Standing rule on New Old Stock finds has always been to find two & keep one sealed, and finally: Came upon a second of Ja-Ru Toys' marvelous "Mission Command" playset from their 2000 era "Adventures In Space" low-cost Made in China space toy playsets.
Had scored one as birthday bling January 2022, and "Must Have" reason is the set's charming reduced size Hing Fat Toys style lunar module. Had one as a kid and been fascinated by the form since re-discovering HF's Space Astronaut sets in 2019. My childhood set came packed into a bucket and I use the term "Space Buckets" to refer to the line in general. Finding a miniaturized Space Bucket lunar lander was a startling revelation and almost opened that set 1000 times just to have it on my desk, lookin' at me.
Clocked on an auction for a second last fall, gosh darnit, and am genuinely grateful that a 3rd surfaced in mid August to put the subject to rest once and for all. Our friends at Ja-Ru can take heart that it appears enough of these sold as to make them a genuine rarity! and while my grousing about the quality of the toys is meant for laughs it is worth every penny of the $2.99 the good people at Teufel's needed for one.
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Fantastic. Production costs on everything is about fifteen to twenty cents, pure money once packaged up convincingly and hawked at the right locations. Not toy stores so much as dollar stores, airport news kiosks, railway station gift shops or even grocery store racks. Cultured space toy collectors hate the stuff: It's impossible to distinguish "vintage" sets (1970s in this case) from current production of flimsy, hollow disposable plastic.
Which is just the nature of the business, and Ja-Ru's been at it since 1961, Hing Fat as known today since 1980. I had my Space Bucket kit by the age of five, destroyed it by the age of seven because it's ephemera. Meant to be taken along for the weekend at grandma's or up to the summer camp for vacation and left behind for next time. Or to keep the little varmit busy on the plane or other time when something to fascinate and quiet a kid is in order, then thrown away at the other end.
Just like the one I had in 1972. Nice how the smaller figures fit the scale of the vehicle better: You can maybe cram one of the seated pilot figures into the dome of the lander but two guys went down to the moon. Though accuracy of anything was far from what whomever originated the Space Astronaut toy line was thinking about as the LEM design they utilized never flew.
The original design source, General Dynamic's Convair Lunar Excursion Module proposal from 1963, which NASA declined in favor of Grumman Aviation's more familiar Lunar Module design. Main factor was weight, complexity of controls and lack of a door. Would have needed twice as much fuel to land as the one which did, increasing the gross weight even more.
A look inside of the crew compartment and it's like a movie set from 2001. Lots of delicate electronics. Big heavy glass windows. Would have flown more like a delicate Space Helicopter rather than a rocket ship. Crews would have to shimmy up & down the side via a rope ladder tossed out from the airlock at top. In a fully pressurized EVA suit with life support pack? That wouldn't have gotten beyond the astronaut corps expected to perform the stunt on the moon, and NASA correctly went with Grumman's flying pickup truck instead.
Interesting view of how the crew would be situated in their little Space Heliocopter. Lift propulsion via rocket bells housed in the skirt of the "descent stage". Maneuvering via the rocket nozzles on the boom wings, which Hing Fat (or whomever conceived the space toy version) eliminated from their lander. Instead the rocket nozzles from the boom arms are positioned on nooks at compass points on the ascent stage.
Hing Fat's toy has no descent stage rockets. Underside is hollow with liftoff platform top. Most obvious similarity is in the legs with triangular support struts. Top "dome" ascent stage held in place by pegs. The choice of basing your toy lunar module on the one which wasn't used is fascinatingly odd, and I vividly recall wondering if it was supposed to be a robot as a kid: There's no door, no windows. All four sides of what would be the ascent stage look mechanical and it's antennae look like bug eyes.
This image shows how Convair proposed to undock the ascent stage from the base to blast back off into orbit. I'd be nervous about having those engine bells clear the lower stage's skirt. Mockup never left the ground unless by crane.
