by Jeff Sissons
Model photographs by the author
Occasionally a new designer comes on the scene, and offers models that immediately attract attention from the card modeling community. Michael Urban's model of the Little Joe launcher for the Mercury Project is just one of those. I did a beta build of the model for Michael and asked him if the model were intended for commercial publication by one of the major publishing companies, or whether it was intended as a "freebie." He answered that it was to be a freebie. He had had so many free models from fellow members of various card groups that he wanted to put something back as repayment. With that attitude toward his fellow modellers, I had to applaud him and write a small article on his first design attempt.
The first thing that was evident with the model was the good fit of the parts. The cones and cylinders were perfect, and soon the rocket part of the Little Joe took shape. The fins have an authentic three dimensional look, and the small thrusters and rocket nozzles make the business end of the rocket look almost ready to blast off.
The Mercury capsule is a lovely 1:48 rendition of the real thing, and almost looks good enough to be shown on its own.
The launch tower is a wonderful piece of design. The three-sided latticework of angled and straight metal parts is faithfully reproduced in card, and took this reviewer an entire afternoon to cut out. Helpfully, a card former is given to help bend the tower after cutting out the triangular pieces of waste. A recent innovation by Michael is to make the tower available on a separate sheet that can be printed on overhead projector film, thus allowing those with less dexterity and blunt no. 11 blades to print out the tower with transparent spaces. Good one Michael!
In summing up, for one who sat and listened on the radio to all the Mercury launches back in the late 50's and early 60's, this splendid model represents a giant piece of nostalgia for me. It's a great model, and I for one cannot wait to see further designs from Michael Urban in 1:48 scale. Look out for them; I certainly will.
The Little Joe model is available at the CardInSpace website.
I have enclosed a few photos of the beta build, and although the Little Joe has little in the way of detailed information available on the web, I did manage to find the following sites:
A good historical writeup and timeline can be found at the NASA Project Mercury R&D History website.
A good photo of a Wallops Island Little Joe is at the Field Guide to American Spacecraft site.
Finally, Peter McQuillan maintains a web site dedicated to the Little Joe series, with extensive data and numerous film clips. The video files are very large and are intended for use with a broadband connection.
