Mercury Redstone 3
This is a model of the rocket that sent the first US man into space: Mercury Redstone 3. The capsule was Freedom 7 and Alan Shepard was at the controls, and on May 5 1961, the US became the second nation to send a man into space. It was only a sub orbital flight, lasting a whopping 15 minutes and 28 seconds, but at least the United States could claim to be able to put a man in space.
This model was available for download at The Philippus Lansbergen Public Observatory Foundation website, but the creator decided to take his models down. He's currently looking for a place to host them, but hasn't decided on anything yet. I hope he figures out a plan soon, becaue this is a good model to start with. It is small and fairly easy to build, so someone looking to get started in paper models would like this.
Just a Couple Changes
While the detail on this model was very good, I made a couple modifications. I sliced the main body tube in two when I was making it and added a circular former in the middle. I wanted to make building the tubes easier and help prevent the center from deforming over time. You can't even see the seam since I did it right on the black ring in the middle. The next thing I did was completely replace the kit's escape tower and make my own.
I have a copy of a 1/48 scale model in pdf, so I converted to a MS Word document it using a pdf converter. I then used the parts from that model and shrunk them down to have size to get them to 1/96 scale. I took everything out but the outlines and printed them on red card stock. After carful cutting and glueing, I had an outstanding escape tower. I was very happy with how it turned out.
There was only one problem with this kit that I will need to fix. The fins didn't have enough paper to cover the area on the tube where it's suposed to be glued to. You can see thin strips of white showing in areas that should be black. If you print out two models and cut thin strips from the second kit you can glue them in place, so it's no big deal.
If you want the stand and the escape tower for the Mercury Redstone rocket, you can find it here. The stand will work for any Redstone rocket in 1/96 scale, and the escape tower will work for any Mercury capsule in 1/96 scale. If you want to add some detail to your rocket, then this may help.