The recent death of Wally Schirra, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, inspired me to try my hand at the excellent Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) designed and offered by Carl Hewlett. Schirra is someone I actually got a chance to go have drinks with one night while I was at Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., working on a story. He was gracious and a font of great stories, as you might imagine. And he had enough charisma for a dozen people; although he was a modest guy, it was not at all hard to tell that he had the "Right Stuff" that Tom Wolfe wrote about.

Carl's model is fairly straightforward and is not a difficult build. I decided to use something other than normal cardstock, though, to try and enhance the appearance. The CM was covered with a cast-coated text paper by Wyndstone called "aluminum lines," and it seemed to closely replicate the strips of Kapton tape on the CM. (And Carl helpfully provides a diagram showing the tape patterns.) I used a silver paper for the body of the SM, with the radiator panels done in white cardstock.

There was one part of Carl's model I had difficulty with, and that was the large bulged section at the bottom of the SM that the Service Propulsion System (SPS) nozzle attached to. The pieces has several compound curves, and I just couldn't seem to get the kit part to bend correctly. So I took a couple of rectangles of 1/8th-inch thick basswood, glued them together and when they had dried, I cut and sanded it to shape. That piece was then covered with another type of silver paper, one that was shinier than the one I used for the SM. I replicated the complex "spider-web" detail on the bottom of the bulged piece with strips of silver thread (and no, I didn't use golden needles) that I cut and glued to the proper pattern.

I used several other types of paper for other details on the model.

This was a case where research was important. I built the model with a docking ring, a High-Gain Antenna and EVA handholds, all of which Apollo 7 lacked, I later found out. So I went back and "fixed" the model, removing the HGA (which I'd spent an hour or two on, by the way...) and the EVA handles. I built a forward tunnel hatch, and covered it with glue-soaked tissue to replicate the quilted material on the real hatch. Although Apollo 7 lacked EVA handles, it did have a handle on the hatch.

So this one's for you, Wally....

Image: Right/front view

Image: Closer look at the CSM

Image: Right/rear