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 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.
