Soviet LK-1 Lunar Lander

[Eric Mc]

This is a bit of a departure for me, a 3D Printed model. There was little in the way of assembly required as it came fully formed. Most of the work was in the painting. Despite that, I did add a few things that are missing from the model, chiefly a ladder to allow the Cosmonaut to get into and out of the spacecraft and it also lacked the two communication antennae that are prominent on the real thing. These items were scratchbuilt by me. 
The "Cosmonaut" is actually an Apollo astronaut from the Arfix "HO/OO Astronaut Figures set. 

I bet NASA never knew that one of their astronauts defected  

The base is from the Airfix Lunar Module kit.

The real thing never made it to the moon, of course, as the Americans got there first and the impetus went out of the project. Another big factor in abandoning the project was because they couldn't get their giant N-1 rocket to work properly, all four attempts to launch it resulting in dramatic explosions.

Note that this Russian "lunar module" was single crew only, the Cosmonaut on board would have been responsible completely for getting it down safely onto the surface - and back up again to the orbiting Soyuz spacecraft. Transfer from the Soyuz to the LK-1 (and back) would have been by a spacewalk only as there was no connecting tunnel between the two docked spacecraft.

 

 

 

[GrahamS]

3 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

The real thing never made it to the moon, of course, 

 

I guess you never saw the documentary ‘Apollo 18’? 😁

 

Like it, very nice.

 

Graham

[Beefy]

Very nice Eric look forward to seeing it down the club and on tour 

[Eric Mc]

Yes - it will be at the club the Monday after next. I need to place an American Lunar Module next to it for comparison.

[bianfuxia]

Super cool, and something we just about never see, Nice job!

[Eric Mc]

I managed to see a real one at the London Science Museum a few years ago. There was a special exhibition of Soviet era space hardware held at the museum. It also included a Vostok, a Voshkod and an early Soyuz..

[rockpopandchips]

That's very cool.