Dawson Creek’s Proach is all about the art and detail behind space model making. While firmly entrenched in models from the real world – Proach is still all about the final frontier.
No Star Destroyers or Klingon Birds of Prey here – Proach is all about real world space, sea, and air exploration.
Bringing his passion for space exploration and history together with self-taught model making skills over the years results in precision accurate scaling and detailing, which transforms a regular space model project into a true work of art.
Proach’s models range in size from a four inch tall model of the first Goddard liquid-fueled rocket – to a 16 foot tall Saturn V moon rocket – to a 28 foot wide communication satellite – it is safe to say Proach’s work is in the literal, and figurative stars.
“I’ve been into the space program since I was a kid. Alan Shepard, John Glenn and more,” he says.
In 1971, a younger Proach built a model of the Apollo 15 lunar rover in advance of the mission launch. He called up a couple of television stations where he lived in Toronto at the time.
“A week before the launch, CTV’s Bob Conroy called me up and asked to see the model. I was given a flight plan, lunar procedures, and asked to create the entire Apollo 15 landing site complete with experiments for use during the CTV’s coverage of the moonwalks.”
He did a number of freelance contracts and by 1994 Proach was launching his spacecraft more full time and focused.
“I started picking up contracts.”
Some of these contracts include work with an Ottawa Aerospace Museum, NASA, the US Air Force, the odd television show and movie, aerospace companies, including Space X, a few astronauts, and a documentary produced by an actor who has played astronaut Jim Lovell – one Tom Hanks.
Proach has also met and knows a number of astronauts, including a few of them that actually walked on the moon.
“That first Apollo mission really grabbed me. Those first men on the moon flipped me from building cars and sea ships to spacecraft.”
Some of his space models have been in space, flying in or with their real-life counterparts.
“In 2002 NASA was working on components for the International Space Station, and some of those space station models built for NASA became training components,” says Proach. His work has flown on both the US Space Shuttle in 2002 and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2008.
“Today 3D printers can really help with creating individual pieces and parts,” he says.
His work is on display in a small museum – not much larger than those original Apollo astronaut capsules – right here in Mile Zero at the B2 Auto Zone on 102 Avenue. Tours of small groups can be arranged by appointment.
For more than 50 years Proach has kept close tabs on Canadian, US, and Russian space programs. He can produce a model of any aerospace subject.
An up close examination of the models brings to reality that astronauts have been to space – in what amounts to a large soup can. Re-entry into the atmosphere could be as harrowing an experience as blast off, with nothing but rocket fuel sending you into orbit.
“Upon re-entry they are going about 25,000 miles per hour. Astronauts accept the risk, and they realize they are test pilots and the risk is something they don’t think much about. They would roll with it and said ‘we had to deal what we had to deal with.’ That’s the way these guys are.”
In 2020 Proach and his wife Connie took off from the Sunshine Coast and splashed down in Mile Zero.
“Another guy I got to know was “the loneliest man in the Universe” – Al Worden, who orbited the moon alone while David Scott and Jim Irwin were on the moon during Apollo 15 in 1971.”
Proach says while there are a fair amount of space modellers – the market for people looking for these types of models is smaller.
“It is a pretty narrow market – but there are a number of groups that follow the history, and know what happened. Quite a number of customers are in the US. We don’t build too many – then again they are not mass produced,” he says.
A rover signed by the last crew on the moon, Harrison Schmitt and Gene Cernan, sits close by.
The largest model Proach constructed was a project for Expo ’86, a satellite some 28 feet plus in size.
In his shop, Proach has models of the first rocket to ever launch from Cape Canaveral, a USSR Yuri Gagarin model, an Apollo 9 spacecraft signed by the entire crew, a Gemini Spacecraft after splashdown, John Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft, as well as some more modern ones such as the Boeing Starliner and the SpaceX Dragon II spacecrafts, and NASA’s new Space Launch System, the replacement for the space shuttle, which is tentatively scheduled to lift off on its maiden flight to the moon in late August.
“This will make an unmanned trip around the moon, then in about 2 years, a four person crew will go up,” he says.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
