What happened to these days when every kids, like me, wanted to be an astronaut? Why are we so outnumbered in this forum? I mean even the figures category as more posts! I know there is not much available model of spacecraft and rockets out there but I don’t know why! For me, space exploration is a passion, I know about everything about the history of space exploration from the 50s to the shuttle era. All these spacecraft sent to far away planets which are sending pictures of what we will never touch. There is so much to learn about space exploration and the vehicles are so weird and interesting, I would expect people to show some interest when rockets are launch or when there are people around the earth making experiments in a space station. Nope! You can hear from it when the shuttle disintegrate itself while reentry (god bless them) but nothing when the mission is succesfull.
All that said, if you want to start knowing a little bit more about space exploration, go to the library and find some books about it and if you want to build something, delta7studios.com as very nice paper models and Realspacemodel.com as very well made resin kits which are not too expensive.
A wonderfull kit is the 1/12 Mercury spacecraft made by Atomic city! It’s huge!
Most likley its because there are so many forums on the net these days, and this is not one of the more active ones. I would suggest some, but that might violate forum rules…
NASA took the last Saturn V rocket, broke it up into little pieces and laid it on it’s side. A working rocket, the most powerful people mover ever built, and they laid it on it’s side.
Then they tried to pawn off that low altitude not-quite-space shuttle as a space ship.
That’s why.
I remember watching the first man on the moon. I never thought I would see the last man on the moon.
I’m told the space program was too expensive to bear. Considering what technological marvels and benefits that came out of the program, I say it was cheap at twice the price.
I have just finished watching the last episode of James Burke’s amazing series “Connections” (from 1975, but amazingly current), who advises me that during the same time period American women spent the same amount of money on cosmetics as NASA did for the entire Apollo project.
Personally i got two diecast shuttles on my desk at work and did a full research project on mars rover design back in school. I sure hope they don’t decide to abandon mars all together as well. Now i just need to get my hands on a lego mindstorm set to implement some of them into a battlebot some of my old roommates and I are planning to make, a fully automated KILLABOT. LOL.
Another problem is that the mainstream kit companies (Revell, Airfix, etc.) relatively stopped making spacecraft to concentrate on high-selling kits (Nascar, Gundam??). Plus, they have also primarily converted over to the pre-painted, mostly finished, “kits” that cater to today’s youth who don’t want to take time to do a kit from scratch.
To find a good space kit, you now have to rely on the cottage industries who deal primarily in resin. Or shell out bucks on eBay. Currently, more than one 1/48th Gemini capsule is selling for the mid-$60’s with still a few days left on the auction. And they started at $10! Are they that rare. I’ve got two on my shelf. (No, they aren’t for sale!)
They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Maybe a mass mailing to The Big Guys would get them to possibly do a few re-releases (they did re-release the 1/96th Saturn V after all). The only kit I can’t afford is the 1/48th Apollo stack ($150+ on eBay).
Even if they did finally do a manned mission to Mars (which I don’t see happening within my lifetime), chances are kids would then rather play computer simulations of the mission than actually build a kit of whatever spacecraft makes the trip. After all, look at all the kids today who would rather play with the computer (or just sit and stare at the TV) than build a model, with all the waiting for the glue and paint to dry. This is, after all, the era of instant gratification, instant meals, instant messaging, instant water (just add water[:)]), instant this, instant that. You get the picture.
Although I don’t build spacecraft models, I’ve got a major interest in the new discoveries away from the earth, both from spacecraft fly-bys and space telescopes, as well as the new interferometers (multiple telescopes that work as one giant one). There’s something new nearly every day, it seems.[tup]
That is very true there. I am 23 and when I was in college and my friends saw my models and they went “instantly”, “oh i will never have the patience to finish that”. They’d rather park their rears down in front of a PC playing some online role-playing-game for 5 straight hours if not more till day break.
What made me kind of happy was when I go to my LHS on Saturdays, I’d see 15 year olds playing warhammer table top miniature war games there, which all requires painting and some minor assembly. At least this hobby itself still have some future for the younger generations. (sure is a whole lot more popular in asian countries though, no idea why)
I don’t think it is really unpopular. It’s just that down here, most people have more ‘urgent’ preocupations like paying bills and putting food on the table. Indeed people live for the moment, with little thoughts about a longer term future. That is why not much is really done to curb greenhouse gases emissions or find alternative fuels for instance.
