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A pal of mine bought the Dragon 1/72 Saturn V model. What a monster, even in that scale!

Many of you know I model the WW2 years, but I must admit I’d have loved to have crossed my interests to model Kennedy Space center’s railroad (or an alternate reality version of it) to include the pad 39 complex, so I could model either a Saturn V or a STS stack on the pad (or crawler going to it).

I’ve seen all three of the existing Saturn Vs and the one other surviving first stage of one as well as the Skylab trainers at Huntsville and in DC.

Of the full rocket setups, I think Kennedy has the best restoration, Huntsville has the most complete one, and Houston… well, it could use a lot of work, still compared to the other two.

Here’s the one at KSC, taken in 2014. I don’t think I have any of the Houston one on Photobucket:

Huntsville has a roughly 90% scale model of one sitting vertically right next to their real one lying horizontally at the Davidson building, seen in several times when going through the adult Space Camp programs there:

Huntsville also has a next 1:10 scale model with a cutaway showing the interior, which is displayed right under their test article Saturn V. I bet a lot of people are marveling at the 1:1 version and walk right past this amazing model without even noticing it!

Last edited by p51
jd-train posted:

Kinda off on a tangent (but I think many of these posts are already

Jim

I've noticed that many of us have cross-linked interests in anything mechanical and in particular powerful machines, rockets, locomotives, aircraft, cars... must be something in our DNA or just the time we grew up in, many of us got to see these things in their glory days and/or their developement. I get the same thrill watching vidoes of the Big Boy charging down the tracks as I get watching a Saturn launch.

 

Jerry

I was 9 years old when our astronauts first walked on the moon, and remember the excitement of it all. 

Looking back and seeing how very basic computing was at the time, I can't decide if the Apollo astronauts were some of the bravest (or craziest) men on earth!

Nowadays its going to the space station and rovers, not quite the same.

Jim

True that people into stuff like trains are usually into other stuff. Many train fans are also into airplanes and military history, I've noticed.

I saw two astronauts at JSC reading over a issue of "Trains" a few years ago. They begged me to never mention their names for fear of teasing by the other astronauts...

I started one in cardstock a few years back.

Compare this 1:48 LEM with the Atlas Trainman caboose.  The problem with these kinds of models isn't building them, it's storing them.  I destroyed the first stage (but I kept the thrust structure) because that long hollow tube was taking all kinds of damage moving it around all the time.  Besides, even flat on the floor with no stand a 1:48 scale Saturn V is over 8 feet tall.  Add a simplified pad and it's through the ceiling. 

1:48 scale Vostok/R-7 on a flatcar.

F-1 engine on K-Line car.

I know this picture isn't great, but a lot of these have been destroyed since it was taken.  The 4 tallest boosters in the corner are, left to right, 1:96 N-1, 1:96 Saturn V Apollo 11, Estes 1:100 Saturn V Apollo 11 and Constellation/Orion (behind the big white Vulkan).  The 1:96 Saturn V is about 4 feet tall and as you can see the Estes is shorter.

In 2001 there was a contest between 2 teams building 1:16 scale flying models of the N-1 and the Saturn V.  Only the N-1 team succeeded.  http://www.moonrace2001.org/n1_rocket.shtml

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