AMT 1/200 CSM & LEM

The Apollo Program was the US space flight effort which landed the first humans on Earth's Moon.Conceived during the Eisenhower administration and conducted by the NASA, Apollo began in earnest after President John F. Kennedy's 1961 address to Congress declaring his belief in a national goal of "landing a man on the Moon" by the end of the decade.

This goal was first accomplished during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969 when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six Apollo spaceflights, 12 men walked on the Moon. These are the only times humans have landed on another celestial body.

The Apollo program ran from 1961 until 1975, and was America's third orbital spaceflight program (following Mercury and Gemini). It used the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn launch vehicles, which were also used for the Skylab Program in 1973–74, and a joint US-Soviet mission in 1975. These subsequent programs are thus often considered part of the Apollo program.

Left over parts from my AMT Man in Space kit. The parts are nicely molded and quite simple to assemble. The whole CSM/LM only consists of perhaps 20 parts.

 I built the CSM/LM as the instructions showed. There are not a lot of parts and the build is rather straight forward.

After gluing the CSM and LM bodies together, I removed any visible seams. Painting was done as the build progressed, as doing so afterwards is next to impossible. Once everything was dry, I attached the CM to the SM and added the engine bell. I decided to add the radar, as this is a rather prominent feature of the CSM. I punched out four discs and mounted them to a piece of plastic rod. Not perfect, but good enough in this small a scale.

After attaching the halves, the LM legs were attached to the decent stage and the two stages attached together. I made a small porch from plastic sheet and a ladder from a spare 1/350 ship rail set. That's about it for the LM.

I went down to the local CVS and bought one of those 4in photo cubes. I printed an Earth view and some stars on my printer. After sizing them and cutting them out, I used Elmers "Rubber Cement" to mount the prints to the bottom and back of the photo cube. I drilled a hole in the photo cube and a corresponding hole in the CSM. I used a small piece of wire, inserted from the back, to mount the CSM/LM. A small part from my spares box added a bit of support on the back side of the cube. It was all held together with 5min Epoxy.

I applied Bare Metal Foil to the SM section and painted radiator areas flat white. The Command Module was painted silver. The LM was painted the appropriate colors of black, gold and silver. Good research will be needed here to make sure that the CSM/LM colors are applied correctly.

A neat little build to make use of the extra parts in the MiS kit. Quick, easy to build, cheap and a nice conversation piece.

Space in Miniature #6 Apollo CSM & #7 Apollo LM - http://www.spaceinminiature.com/index.html  

 Mark Hiott

September 2011