Moving into the late seventies, my interest in real space exploration began to pale, as the era of the space opera began, with the advent of George Lucas 'Star Wars' franchise in 1977. So the publication of the 'Young Scientist book of Spaceflight' in 1978 would have gone completely under my radar. The Space Shuttle was the most exciting thing happening in actual space flight and having been hugely disappointed in the final flying version of th vehicle - following several years of exciting and radical proposals - I gave space technology a wide berth. Even today, the Shuttle fails to interest me and I tend to be drawn to the sixties as my golden era.
So when this book initially came to my attention, I was quite dismissive, assuming it would be the usual stock illustations and coverage of modern space flight. However, on closer inspection, I was quite pleased to see it was written by industry stalwart Kenneth Gatland, who had published many great books over the years - such as the Pocket book of Manned Spaceflight and Frontiers of Space (both of which feature heavily in the blog). Gatlands books are always illustation heavy and invariably very interesting and informative, covering unusual material and subjects as well as a thorough investigation of the more standard fare. Opening up the slim volume, I was surprised to see a splash page featuring a Russian Vostok rocket, but with the illustration clearly based on Roy Cross beautiful box artwork for the Airfix 1970 release of the model kit.
Cross was an amazingly technical illustrator, who managed to make every painting he created for the company an absolute masterpiece and contributed to the success of the company. There are a list of illustrators credited in the introduction of the book, but Cross is not included, so it is fair to say the illustration has been slavishly copied.
Another interesting illustration forms part of a section which includes instructions on building a Mars roving vehicle. The articulated, pressurised rover shown in the article takes its inspiration from the Grumman Molab design, which was proposed as a long distance vehicle for exploring the moon, taken to the surface on an adapted LEM descent stage.
The book also includes ideas for making a space station, again based on an existing NASA proposal and an artists impression of a fully fledged lunar mining base, complete with an electric trackway for launching payloads into lunar orbit. As is usual for Gatlands' books, the ideas are some of the less well known and always interesting to read about.
Like all his previous publications, there are a lot of quality illustrations and comprehensive background information to support them.
On the subject of the Molab, another excellent and more recent book by Rob Godwin, is the Lunar Exploration Scrapbook, which details just about every proposal for extended lunar exploration, in the form of jet pack, flying platforms and all manner of rovers. Godwin uses original schematic drawings as the basis of computer models depicting how the vehicles might have looked, had they made it beyond the planning stage.
The Molab was one of the designs which made it to full size mock up, which is now viewable in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.
The sprung suspension wheels were designed to move easily through what was assumed to be a very varied terrain, with deep dust drifts and irregular surface conditions. The vehicle would have been delivered to the surface by a LEM cargo variant, with the body rolling off a ramp onto the surface for assembly.
A it was a very recognizable and simple shape, the Molab concept found its way quickly into the public domain, once the idea had been passed over as unworkable by pressed NASA engineers.
Most notably, it appeared in the Gerry Anderson backed 'Project SWORD' comic strip in the 1968 annual of the same name. The premise being the population of a devastated Earth sought rescue and redevelopment in offworld colonies, using vehicles designed for extraplanetary exploration to navigate a ravaged landscape and effect an escape from the ruins.
The Molab was designated 'The Ant' and used n the storyline as a fast transport vehicle. Although it never made it into the extensive toyline, like other NASA designs such as the Saturn V and the Dyna Soar Glider, it was depicted clearly in the comic strip.
As no toy or model version of the Ant vehicle - or the Grumman Molab - was ever made available, I tried to make a simple version myself using available parts.
The Tri-ang Spacex series of toys did release a toy version of a Molab, but the similarity ended at the name, as the vehicle was based on a pulp book cover illustration, rather than the original vehicle.
The wheel design was echoed in another Tri-ang Spacex vehicle, the MEV2 and also found favour in other toys, such as this Comansi Airgam Boys rover.
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