"LOST IN SPACE - JUPITER 2 Space Vessel"
HEAVILY CUSTOMIZED
The hallmark scifi show of the sixties had to be Star Trek but if there was a runner up, it had to be Irwin Allen's semi-campy LOST IN SPACE, the saga of the space-going Robinson family and their annoying stowaway. The vehicle that took the Robinsons to the stars was a flying saucer craft called the Jupiter 2. Although the ship spent 99% of the episodes crashed into one desolate planet or another, some of the most popular sequences showed the ship in flight.
This late 1990's kit from Polar Lights incorporates a number of important features including a full upper/lower interior, but there's room for so much more!!!
Features include:
- Full onboard electronics that I custom designed to fit fully inside, powered by two 5 volt ACtoDC adapters that plug in under the rear landing gear-well.
- The electronics light up the pulsing Fusion core, flickering scanner dome lights, and upper and lower interior lighting. All lights shown inside the ship in pic.1 are real. (The lights on the hull surface are unwanted reflections from my light source.)
- The lower deck is lit because the lower viewport has been opened and has a clear window to display the lower deck.(pic1,3)
- The lower hull now has inset, detailed landing-gear wells which are visible, just barely, on pic.3.
- The lower deck was trimmed in areas not visible through the viewport to accommodate the front gear-wells.
The rear gear-well is only partially inset so as not to be visibly taking up deck space through the lower port. The plastic gear legs were replaced with brass tubes and rods for strength. - The upper hull as seen in pic.2 has the airlock porthole opened up, detailing around the airlock including the retracted ramp edge and the safety-line clip holes. The main upper viewport has separate u-channel struts installed over the molded plastic struts.
- The inside is fully detailed as seen on the first few episodes of season two. The carpet is colored as seen in those episodes, and the inner airlock has been fixed as per Polar Lights' recommended revisions (a kit part was designed UPSIDE DOWN!!!).
- The narrow "static-discharge cylinders" between each pair of cryo-tubes have been added (the kit omitted them). Also added is a set of scratchbuilt seats set in where the kit's bench-seats had been molded in. (see pic.4) A similar seat is on the lower level in front of the port.
- The lift shaft has a control panel inside against the orange shaft-back as seen on the show. Both were scratch built. They are just about visible in pic.5.
- To accommodate the electronics and changing of the bulbs inside the frosted interior ceiling (visible through the port in pic.1) and the lower deck's bulbs, the ship can be seperated at the upper and middle levels, hence the visible seams. The middle levels are held closed by magnetic cabinet latches.
The Model…
Category: Spacecraft
Genre: Science Fiction, Film/Television
Source: LOST IN SPACE
Manufacturer: Polar Lights Models
Scale: according to manufacturer 1/48
Material: styrene & electronic
Approach: Heavily Modified
Client: Private client
Awards: First place winner in POLAR LIGHT's Spring 1999 "Cabin Fever" online e-Contest - Lost in Space division.
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