Rocketship Galileo

Another in Fantastic Plastic's line of "classic" space ships, the model was based on Robert Heinlein's book. The story goes: 

After World War II, three teenage boy rocket experimenters are recruited by one boy's uncle, Dr. Cargraves, a renowned physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, to refit a conventionally powered surplus "mail rocket". It is to be converted to run on a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, despite prying and sabotage attempts by unknown agents.
Upon completion of the modifications, they stock the rocket, which they name the Galileo, and take off for the Moon, taking approximately 3 days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the moon on behalf of the United Nations...

Then the excitement starts...
The model, which was retired a while ago, comes in 9 pieces of blue resin. There are no bubbles or odor and very little flash. 

Putting it together is pretty straight forward and the parts meet up nicely, tho there is room for a little putty work. 

All images show the space ship as white - and by now you know I hate white. To me, white never looks white, and I'm always looking for the "brighter than Sun" white. No such thing. 
So the paint went on over a gray primer - 

Of course there's always little divots that need to be addressed. The added work was done when I dropped the model and snapped off the vertical fin :-P  -

You have two choices for the engine exhaust - a nuclear exhaust (which is what I used) and a chemical exhaust. The landing gear are made up of two skids. A length of styrene rod is included and you must cut the struts to the provided length, then glue to the skids, then to the rocket. 

All in all it was an easy kit to put together. The window and door was simply score marks on the fuselage. I tried the mini painting technique for doing windows/gems - I'll leave it to you whether it worked out (I didn't think so). The exhaust was painted Vallejo Glossy Black and then I used V's new Aluminum metallic paint. That stuff is awesome! 


Anyway there it is. Keep watch of Fantastic Plastic's site as he brings back  certain retired kits for a limited time. So it may be possible to see it available again one day. Thanks for looking.