People have lost touch with space. Apollo was a fantastic programme, but people are losing interest fast, and once the Soviet had been beaten at the Moon race, there was little interest in doing more of the same. We lack great visionaries who can put difficult long term goals in our minds. And we could do with more TV programmes and books such as Carl Sagan’s Cosmos to give us the desire to look up at the starts again.
And as to the occasional high profile due to an accident or other casualty, just look at any paper in the world. Bad news sell. People like to see there are worst things happening to others than to them.
Perhaps the facination with war and distruction superceeds any intrest in new discoveries, or the unknown. We as a race seem to dwell on our own distructions rather than take the time to praise our accomplishments. I am no different than most, and have a keen interest in certain military subjects, but my first intrests always lay with space and space exploration. People like us, I believe, are the exception, not the rule, and kit manufactures know this.[xx(]
From what I’ve seen, NASA really hasn’t had that spark for years, the Apollo missions to the Moon was the last spark for youngsters to imagine to travel to another heavenly body in reallity, now we have robots doing the dirty work like going to Mars, Venus, Jupiter’s Moons but no Buck Rodgers in the seat and I think that’s what is hurting the Space Modeling draw, there is the Star Terk types of modeling but no actual reallity space modeling in years, I’ve seen modelers bust their chops when Monogram & Revell released the Space Shuttle kits back in the late 70’s, early 80’s but now you can’t get the modelers to take a second look at the kit unless the modeler is really into the Space Program, and they are a breed all their own and the kits are either a scratch built, or a very high Dollar resin kit, or a hard to find out of production kit from the late 1960’s, the model companies are more into the Automotive kits then any other type because more of the young individuals are into their computer games like X-Box, Game Cubes, Nintendo’s then into modeling anymore, and when they take a break from the games and go into modeling it’s eazier for them to comprehend working on a car then an airplane, tank or spaceship so they’ll get a car kit then a model of the space shuttle or a Patton tank or a airplane
I’m not against the Space Program, Heck I was a part of it, I worked Magellion, Galliao, TES, Commerical Titan, Titan II & IV, and my father worked with NASA during the Gemini & Apollo Missions and worked Viking and more various other satelites that where built by Martin Maretta (now Lockheed-Martin), as with my brother who still works for Lockheed-Martin
I totally agree on the fact that todays kids are in front of the tv with their gamecubes and such crap or in front of the computer playing online dumb games. Personaly, my kids have’nt tried it yet, the older one is near 5 years old and he is more interested in the space shuttle missions and the International Space Station than in these crazy games. I hope it will remain that way for a long time. Of course, that’s because I am passionate for space myself, otherwise he would’nt be interested.
I was not complaining, I’m sure I’m not the only one interested in the different space programs but I wish some manufacturers will still provide us with quality kits. I’m waiting for the big new CEV to be launched and I hope somebody will make a plastic kit of it.
Guys, you’re totally missing the newest, biggest spark. It was a supernova!
As one of the “younger generation” (if I can still call myself that, currently in college), there are a lot of us interest in space. It just normally stops at books and theory classes though. There are a lot of guys in our aerospace program that want to work on space stuff (I’m an airplane guy myself), and there are lots of small projects being done at all sorts of research universities. What’s sad is that this really cool stuff dosn’t get published to a large audience.
But the “spark”, or “supernova” that I was referring to, was Space Ship One. It went into space (granted, not that high) twice, and for a lot cheaper than NASA could ever do it. Other firms are building rockets that can send satellites into space for under a million dollars. My friends, we are on the verge of the Private Space Race, and as an aero engineer, I plan to be on one of the racing teams.
From my standpoint, as a kid that built both Mercury and Atlas rocket models, as well as the German V-1 and V-2, the Japanese Baka, the X-15, the Hawk Me-163, and so on, I find the subject quickly runs out of variety of designs and markings, unlike the typical WWII warbird or armor subject.
That’s not saying I won’t build another SR-71 Blackbird, but I’m having much more fun with Messerschmidt’s right now [:D]
I’m 22 and so the only space program I’ve known is the shuttle, but I remember building one when I was 7 or 8. I’m also a Trekkie. I run Einstein (1550 hours) to help find graviton waves and SETI(610 hrs logged and it’s running now) on my computer. I’ve got a healthy interest in space but I didn’t get to watch it like you guys did. If I had a way to watch every launch, I would. If people could see they would probably get more interested in it, but this generation has been denied the opportunity.
