Moebius Models 1/24 'Lost in Space' Space Pod Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

A television series aired for the first time on September 15, 1965 depicting a family leaving earth to be the first colonists on Alpha Centauri. The space family Robinson began their adventures in the TV series 'Lost in Space', a production of Irwin Allen who was already airing the undersea adventures of the submarine Seaview in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' and was starting preparations for the exploration of history in the series 'Time Tunnel'. Keep in mind that the Robinsons had been in space one full season before the premiere of the competing TV series 'Star Trek' aired a year later.

The Robinson's spacecraft, the Jupiter II, was designed to launch from Earth and land at its destination upon its three-legged landing gear, but as LIS fans know, it usually wound up partially buried on nearly every planet it visited.

Later in the series, a new vehicle appeared on the scene - the Space Pod. Patterned after the Lunar Lander that was still over a year away from landing on the moon, this vehicle offered some additional drama as a way to explore or transport some of the characters without another dramatic crash of the Jupiter II.

Moebius Models continues to plow deeper into uncharted science fiction subject territories, first with the Voyager from 'Fantastic Voyage', then the magnificent Seaview from 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'. Now we have the first of a one-two punch from the TV series 'Lost in Space' with the Space Pod that was first introduced in Season Three, followed by the famous 'Chariot' that was there from the beginning of the series.

The Space Pod and Chariot are replicated in 1/24 scale, which will make for a nice vignette. The kit is laid out very sensibly and does not look to provide any serious challenges of its own. The kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on nine parts trees, four larger gray parts provided separately, and one tree of clear parts.

What is interesting here is all of the detail. Clearly Moebius Models had access to some good studio shots of the full-scale prop to create this beautiful model. Unfortunately, Moebius doesn't share much of this information as the instructions a vague to say the least.

The instructions are not produced in the international standard of graphic drawings. Instead, there are seven black and white images showing subassemblies and lots of narrative in English, which will make this model more of a hassle for international buyers. The instructions do recommend studying the steps and after spending some time with them, I second that recommendation. The narrative steps are clear in regards to assembly, the images are not very useful, and good luck on painting.

There is a paint chart on the back of the instruction sheet that show what parts should be which color, and Testors paint numbers are provided. However, there are no graphics to show what the interior is supposed to 'look like' to show details of multicolor parts, and even a few key details are not identified as to color, such as the interior floor. If you take your time and get acquainted with the model, you shouldn't have any difficulties with figuring out where things go and what colors they should be before installation.

The kit provides a nicely detailed exterior and interior, with clear windows on the windscreen and rear hatch, plus the hatch is designed to be movable to reveal all of those interior details.

I am hoping that the aftermarket folks provide some nice options for this kit. I can see a fusion core lighting system for this kit similar to the ones produced for the Polar Lights Jupiter 2 kit. With the soon-to-be-released Chariot kit also in this scale, some nice figures of the Robinson family in 1/24 scale would also be welcome. The Chariot kit will also include a 1/24 scale Robot!

My only disappointment with this kit is the instruction sheet. With all of the good work that has gone into this model, cutting corners on the instructions really doesn't make sense. The instructions do suggest that you visit some of the online resources for the Space Pod to help you through the project, and if I could have found just one, I wouldn't be hammering on these instructions, but Moebius doesn't provide any URL for these online references; Google doesn't show anything usable; and even visits to the two top science fiction websites - CultTVman and Starship Modeler came up empty for usable Space Pod references.

Given the situation with these instructions, I recommend this kit to experienced modelers only.