SCALE MODEL NEWS

  A TOTAL OF MORE THAN 500 PARTS distinguishes this 1:144 scale Moebius kit. The subject is the  Discovery , spacecraft star of the classic science fiction movie  2001: A Space Odyssey . Mat Irvine:  On opening the box, the kit does look rather daunting - after all, there are over 500 parts. However, laying them all out logically makes things become clearer. Many are duplicate runners, to deal with the many containers along the fuselage spine, the three main engines, and trio of cargo-bay doors. There are also various parts for the antenna assembly. The kit was designed for Moebius by Adam Johnson, who has compiled books on designs from the movie. Click here to read the SMN review of Adam’s first title  2001: The Lost Science . The kit instructions follow a logical assembly path, with the main fore and aft sub-assemblies being dealt with first. These are followed by the containers, spine, and antenna assembly. Actually, I found that putting the kit together fall...

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY  is now approaching half a century old, and even the title is dated 15 years in the past. Yet this space movie to end all space movies still holds a fascination for many, and new facts about the movie and its creators are still being unearthed. Mat Irvine:  This limited-edition book is focussed on the movie, but naturally enough, it includes a huge amount of detail that is useful for space modellers. The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey  is written by the science writer and  2001  historian, Piers Bizony, and published by the highly-respected Taschen company, from Germany. It is printed in what seems to be an unusual, tall and thin, format. Then you realise that the format is actually the same as the mysterious alien monolith from  2001 , a proportional ratio of 1:4:9. The book has nine chapters, with author’s text introducing each of them. Most pages concentrate on pictures that include concept artwork, behind-the-sce...

One of the major forces behind the designs for spacecraft in the classic science-fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey , Frederick I Ordway III, died earlier this month, aged 87. Fred Ordway (above at NARCON (National American Rocket society) in 2002.) was recommended by 2001 ’s co-author, Arthur C. Clarke, to the Director, Stanley Kubrick. Consequently Fred, and his colleague Harry Lange, went on to oversee spacecraft designs that would be technically feasible for the timescale of the movie. This certainly worked, as the movie still ranks with most sources as the, ‘Number One Science Fiction Movie ever made’, much of which stems for the authentic designs used in filming. They still stand up to scrutiny nearly half a century later. Classic wheel-shaped space station (below) from 2001 . Fred Ordway was born in New York City in 1927. From 1960-1964 he was Chief of Space Information Systems at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he also taught at the University. ...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS Ask any film enthusiast, and probably many non-enthusiasts, to name the best science-fiction movie of all time, and you will probably get 9 out of 10 voting for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey . For all those fans - and for space modellers too - comes the new book,  2001: The Lost Science by Adam K. Johnson. About the book Adam Johnson - also the driving force behind specialist model outfit AJA Models - has compiled and written the most detailed reference book on the movie so far, full title 2001: The Lost Science - the Frederick I. Ordway III Collection . With much material supplied by Dr Fred Ordway ( more on him below ), a great deal of the content has never been published before. Its 112 pages are full of detailed original plans (of which there were originally 2,400!), many of them painstakingly digitally enhanced, as the original blueprints have long-since faded. Examples of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ process are shown in the introduction. Other 2001...