I think NASA and the space societies are going out of their way to make it boring. Gone are the days of great big, thundering rockets like the Saturn and supersized space planes such as the Space Shuttle, which seems to be able to do just about anything but fly to the moon, manned by cocky, cool, test pilots.
We are now using probes that are about as exciting to watch as a microwave cook a turkey, new spaceships that are nothing but a recycled space shuttle booster with a little Apollo capsule on top, and astronauts are nerdy PHds that talk nothing but rats, gasses, and rocks. Also, space is regarded to be explored in a safe and cost structured manner, by politically correct people, which again, does not attract the attention of the media unless something goes wrong.
I grew up watching man land on the moon, and remember how exciting it was when Columbia touched down for the first time at Edwards in 1981. When I see the current and future plans for the space program, I do not have much hope in that its going to attract the mass of interest as it did during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Viking, Voyeger, and the Shuttle eras.
Real and proposed space craft were hot during the space race. Every America model company had some sort of real life of proposed space craft (Willy Ley designed for example) in their lines. When the space race ended, interest in these models waned.
The emergence of the space shuttle renewed interest in space craft models. Other newsworthy space incidents such as the Challenger disaster, Mir space station and the faulty Hubble telescope spurred another reawakening.
Currently, the race to get a new space craft into the sky failed to capture the attention of a major manufacturer, but garage kits popped up of the various types of space craft used.
I wonder if the recent Space Shuttle tragedy hasn’t put a major damper on this segment of the hobby.
In any event, I’m 32, so I’m old enough to remember the excitement of the Saturn V launches and the Apollo missions, though not old enough to remember them myself. I grew up wanting to be an astronaut too.
However, I’m not as jaded as some posters here. I am excited about the Space Shuttles. I am very excited about the various unmanned probes we’ve sent throughout the solar system (and beyond). I avidly followed the first Mars Rover mission on the Web, and have followed the following missions too.
I’d love to build models of the ISS and the Mars rovers. Frankly, I’m very excited about the proposed missions to the Moon and Mars, but I’m doubtful they’ll ever happen. [:(]
I fully intend to build some real space models – especially a Space Shuttle and the ISS.
I think a lot of it has to do with that 1) the field is rather limited as far as modeling goes. 2) the kits in existence are not that challenging (unless you really go into details).
Im doing research for a scratchbuild of modern IRBMs and ICBMs like the SS-25, SS-27, DF-31 etc. Probably in the 1:128 or 1:144 scale. The plan is to model about 15-20 missiles. I built the US/USSR kit from monogram, but its a bit dated.
It is not UNpopular, it is just popular with less people.
The reason are as varied and diverse as are the opinions,and many have it right on the head.
I myself believe that space has less people interested in it because it is not ‘everyday’. A fire truck, a racecar, an airplane,or even a tank, can be viewed almost every day, but a space vehicle? Unless we can connect it to a tragedy, just isn’t deemed interesting enough for coverage.
For me Space is history. I remember the end of the Mercury program,the Gemini program and the Apollo program.It was right there in my living room with Walter Conkite. I remember his sincere, no nonsense approach and sense of awe. I remember his tears as he told us that Grissom,White and Chaffe had all died in the Apollo 1 fire. The nation was interested in “our” boys as “we” beat the Russians again and again! Even Apollo 13 was a victory of man over machine and the harsh element of space.
The media left the space program when adventure/danger and tragedy did. Men on the moon was hoohum compared to Vietnam and protestors.
The Shuttle brought it back, in a way. It was new, never attempted, and NASA had the forsight to include the crew of the Hollywood Enterprise (NCC1701), to view the landing test of the shuttle Enterprise.
But again, space was doomed to the back burner as “The Shuttle” was not an everyday event and pretty “boring”. It went up, did it’s job and came back .
I am lucky enough to have an observatory a few miles from my house. So I still have “it”, the interest in space exploration and travel. Those that have an interest in history may still have it too, but until it is back in the headlines I doubt you will see an over all interest.
Try this trick on your kids science class: “when was the last full moon?”
I submit it was in 1969, as Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins brought some of it back to Earth with them!
(Providing you are willing to endure the discussion of “Anceint history”.)