New Kit – 1/200 Artemis Rocket by Round2/AMT
Here’s a new 1/200 model of the Artemis moon rocket, in its uncrewed November 2022 test flight configuration. This is the craft NASA hopes will return astronauts to the Moon, although the agency just announced they are postponing a Moon trip with humans aboard until 2025 or 2026.
What caught my eye was the AMT box art, which is a good match for the box art of AMT’s classic 1/200 “Man in Space” rocket kit set circa 1970. This kit I remember well from my Space Age childhood, with a kit included of every U.S. manned rocket that had marched us to the Moon in less than a decade.
For me the Space Age was real life; in the late 1960s I went to elementary school down the street from North American’s plant in Downey, CA, which built the Apollo command module. At recess, I stood at the schoolyard fence and watched trailers with rocket parts rolling up the street to the plant, which was a real anthill, employing thousands of people.
Best of all, everybody in those days built model kits- they were everywhere, available in convenience stores and department stores and every store in between. Even Walter Cronkite had the bug, showing off NASA display models during every Apollo moon launch telecast.
Fortunately the Round2 company, which owns the AMT label and several other famous modeling brand names, has been releasing both new and classic model kits under the old logos- their website is worth checking out to see the variety of kits they produce, including kits under the popular Polar Lights brand.
The AMT Artemis kit looks like a nice model well worth building and will give modelers an idea of what the next crewed trip up to the Moon will look like in terms of hardware. This model is so interesting I might kitbash one myself- stay tuned!
