Improved NASA Team Pictures

I wanted to get clearer pictures of the Figures I'm working with so I touched up the magnification and changed the lighting. Hope these look better.

This is a side by side comparison of the NASA figures and the Taikonauts. Seems to be a difference in Height?!

The Bear Has Landed

 

 

 

After the First Lunar Landing by Alexei Leonov in July of 1969, the proven LM3 module has become the work horse of Soviet Lunar Exploration. Unlike NASA's LM module with continual improvement on design and efficiency, The Kremlin has continued to scout the lunar surface with this aged lander while exploring efforts to create a heavy lift extraction vehicle to return valuable raw materials from the Moon.    

LM3 module in Storage in Kazakhstan Launch Facility, awaiting component check, pre-launch, 1975.  

Unpacking desperately needed Medical supplies for Zvezda 3 Mining Colony. Once unloaded Titanium ore will make the return journey back to the orbital command module in the emptied Crew compartment. 

Gang-way of the LM vehicle

External Control Panel used for Automated Orbital return sequence. 

Builder's Note: This Kit like most of the ones from this site was an afternoon Project. A lot less time than I spend on the 5 man teams for the game Lunar. there is a lot of flash and sprue clean-up. The model is fairly sturdy sans the support struts which after priming become brittle. They support almost no weight so I just glued them back. I highly recommend pinning the Landing gear to the chassis. 

I painted this craft Gunmetal silver to look like the museum pieces from the museum displays on line, in spite of knowing the craft would have been covered in white paint to keep the internal temperatures manageable by its crew. It just looked more "Soviet" in this color. All Decals were cannibalized from old 1/48 Soviet aircraft models and Rub-on transfer lettering.  

NASA Enter's the Space Race.

 

NASA's most recent team of Astronauts have auspiciously set down in the Northern most hemisphere to establish a research facility to explore the possibility of mining sought after Helium-3, a viable energy source for future Exo-Planitary exploration. Being the second nation to land on the Lunar surface, the director of the Johnson Space center commented to the press today, " It's really a bit of a Wild West up there..." pointing skyward, "We are establishing outposts and completing critical scientific research but viable real estate is being staked out as quickly as a flag can be stabbed into the regolith. One of our resupply landers nearly set down on top of a Chinese remote rover last week as it was taking samples of our landing zone for some reason. When we contacted Beijing to warn them, they exclaimed they weren't even on the Moon.....   "  

 

Lead Geologist Dr. Farris Ogle 

Mining Engineer and Explosive Technician Lewis Townsend, P.E. Grade VII 

Mining Security Team

 

1st Lieutenant Dexter Phillips, USAF and Warrant Officer Gregory Copenhagen. 

Mission Commander Edward Pulaski

To avoid international tension the NASA teams have been issued Less-Than-Lethal means of security based on Mass-Shotguns and Net launchers. Results to marshal supply drops zones have met with internationally questionable results. References to the Tranquility LZ skirmish last July are still under investigation as accusations of the smashing of Vladimir Popov's visor with the rifle butt of a net launcher still fresh in the minds of Soviet diplomats. The Call for sanctions by the USSR in the United Nations Lunar over-site committee have met minimal support from both the United States and European Union as territorial disputes, mining claims, and Lunar Law are now a hotly debated topic.   

Cosmonauts

 

Space Race won by Soviet Union!

        

In honor of the first nation to set foot on the Moon I elected to complete the Cosmonauts first. This is of course based on the "Fictional Timeline" of both the streaming Apple program "For All Mankind" & the Lunar rules timeline. 

Cosmonaut Team

Mission Commander, Colonel Gherman Titov  

 

Mission Physician, Dr. Boris Yegoro

Lunar Combat Specialist Captain Ivan Semenov

 

Lead Geologist Natasha Rostova

 

Mechanical Engineer, Metre Alekseev 

 

Mensa Superficies Planum

 

 The Largest part of having a Lunar Exploration Program is having a moon. Seems like a circular argument but putting 32mm astronauts on your coffee tables is less exciting than the limitless grey landscape of Earth's closest celestial neighbor. 

 I purchased the two neoprene mats offered by Black Site Studios and they are outstanding in graphic detail and quality of material. If your traveling or throwing down a quick game they are perfect to Lunar-Rumble. 

It wasn't enough for me.

  

Black Site Studios produced a terrain video on building a Lunar terrain board and I was in the garage the next day. Terrain for me is the signature way to distinguish a person's miniature games from another. Mini's can be painted with finer and finer detail until it is completely lost on the audience but terrain is as unique as the individual. The motto for our club is "Flat boards make Flat thoughts." I didn't follow the video as close as I would have liked. The Sanded-Grout step was less than successful but the results are a playable surface with unquestionable cover and uneven terrain. 

Mensa Superficies Planum

Or as close as I could get in Latin to "Table-top Plains" is my new contested Lunar sector for our low-intensity lunar battles.