I greatly enjoy building models of spacecraft and launch vehicles, but one of the main problems with this is that there just aren't many plastic models of spacecraft and launch vehicles out there, and most of those are collector's items that are costlier than I can really justify. But as it happens, if you're willing to switch to a different (and, ironically, older) medium, ther are lots of spacecraft and launch vehicle models to be had.
The medium is paper. Just plain old paper. In the photograph above, four boosters are visible. The one on the far left is a composite, a paper Titan-IIIC booster and a paper X-20 Dyna-Soar spacecraft combined together. The interstage isn't quite right, but I'm prepared to live with it. The green one to its immediate right is a plastic model of a Soyuz-U booster, in this case the one that British astronaut Helen Sharman flew aboard. The big blue one next to it is a 1/72nd scale paper Delta II, in this case the one used to launch Spirit to Mars. The one on the right is an old Estes flying model rocket, which I keep in the space museum because painted that way it bears a mild resemblance to a Black Brant sounding rocket.
So, paper models. What's it all about? You download a PDF of the parts and instructions from various websites, usually for free. Even when they aren't free, they aren't very expensive - I bought a CD from Delta 7 Studios that contains more paper models than I can shake a stick at for less than the price of a modern plastic model airplane.
You print out the parts and instructions. I usually print the parts at maximum resolution on fairly heavy paper, 30-poundish for rockets and often 67 or 110 pound paper for satellites and things that don't involve many curves or cylinders (rolling 110 pound paper into a tight cylinder will make you yearn for strong drink. Trust me on this). I've made decent models out of 20-pound paper, but generally speaking, if the paper is too thin it is easy to roll and form, but too weak to hold a shape. If the paper is too heavy, it's very difficult to roll and form cleanly, but fairly sturdy. I usually don't print the instructions - I spend an evening reading them, and then I race back and forth between the workbench and the computer. It's good for my cardiovascular fitness.
My printer is a pretty inexpensive Epson Stylus C66, certainly nothing fancy. I like this printer because the dried ink seems to pretty waterproof, unlike some other inkjet printers, and the ink doesn't crack and flake off like some color laser printers. And since you still have the PDF, if you mess up the parts, you can print more.
At that point, you get to start cutting, folding, rolling and gluing. I use scissors, X-acto knives, a steel straightedge and a self-healing cutting mat. Curiously, the cutting mat is the best investment you can make. A good cutting mat, a fresh X-acto blade, and a good straightedge will produce cuts plenty clean and straight enough for any paper model I ever encountered. Plain old white glue is sufficient for most gluing, though I use a plain old office glue stick in places where the white glue might make the paper buckle or wrinkle.
And that's really it. You don't need a lot of tools. I have some dowels of various sizes I use to help roll fuselage sections and strap-on boosters, and I use some old paint brush handles to help form nose cones, and I occasionally use cheap school markers or dabs of craft paint to touch up cut edges, but you don't need a lot of expensive stuff to make a decent paper model. Certainly not an airbrush and compressor, the sine qua non of good plastic modeling.
I've built quite a few paper models over the last few years, and here is my collected paper model wisdom.
1. Wash your hands frequently. Kentucky Fried Chicken is good stuff, but greasy KFC fingerprints can't be cleaned off a paper model. Before I start a model, I scrub my cutting pad and workbench until they squeak, and I wash my hands every time I go back into the house to consult the instructions or get more coffee.
2. Use fresh knife blades. When you sit down to start a new paper model, take the old blade out of your knife and THROW IT AWAY. Put a new blade in and you will be on the path to contentment.
3. When you're done and you begin to punish yourself for not being able to make a perfect ogival nosecone out of paper, remember that it's just a hobby. It's supposed to be fun. Yes, we should acknowledge our failings and try to do better, but in the end, if it just isn't any fun, what's the point?
Links
Here are a couple of excellent paper model links.
http://www.lansbergen.net/eng/index.htm
An excellent collection of highly-detailed paper models. My Delta II came from this website, as have several of my other models. These are usually in color and build up into striking models. My next paper project will be the Spitzer telescope from this site. This site has some nice simple models like the Jupter AM-18 and Athena I that would make good introductory models. Their Trace model is also a good introduction to building more complex space probe models.
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/papermodels.html
A pretty comprehensive listing of Internet paper modeling resources, along with a lot of other good stuff.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/papermodels.cfm
A link page to a number of paper models of various NASA satellites and space probes, most of them designed by people who had been involved with the actual missions. Some of them are fairly simple black-and-white models, others are in color. I've built the Stardust, Cassini and Galileo models, and can report that the last two are pretty challenging. Galileo is pretty impressive when you photocopy the main radio dish onto clear overhead projection film.
http://www.delta7studios.com/
Here you can get a nice space shuttle Columbia memorial model, and if you're a serious fan of the Gemini Program, I can't recommend their Gemini CD enough. It's not free, but it's more than worth the money. Someday I intend to tackle the Agena docking target and the Gemini spacecraft with the full interior. I have occasional fantasies of walking into Kinko's and handing them the CD and saying "I want you to print every page of every PDF on this disk."
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