, rather than informational veracity, with the data and images chosen to best show the characteristics of the print stock, rather than the info.

Along with the Lunar Orbit pack, the seller included various other items, such as posters and other leaflets. One of which was a a tie in to aYorkshire TV programme 'Heavens Above' and was probably a mail away from the TV series. It consists of a small A5 folder with a larger sheet inside and pages of information about star gazing and astronomy in the UK.

The seller was clearly an amateur astronomer in the day and the lot offered a pair of plastic Planispheres, a small pocket version and a large 12" diameter version, for predicting and discovering the formation of the constellations on any given night.

Possibly one of the best items in the lot is a large format Rand McNally Moon Map, dated 1990, with a good clear representation of all the major features of the lunar surface, as visible by telescope.

A second McNally publication of a solar system poster was included, probably from the same series.

Finally an earlier Daily Telegraph 'Sky At Night' poster, by Geographia. It is undated, but has been wall mounted at some point, so is probably of 1960's vintage.

EVER INCREASING CIRCLES

It is hard to keep a good idea down, sometimes and in the sixties, during the space race ideas abounded as research and conceptualisation were the order of the day, as scientists came up with deigns for craft to explore the moon and space. Many of the fabulous ideas never made it beyond the drawing board and others found favour in different guises, as a an expectant public eagerly snapped up any information about the upcoming missions. Tabloids and periodicals such as Colliers and Life magazine carried articles about the development of the materiel which would be used to conquer space and popular Mechanics and Air Progress magazines covered all kinds of weird and wonderful designs for lunar exploration vehicles and spacecraft. Science Fiction was a burgeoning industry too and the monthly pulps and magazines took advantage of the wealth of information coming from the engineering companies, US Air Force and NASA news agencies, using imagery from the publicity materials to bolster sales.

Analog was a monthly magazine that carried science fiction stories, balanced with a mix of science fact articles. One of the artists who contributed to the magazine, was John Schoenherr who became famous for his illustrations for Frank Herbert's 'Dune' sequence. Schoenherr was a talented artist, who produced some stunning painted artwork for Analog over the next few years, including a simple painting of a 'Moon Crawler' vehicle on the surface of the moon. This in itself is not unusual, but the simple image became the basis of a number of toys which would be produced over the next decade.

Probably the single most direct influence would be the use of the image in a small plastic jigsaw, made by JAK PAK. Clearly an attempt to cash in on the craze, JAK PAK made five small jigsaws named 'Lunarprobe' with space imagery on them. The original painting has been loosely interpreted in a comic book fashion and has a pair of astronauts shoehorned into the image, along with a distinctly recognisble Apollo CSM sailing overhead.
 

Curious about the origins of the painting itself, Paul Woods of Moonbase Central attempted to contact the artist, who had unfortunately passed away just a little time before. However, his son Ian was in charge of his fathers estate and in the process of organising the work, uncovered two remarkable pre-production sketches of the image. The full story can be read here:

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-schoenherrs-moon-crawler.html

Ian remarked that his dad kept a lot of reference material on file for his commissions and one image from LIFE magazine was especially pertinent to the Moon Crawler design.  Its very plain to see where the big balloon tyre idea came from and very possibly, the colour scheme for the crawler too!

Before the JAK PAK jigsaw was recognised by the Moonbase Central community, the crawler image was found in another book, 'Men on the Moon' in 1963. This volume struck a chord with toy collectors, as it showed the moon crawler image and a second vehicle, which would had found its way into toy fandom as part of the Tri-ang Spacex series as the Surveyor and Molab respectively. Detailed information on both these toys and the rest of the line can be discovered here:

https://www.triangspacextoys.info/SpGAorig/SrvyrOrF/Srvr_OrP.html

The Men on the Moon book suggests it is based on "America's Project Apollo", but the cover is much more indicative of pulp imagery and the contents are a mixture of factual articles and a fictional account of a moon landing, interspersed with imagery clearly culled from the pulp realm, along with some very interesting early Apollo Project concept art and models.

Schoenherr's original Moon Crawler directly influenced the design of the Project SWORD Moon Crawler,as well as the Spacex Surveyor. Project Sword was a Gerry Anderson series of toys and stories, which did not benefit from the usual TV series to carry it and despite reasonable success, did not find as much fame as Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet.

