by Lez King

• Date: 9th May 2039
• Location: Waste Disposal Area 14, Sea of Tranquility, The Moon.

Following reports of sudden and unexpected crystal formations growing around the waste container storage wells, Commander Koenig has taken a survey team in Eagle 04 (with a Transporter Pod) to investigate. Professor Bergman has asked for a large sample of the crystal formation, so that he can run a series of tests. Two members of the survey team have collected a large chunk of the crystal and put it in the rear of the moon buggy. One of them is in the buggy and ready to take the sample back to the Eagle. You can see his colleague indicating to the Commander (who is standing by the Eagle) that everything is progressing well. The final crew member is taking some images and low level scans of the largest crystal formation.

Little did they all know that within the next few days, the Moon would be wrenched out of Earth orbit some mysterious forces. Would there be some link between the breakaway incident and these crystal formations? Only time will tell.

Design

I have had a number of ideas about how Space 1999 could be re-booted, in the same way that Thunderbirds and Battlestar Galactica had been brought back to our screens. The model represents a scene from such a re-boot.

The “star” of this scene is the Mark II Eagle. The Eagle in Space 1999 was an iconic design, but I always thought there was room for improvement. I wanted a sleeker, rounder shape, with fewer straight edges. Ok, I know that the Eagle operates mainly in space, and so aerodynamics are less of an issue, but they were also supposed to land on Earth (and as the series progresses, they also flew through the atmospheres of numerous other planets, so at least some aerodynamic styling would be useful, in my opinion). I wanted my updated design for the Space 1999 Eagle, to be larger, meaner and more modern looking.

The Mark II Eagles, like their predecessors, could carry different pods for different missions/activities. For the mission depicted in this model, a standard “Transporter Pod” was needed. It always occurred to me that for a relatively large shuttle, the original Eagle's pods were a bit poor in terms of capacity.

My design incorporates a larger pod, with a better use of the available space. The front part of the pod contains the passenger compartment, able to accommodate 30 passengers. The middle part of the pod is an airlock. The rear part of the pod is the cargo area, which has two large payload doors (either side of the pod). The cargo area can carry a standard Mark III Moon buggy, with still some space to spare. The lateral docking ports extend from the sides of the pod, and are a permanent fixture (unlike in the TV series, where they would come and go, from shot to shot).

I have drawn plans for the interior of the pod but I was unable to convert them for inclusion with my entry.

Models

The Eagle (main fuselage) is made from 2 mouthwash bottles for the main fuselage. The command cabin (beak) is made from the front (top) portions of 2 different versions of the re-imagined Thunderbird 2. The different versions are slightly different in size and design, which made an interesting shape when they were put together. I had to file away at the “engraved” windows on the larger of the two Thunderbird 2 parts, converting the seven small windows to two larger windows. I thought that it was a nice little homage to Gerry Anderson to use the Thunderbird 2 as part of the re-imagined Eagle.

The engines are from a “SpaceCruiser 1” model that had an unfortunate accident. They were altered to improve the profile and fit, and wooden beads were added to recreate the overall look of the original Eagle engines. Small model wheels were used to make the end-caps for the engine bells.

The landing supports are drawer knobs from the local hardware store, and each of the 4 feet were made from four shirt buttons and a small domed button. More buttons were used for the RCS thrusters, which I decided to attach to the main fuselage, rather than the landing supports. The spine of the fuselage was covered with metallic corrugated card, to give it a stronger “ribbed” look.

The “Transporter Pod” is made from card, cardboard and paper. I also created an interior for the cargo area (in a PC graphics program), as it could be seen through the open payload door. To allow the Moon Buggy to enter and exit the Pod, it has a simple lift mechanism, where a platform can be winched out from the Pod and lowered to the surface. The “chains” for the lift are made from small sections of metallised thread. The lateral docking ports are made from shower gel bottle caps, with details designed and printed from a PC graphics program.

The Moon Buggy is made from a small plastic toy “dingy” that was attached to the top of a scale die-cast 4x4 car. The dingy was cut into 2, lengthwise, and widened using card, and then a cargo area was made using more card and silver coloured edging strips from a local craft store. The same kind of wheels that were used as the Eagle engine bell caps were used to make the six wheels for the buggy, although the made to be made thinner using a scalpel-type craft knife. The aim was to make a vehicle that was similar to the original but with some updated elements in the design.

The crewmen are depicted using Rebel Pilots from the Micromachines Star Wars series, with the stands removed. They were already in orange suits, which made life a little easier for me. All I had to do was customise the helmets, using model paint, to turn them into proper spacesuit helmets. The exception was the crewman seated in the Moon Buggy. He is from a Zoids toy and was originally plain blue. I had to paint him orange and add other paint details by hand, so that he looked similar to his colleagues.

The waste dump area was quite simple. The storage well caps are lids from ice-cream sundaes and the central monitoring node was made from various caps from liquid detergents. The crystals are plastic decorated crystals for use in fish tanks or indoor water features. Different shapes and sizes of crystal were used to give the impression of growth.

The communication relay tower, near the waste dump area, was made from the neck of a “high juice” squash bottle, overlaid with small lengths of speaker wire to created a lattice effect. The top of the tower is the cap from a candy container that was shaped like a microphone. The base of the tower is trimmed with a slim strip of the silver corrugated card.

The base is a cork message board, with cat litter granules mixed with “No more nails” glue for the rocky surface details. This was all then sprayed with dark grey “Stone Touch” paint, from the hardware store. A lighter shade of the “Stone Touch” paint was used to highlight the smaller rock areas. and then five grey stones were added to add larger rock-like details.

Liberal usage of white and silver paint was used for the main elements of the scene, to maintain the clean utilitarian look of the original Space 1999.

Image: From right

Image: Eagle, front

Image: Right/rear

Image: Left/rear

Image: Front/left

Image: Underneath

Image: Detail

Image: Without pod

Image: Pod

Image: Nuclear waste area

Image: On the surface

Image: Commander

Image: Survey

Image: Buggy

Image: Another look

Image: Comm relay

Image: Inside the pod

Image: Another look