Fellow Modelers,
Below are photos of Masterpiece Models’1/48 scale spaceship Luna from the 1950 USA Movie Destination Moon. The movie told the story of man’s first attempt to reach the moon by rocket and it was the second major motion picture made about manned space travel. Honestly, the acting in the movie is poor and the story line is weak, but the science behind the space flight is based in fact (for what was known at the time). It is pretty entertaining and won an Academy Award for Best Special Effects. Most importantly it gave us a very cool rocket design named Luna, which looks pretty much like a glorified German V-2 missile. This is a very large kit with the rocket height being 37”. This is the same size as the main miniature used in the movie. The kit only consisted of six resin pieces, with one of those being the lunar base! The astronaut figures are 3D Printings I purchased from Shapeways.com. All the miscellaneous ground equipment was either scratch-built or came from my “spare parts stash”. The lunar surface was given a multicolor finish to match what was in the movie. The finished product is simple but still eye-popping due to its size and attractive lines. The last photo shows me kneeling beside the model to show how large it is. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Awesome model. Well done. I especially like all of the research ground equipment that you scratch built. Is the lunar surface base also scratch built?