a Little Exposition in a Library

If you happen to come in the vicinity of Uithuizen, a village in the north of Groningen next month, I recommend you take a look in the local library, where from this afternoon up til 31 december a selection of my paper models will be shown.

I have put some thought in which models I would like to show and what to tell about them. I decided upon this selection after I measured the showcase in which I had to display the models. That meant no vertically positioned models. I had to make a special little stand for the Shuttle stack and I unfortunately had to leave the Tintin rocket at home. Maybe next time!

For now, let's see what people will say about them. Next to the showcase I stuck a little text to the wall on why paper models are such fun to make.

At home, carefully putting models in a plastic crate. Little scary. Stuff is a little fragile.

Safely in the showcase in Uithuizen library.

F-1 engine on transport trolley and Saturn V staging.
All models got a little card explaining what it is and in what scale.

Thunderchild vs the Martian fighting machines

Crevasse and dual splashdown diorama

Shuttle Endeavour and stack horizontally on a stand.

Groningen "Hoofdstation"  and T-38 with an example of an uncut model sheet.

A nice little birthday present to myself, since I became 52 yesterday. Pff. Time flies when you are busy. (-: Let's hope people like what they see.

Heldere hemel, Lodewijk - and: Clear skies, Jim.

This week we have to deal with the passing of two astronauts. The first Dutch-born man in space Lodewijk van den Berg and James McDivitt, both over 90 years old. Respectable ages, if you ask me.

   

Left: Lodewijk van den Berg, Right: James McDivitt. Both pictures: Wikimedia.

Lodewijk van den Berg was born in Sluiskil and emigrated to the US for his study and his work thereafter. His job got a secretive character and he had to become an American citizen to continue what he did. NASA asked him to do his job on board of a spaceshuttle, because no one else knew as much as he did about his line of work. So he became payload specialist and flew on board of Challenger, in the same year Wubbo Ockels would fly, in the same spacecraft. But although Lodewijk was first, Wubbo was the first Dutch astronaut. Lodewijk kept on visiting his birthplace almost every year. He was 90 years old when he passed on.

Korea veteran pilot James McDivitt was one of the second class of astronauts, the New Nine. His first flight was Gemini 4, with Ed White. He commanded the spacecraft and Ed White made the forst U.S. spacewalk. McDivitt later also commanded the Apollo 9 mission that successfully tested the Lunar Lander in Earth orbit. He stayed at NASA as Apollo program manager up til 1972. he was 93.