Ron Gross’s Jupiter 2 Blueprints

These drawings some of the actual blueprint drawings that Ron Gross prepared for the construction of his Jupiter 2 prototype. Remember, that the drawings were indeed for the prototype, and, as such, served as a guide, but do not provide an exact match for the Polar Lights interpretation.

This information will lay the general groundwork for a discussion of the Polar Lights J2 interior, an area with which I had less direct design involvement. The desire on the part of Playing Mantis to incorporate lower level detailing as part of the overall package necessitated some modifications from the plans which I submitted. This is not a decision with which I necessarily disagree, it simply represents an alternate interpretation. There are certain definitive answers concerning the exterior of the ship if one has the specific goal of duplicating the look of the primary studio miniature. The interior, on the other hand, can be validly assessed in a number of ways depending on one’s primary area of emphasis.

The first thing you must understand is that we are trying to reconcile full-sized studio sets, which have very specific dimensions, with a longer, lower, and sleeker hull contour. Take a look at shots of the full scale studio mock up, and you will see a basic shape defined by all straight lines and a “tighter” circle to denote the roof edge. Add to this disparity the fact that the interior sets were actually situated below the seam line between the two primary hulls, which will not work if you expect the lower level viewport to make any sense. We are left with the need to raise the floor to at least the point of the seam line, and to widen the interior circle defined by the ends of the wall beams. If the interior layout is not widened, the distance between the viewport and the flight deck console becomes unacceptably large. Examine the illustration that I did for the box cover, for example, and you will notice that side of the bordering wall beam is already quite a bit wider than that of the studio set. To stretch it much farther would not create an acceptable overall look.

Having accepted all of the above, we are now left with individual wall sections which have different (essentially lower) proportions compared with their full scale counterparts. The solution is to duplicate as much of the original detail as possible, but to spread out and/ or “stretch” specific areas as required in order to fill the space. The most logical reference for scale is that of an internal hatchway, which, by necessity, now has a lower dimension. This is how my alternate scale of 1/60th as described in the assembly manual was ultimately derived (1/70th for my 10 1/4″ prototype).

What, then, are the differences between the Polar version and my original plans? As a starting point, I decided to line up the larger recessed circular area on the rooftop with the internal elevator cage. You will notice that this is not quite the case on the production model. The fact is that the circle defining the Polar internal layout is indeed little tighter than the way I drew it, and I suspect that the main reason had to do with an attempt at lower level reconciliation. The original plan was to create an opening at the base of the ladder that would join the two levels, but it was abandoned when it became necessary to move the related lower level wall back to accommodate it, plus the fact that the two sections of the adjacent elevator shaft would not line up properly anyway. The only way to incorporate lower level detailing in this model, in fact, was simply to represent it in a smaller overall scale with an even tighter associated diameter. If you decide to build the lower level and include the central spacer (the “mystery” part), you will notice that the floor is now raised to a point that is just above the seam line. This would ordinarily necessitate an even lower profile and a different scale, but the slightly tighter circle allows the hatchway height (and hence the overall scale) to remain the same.

It isn’t really necessary for you to understand all of this, of course, in order to build the damn thing. It does, however, tend to answer a lot of questions that many of you have posed, as well as provide some interesting background information.

Ron Gross