The SWORD Moon Crawler never made it beyond the pages of the single 1968 Annual release, although Japanese kit manufacturer Imai, did make a number of versions of the vehicle, in similar livery, but without any connection to the franchise.

The other vehicle in the book is what has become known as the 'Molab' (or Mobile Laboratory) which was quite slavishly copied for the Spacex line.

The Molab was also taken up for use as a tiny kit given away with Kelloggs Sugar Smack cereal, which was currently affiliated with Gerry Anderson's Joe 90 TV series. 

Called the 'Moon Exploration Space Car', the miniature kit even matched the circular wireframed window from the Man on the Moon book, as well as the aerial. The kit also includes two spare wheels, stowed under the rear, which are not featured on its larger Spacex cousin.

The Kelloggs models also included a small Lunar Module, which includes the label 'Surveyor Type', which is something of a misnomer, as the Surveyor probes were smaller unmanned vehicles with a tripedal landing gear.

Scattered around the book are a number of other early LEM concepts, proposed around 1962, which show a streamlined, upright vehicle.

Some of the images clearly show conceptual models, probably made of wood and plastic, which were often shown at press conferences to illustrate how dockings and landing might take place. It was models like these that I saw as a child in books and on tv coverage, which I was led to believe would be landing on the moon in a few short years. I recall being really disappointed with the eventual skeletal and ugly LEM that was unveiled as the final design!

FLICKERING SPACE

A common sight in the sixties were the false 3d effect pictures which were used on greetings cards, novelties and keyrings. Made of a plastic laminate, I was always fascinated by the corrugated surface and never really understood how the process worked. Years later, i discovered that they were called 'lenticular' images and were covered by a special prismatic coating, which used tiny lenses to deceive the eye into viewing separate images as a whole, giving the flickering, three dimensional effect.

As most of the examples I had seen previously were always small - such as novelty items from lucky bags of part f a toy, I never really gave them much attention as an image format, assuming the quality of the image would be poor, given the strange nature of the format.  Recently, I bought a couple of lenticular postcards, again from the sixties, depicting space scenes and was very surprised as how crisp and sharp the images were, despite being sheathed in thick laminate.

The first one I bought was a scene with a moon landing with a large rocket and two astronauts waving to their colleagues on the plan below. This was a standard postcard and was mounted in a double frame, with a small plain wooden frame, recessed into a larger gilt frame with a glass front. The whole assembly being supported by a wire hanger. The increased depth of the frames made the 3d effect even more immersive, almost like looking though a small window. Unmounting the frame and cleaning the glass and the surface of the card revealed a profound difference in clarity too, as dust had accumulated on the card and on the glass.

The card is assumed to have been produced by the japanese Asahi trading company and is clearly from the early sixties. The scene shows a large 'Atlas' style rocket fitted with landing gear in a 'SSTO' (Single Stage To Orbit) deployment. next to it are two astronaut figures waving to two capsules in the distance, on the lunar surface. Rather than being an illustration, the image seems to be a photographed model, with a diorama supporting the models. The rocket is not a familiar design, but seems to be similar to early Atlas ICBM vehicles, with telescopic legs fitted. In the middle distance are two very simplistic landers, which seem to be redundant as the rocket itself has clearly already made a successful landing and would not need a dedicated landing capsule.

The two landers are very rudimentary and obviously predate the Apollo programme by around five years. They are cosmetically similar to some of the early space toys I have from the same era and very closely resemble modern a 'LEM-type' capsule that I have found recently.

The second and later card is from Gibraltar and made by a local company. This shows a very recognisable Lunar Module, presumably one of the early Revell releases as it is too finely cast to be the more rudimentary Airfix kit, which appeared in the latter half of the sixties. Several other lenticular cards have used the Revell Astronaut kit to great effect, too. It is very similar to a Clifford toy LEM that I have, but does resemble a kit rather than a toy, much more closely. The docking collar is missing and a simple light ha been installed inside for effect. The Apollo Service module behind it, is another small model, with the image of the Earth probably a photograph and the luxuriantly green moon surface being made from plaster or resin.

 

Some LEM variants are shown below, illustrating the variance in toy and novelty makers approach to making a moon lander, in the rush to produce product for the Moon Landing in 1968.