Grumman Molab Concept in 1/72 Scale

 

I have always been fascinated with "what if" concepts for the 1960's Project Apollo. In the mid-1960's NASA commissioned various manufacturers to come up with advanced equipment for extended Lunar exploration. Sadly, following the initial moon landing of Apollo 11 Congressional budget cuts essentially gutted any follow-on Lunar exploration projects following Apollo.

One of these concepts was the Grumman Molab (short for mobile laboratory). The pressurized, 2-man Molab would provide extended range beyond the lunar rovers used in the last 2 Apollo missions. Since there have been no injection molded kits produced of the Mobal I took on the challenge of pushing my scratch-building skills to create a 1/72 replica.

Below are photos of the build and the finished product.

Here is my concept drawing that served as the guide for my Molab project

I cobbled parts from Evergreen polystyrene plastic, old plastic rocket parts, and the dome is from a Polar Lights 'Land of the Giants' Spindrift kit. 

The singular challenging part of this project was scratch-building the spring-wheels. I sliced 3/16ths portions of a 7/8ths inch diameter plastic tube. I cut a section off of 5/16ths diameter Evergreen styrene tube for the hub. I glued the tips of eight Evergreen plastic strips to the hub and then inserted the hub and springs into the wheel.

I scratch-built 4 of the Molab wheels. I inserted 1/16th hollow plastic tubing to serve as an insert for the axle. 

Here are the 4 wheels and axles attached to the hull of the Molab units.

I applied cut strips of 400 grit sandpaper to the outer rim of the wheels, painted, and decaled the finished product.

The final product.