TIN CANS IN SPACE

From an early age, the idea of a space station fascinated me. The station was always the way point between Earth and missions to the moon or deep space. Films like Conquest of Space and 2001: A Space Odyssey and tv programmes like Gerry Andersons Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet featured spectacular stations in their shows. Some were based on a wheel format, but the simplest was a cylindrical model, favoured by early NASA as it meant that sections of rocket fuselage could be re-purposed as components.

An american engineer Ellwyn E. Angle proposed a larger  cylindrical station design in 1956, while working for NASA and was later approached by kit maker Revell to assist in production of a kit based on his design.

The extensive model featured lots of working accessories and a rocket supply ship and featured prominently on the cover of a book by Albert Ducrocq named 'The Conquest of Space'.

The simple lines of the base captured the imagination of other makers of books and toys and it featured on the cover of the Collins childrens book 'Timothys Space Book' by Maurice Allward.

Japanese toy company Waco also made a stunning tin plate model of Angle's station, with lights and working actions.

The 1971 Brooke Bond tea card set showed a similar, much later design, possibly by Boeing and the large poster given away free in Countdown comic around the same period shows a whole mission plan based on modular cylindrical elements for tugs, base stations and long haul ships.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

NASA's historic 25 day circumlunar mission for the Orion Spaceship came to a successful end on December 11, as he capsul came down in the Pacific Ocean, with a scene reminiscent of the classic Apollo era.

Orion came within 80 miles of the lunar surface, taking some fantastic shots of the surface and testing the systems which will be used to send Artemis 2 and a manned crew, in the next mission in a few years time.

As is now the standard, the Orion was fully visible on social media channels by any interested party and a live feed showed the capsules progress through space.

As the Orion was fitted with cameras all over the hull and inside the capsule, viewers were treated to unprecedented coverage of the mission. A far cry from the blurry, monochrome images which were televised across the world in 1969, as Neil Armstrong stepped out on the lunar surface.