NASA Space Shuttle "Atlantis"

The Space Shuttle, first of her kind, was a partially reusable spacecraft designed by NASA during the '70s. For nearly 30 years they dominated space. Living so close to where it all happened, I decided this would be a project that would remind me of my time here.

Building "Atlantis" was an interesting project for me. Living at Space Coast, the place where it all happened, gave me the idea to build something that would be able to come home with me as a memory to my time here. The decision to recreate "Atlantis" was made easily, as she was the last of her time. To find the model was a lot harder, as there aren't many out there, let alone the scale I was looking for. It had to be big, very big. After many nights spend on Ebay, Amazon and many shabby Chinese sale websites, I came across the 1986 version of Monogram (now part of Revell). That is correct, she's older than me.

Tribute to a legend

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Niek Nijsen

Although here maiden voyage was in '85, it's the closest I could get to having both a tribute to her first and last flight. Unfortunately, the producer of some great decals (tiles and such) went out of business long time ago, so I had to design these from scratch. But that wasn't going to stop me. I decided to place her in the launching position, as if she's ready to go again. This meant that I had to close the doors, which prevented me from adding any PE parts. The windows weren't a 100% accurate, but there wasn't anything out there until 3 weeks after I finished my model... Talk about bad luck. My version of "Atlantis" was based on her appearance after her last flight, July 2011.

Many thanks to my neighbor Georgette, who enabled me to visit Atlantis when she was moved from the VAB to her final resting place at Kennedy Space Center. And many thanks to Peter Bello for helping me with the photoshoot.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who followed and commented on my progress. As always, hope to see you on the next one!