I can remember back when the Apollo program was in full swing. I was a kid and man, you had models by Revel, space army men, and every other space toy imaginable. We lived off space toys. It was the golden age of space travel. Kids wanted to be astronauts. We had astronaut lunch pails, GI Joe Astronauts, even that uber cool Mercury capsule with the action figure inside.
And the golden age of space toys lasted even up to when we landed on Mars. I may have been a full grown adult when it landed back in `94, but when the first Mars Rover “Sojourner” hitched a ride to the Red Planet with it’s base station “Sagan” and made a bouncy and spectacular landing on Mars, I couldn’t help but race to the toy store and buy the Hot Wheels set. It included the base station, rover, and even the orbiter with aeroshell so one could relive the rentry and touchdown in the privacy of your own bedroom at mom’s house. Hell, I even bought the Happy Meal Toys.
But then the next three missions failed spectacularly.
Hot Wheel’s follow up “JPL Returns to Mars” was dubbed the “Crash Pack,” instead of the official “Action Pack.” And even the amazing three year odyssey of rovers Spirit and Opportunity hasn’t lured toy makers back to space, yet. But they should.
Now sure, there’s some space toys out there. And even Lego has the Mars Mission line. But a lot of what’s out there is cheap and breaks even easier than the toys I had as a kid. And the Lego line is fantasy, not the real magilla. But at least you can build the paper model of Phoenix, and Spirit and Opportunity, even though toy makers aren’t knocking on CalTech’s door (they manage JPL and as such, own merchandising rights).
But come on. If we’re going to ignite the fire of future generations of space travel, it’s important, neigh vital, to get em when their young. It’s what raised the current crop of science engineers and astronauts. Ask them, they’ll tell you the same thing.
We gotta get em young.
Hat Tip – Space.com