# Moon Bus windows



## Thanatos (Nov 29, 2000)

What is the story with the two different window styles on the Moon Bus?


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## fire91bird (Feb 3, 2008)

The smaller vertical ones depict the moon bus as seen in 2001. The large slanted ones are the windows that were in the original Aurora kit.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

^What he said.
Aurora's aerodynamic windows were incorrect. Moebius provides an additional set to build the bus as it was in the film.

(actually the model in the movie had NO clear parts, but the windshield was _supposed _to be just the two flat panels).


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## stargazer (Oct 13, 2001)

(actually the model in the movie had NO clear parts, but the windshield was supposed to be just the two flat panels).


What John says is true..There was no window glass at all visible. But I recon this is akin to the wearing of glasses on TV shows and 
movies, where reflections of the lights,or camera etc in the lenses might interfere, so just the empty frames are worn,

or where the windscreen of a movie car is missing to allow clearer views of the occupants... and everyone watching 'accepts' that the glass 'must' be there.

However there is some evidence that the moonbus side windows were meant to be 'double glazed', with a inner and outer skin. 

For safety this is a very good idea to do in a vacuum.

So I got to wonder why 'everyone' says that the front windows were single glazed. 

The 'slanting windows' would provide a double skin with the inner 'vertical' ones.

I am not at all saying that this was what was intended... just that proof of absence, is not proof of intent.


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## Zathros (Dec 21, 2000)

*Moebius wisely provided a choice...I decided to go with the way aurora produced the kit, for nostalgia purposes...strange...but if there were no actual windows on the miniature..how do we know which set of windows are correct??

Z
*


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## stargazer (Oct 13, 2001)

Zathros said:


> *Moebius wisely provided a choice...I decided to go with the way aurora produced the kit, for nostalgia purposes...strange...but if there were no actual windows on the miniature..how do we know which set of windows are correct??*
> 
> *Z*


 
Exactly my above point ! except that fitting BOTH might be 'logically' correct


Stargazer


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## DarthForge (Feb 5, 2009)

stargazer said:


> (actually the model in the movie had NO clear parts, but the windshield was supposed to be just the two flat panels).
> 
> 
> What John says is true..There was no window glass at all visible. But I recon this is akin to the wearing of glasses on TV shows and
> ...


Actually that is what I'm doing with mine, using both sets of windows.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

stargazer said:


> (actually the model in the movie had NO clear parts, but the windshield was supposed to be just the two flat panels).
> 
> 
> What John says is true..There was no window glass at all visible. But I recon this is akin to the wearing of glasses on TV shows and
> ...


I was actually thinking the very same thing as I was typing that.


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## idMonster (Jun 18, 2003)

John P said:


> (actually the model in the movie had NO clear parts, but the windshield was _supposed _to be just the two flat panels).


I'm pretty sure that's not correct. The reason we know that Aurora got the front windows wrong is because there are photographs of the filming miniature with the windows installed (see below). In all 3 of these pictures you can clearly see the light reflecting off of them.

Light reflection during filming may not have been much of an issue in 2001 since many, if not most, of the shots of the moonbus were still photographs of the filming model animated on an animation stand (like many other of the models).

Offhand, I'm not aware of any film before Star Wars that built their models without clear transparencies.

Gordon


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## Paulbo (Sep 16, 2004)

Thanks ID - I was looking through my archives for those shots but I've had two separate computer meltdowns in the last 3 weeks so the searches are a bit tough. (Luckily, being an anal retentive SOB, I haven't lost a single piece of data.)


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## stargazer (Oct 13, 2001)

"I'm pretty sure that's not correct. The reason we know that Aurora got the front windows wrong is because there are photographs of the filming miniature with the windows installed (see below). In all 3 of these pictures you can clearly see the light reflecting off of them".


Yes that is also true, and I almost mentioned it in my previous post, but figured someone would bring it up.

There were indeed front 'unright' windows fitted as seen in the studio model pictures, (there were no side windows apparent)... BUT we were talking of the moonbus as seen on screen, and there are no window glass apparent at all on that ! 

So yes taking the studio model into account... all we can still say for sure is that the front upright glass was implied to a certainty in the movie due to some physical evidence


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Well I'll be!


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

idMonster said:


> Light reflection during filming may not have been much of an issue in 2001 since many, if not most, of the shots of the moonbus were still photographs of the filming model animated on an animation stand (like many other of the models).


That's correct. AFAIK, _all_ the Moonbus shots were still photos of the miniature, with the window areas cut out so pre-filmed interior action could be rear-projected into the "windows." Ditto for the Aries 1-B moon shuttle. All the shots of the Orion spaceplane and the four nuclear-weapons-platform satellites were animated still photos as well.


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

If a photographer wants to get rid of glass glare, it is common practice to use a polarizing filter over the lens to remove it. So either way it shouldn't have been a big deal with glass in place.


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

stargazer said:


> However there is some evidence that the moonbus side windows were meant to be 'double glazed', with a inner and outer skin.
> 
> For safety this is a very good idea to do in a vacuum.


I work on the space shuttle and there are three panes in the orbiter window systems. The outer is the thermal pane, the middle is the redundant/structural pane, and the inner is the pressure pane. The void between the outer and redundant pane is vented during flight through a dessicant/filter system to depressurize during ascent and pressurize during descent.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Steve Mavronis said:


> If a photographer wants to get rid of glass glare, it is common practice to use a polarizing filter over the lens to remove it. So either way it shouldn't have been a big deal with glass in place.


Sometimes you need as many stops as you can get, especially with model photography. So they probably avoided glass to to avoid having to source twice as much light needed for shooting with a polarizer. However, I can see that idea's applying to motion picture shooting, not still photography (e.g. 2001) where you can just extend the exposure if you add a polarizer. Hm. Maybe they wanted no unnecessary glass in front of the optics.


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## Thanatos (Nov 29, 2000)

wow, some very interesting things to consider. I never thought of using both, but now I am going to consider it. I enjoyed building it though, a couple hours and it is ready for interior painting. unfortunatly the instructions are less than thorough on the interior colours. Any suggestions?


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## Paulbo (Sep 16, 2004)

These should help.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charletta/sets/72157604934008774/?page=4


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## idMonster (Jun 18, 2003)

Because of the lighting used in the moonbus interior it's nigh on impossible to state with any certainty what the interior colors are. 

Many of the interior parts of the original issue of the Aurora kit were molded in an odd "sea-foam" green. Somone recently theorized that during the development of this model an Aurora employee may have actually seen the interior set, either in person or in color photographs. That green color may have been Aurora's attempt to reproduce the "institutional" pale green that is frequently used in buildings and vehicle interiors (the insides of the M113 and AAVP-7 are excellent examples of this, see below). A good match for this color is the British World War 2 color "Sky Type S".

For my first moonbus I went with light and dark shades of tan, echoing the interior color scheme of the Aries moon shuttle. On my next moonbus I intend to use that pale green as the overall interior color and accent it with dark blue and medium grey or medium blue and dark grey.

No matter what colors you decide to use the screencaps of the interior are useful in that you can tell that object x is darker that object y and paint them accordingly.

HTH

Gordon


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