GordonD

I went to the doctor and he told me to face the window and put my tongue out. "Will that help you diagnose what's wrong with me?" I asked. "No," he said, "but I don't like the man in the office across the road."

FWIW Revell's Orbiter had full cabin detail (and a removable roof so you could see it) but the payload door hinges were non-scale. It may also have had the tile detail inscribed but I never built one so can't be sure if that's correct. Monogram's didn't have the cabin detail but the door hinges were accurate (and quite fragile) so you paid your money and took your choice. Of course Monogram also issued the full stack as well as the standalone Orbiter. Bottom line: if the box mentions cabin detail then it must be the original Revell one.

I will probably post details of EVAs as and when they're carried out, just to keep things up to date.

Three years ago I decided, just for fun, to do a daily post listing astronauts who were born on that date, so that anyone celebrating their own birthday could see who they shared it with. Even with the large number of people who have flown in space, or been selected to do so and never flew, there were still some blank days, but there was nothing I could do about that. The following year I posted manned space flights which had launched or landed on each day. Again, there were some days without any, but I did my best to find significant events in astronautical or astronomical history

31 DECEMBER No EVAs on this date.

30 DECEMBER No EVAs on this date.

29 DECEMBER 1973 Gerald Carr & Ed Gibson (Skylab 4) Duration 3 hr 28 min The astronauts retrieved the Thermal Control Coatings Experiment panel for analysis, then carried out further observations of Comet Kohoutek as it appeared from behind the Sun. While they were working, ice formed on the front of Carr's suit, due to a minor coolant leak. This had also happened during the spacewalk on Christmas Day but was not considered serious. Second EVA for both.

28 DECEMBER No EVAs on this date.

27 DECEMBER 2013 Oleg Kotov & Sergei Ryazansky (ISS Expedition 38) Duration 8 hr 7 min (a Russian record) The cosmonauts installed two cameras onto the Zvezda platform they had built during their previous EVA on 9 November. After connecting the data leads, Kotov jettisoned the cable reel into space. However, the Russian ground controllers did not receive any signals, so the cosmonauts were instructed to photograph the connectors and remove the cameras for analysis. The pair then removed and jettisoned the Vsplesk experiment package, which had been instal

26 DECEMBER No EVAs on this date.

25 DECEMBER 1973 Gerald Carr & Bill Pogue (Skylab 4) Duration 7 hr 1 min There was no Christmas Day off for the astronauts as they carried out an EVA to attach the X-ray/Ultraviolet Solar Photography experiment to the ATM Truss. This should have been deployed from the scientific airlock but that was now blocked by the parasol. The astronauts also took forty photographs of Comet Kohoutek, replaced ATM film, retrieved space exposure samples and pinned open another malfunctioning aperture door. They then returned to the airlock while Ed Gibson, aboard Skyla

24 DECEMBER 1999 Steven Smith & John Grunsfeld (STS-103) Duration 8 hr 8 min The third and final EVA of the mission saw the astronauts replacing one of Hubble's radio transmitters, which had ceased operating the previous year. As these transmitters are normally extremely reliable, it had not been expected that one would fail and as such they had not been designed for on-orbit replacement. Despite this, the astronauts managed the job using specially-designed EVA tools. They also replaced Hubble's mechanical reel-to-reel recorder with a digital solid state

23 DECEMBER 1999 Michael Foale & Claude Nicollier (STS-103) Duration 8 hr 10 min Few things advance faster than computer technology, and the astronauts took advantage of this by replacing Hubble's computer with a new unit which would run twenty times faster and held six times the memory of the original. They also replaced one of the telescope's Fine Guidance Sensors, which precisely align it as it carries out its observations. The instrument they now fitted had been removed during STS-82, the previous servicing mission, and refurbished on Earth.

22 DECEMBER 1999 Steven Smith & John Grunsfeld (STS-103) Duration 8 hr 15 min This was the third Hubble servicing mission and the first of three EVAs to be carried out on consecutive days to upgrade the telescope. On this occasion the astronauts replaced three Rate Sensor Units, each of which contained two gyroscopes, then purged the coolant in the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). This was done to prepare the instruments for maintenance on the next servicing mission: as there were too many tasks for a single flight, the schedu

20 DECEMBER No EVAs on this date.