Steven Vasko’s Moonbus

This is the1/60 scale Moebius Models “Moonbus” from “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Both the interior and the exterior of the kit were augmented with details from the Paragrafix “Moonbus” photo-etch set.

The interior is full of extra details made of various varieties of sheet and stock styrene and is lit by four LEDs-two Red LEDs placed underneath the excised video screens of the cockpit control panel, and two Blue LEDs placed in the rear bulkhead of the interior. The first two seats in the rear compartment were removed to make this area more screen-accurate, and were dressed up with bric-a-brac from my spares box (including a spare Lunar Models “Discovery” fuel pod.) The ceiling of the interior was given a set of Scotch-Lite “light panels” and scratch-built oxygen bottles.

The exterior was weathered with graphite pencil lead applied with a Q-Tip. “Bare Metal Foil” was also applied to small sections of the hull to replicate the natural metal finish of these panels as depicted in the film. The port and starboard retro-rocket packs were dressed up and front-facing retro-rockets were scratch-built and installed.

The base for the kit is a former “Radio Shack” project box that contains the batteries and power switch for the LED light system. The “TMA-1 meatball” was printed off the Internet, spray-mounted onto a circular piece of sheet styrene, and coated in Decoupage two-part epoxy varnish, before being fixed onto the base.

Steven Vasko