Who'd have thought it a couple of years ago? There are not one, but
two kits available of the Mir space station. One kit is
from RealSpace Models in the USA, the other from Vista
Replicas in England. Both are primarily resin and are listed as
1/144 scale. As seen in the table below, however, the scales are not
quite accurate.
The kit from RealSpace Models
arrived within a couple of weeks of my ordering it. Opening the box,
one finds nicely molded resin pieces for the main space station
building blocks: Mir core, Kvant, Kvant II, Spectr and Kristal. 
Also included are a resin Soyuz and
parts to make the Orbital Docking System (ODS), used to dock the US
Space Shuttle with the Mir station. There is also a large sheet of
photoetched parts to make the solar panels, girders, and antennas.
Finally, there is a slab of resin and a brass rod included to make a
stand for the completed model. The resin parts are molded with
insulating blanket detail, fuel tanks and some other details. A
slight mold parting line on each piece will need to be removed before
building the kit. There don't appear to be any major pinholes in the
resin pieces: there are some minor ones on the posts that anchor the
photoetched solar panels, so they can be easily filled with epoxy
while attaching the panels. An illustrated instruction sheet
completes the kit inventory.
Ordering the
Vista Replicas kit was a little more complicated for me, since
I had to get an International Money Order and wait for all that
processing to be done before I finally received my kit. All told, it
was about two months between the time I ordered the kit and when I
received it. Opening the box reveals lots of resin pieces, some ball
bearings, bits of plastic rod and some plastic strip. 
The resin pieces consist of the station
blocks: Mir core and attached Kvant, Kvant II, Kristal, Spectr and
Priroda modules. Also included are resin parts to make both a Soyuz
and a Progress spacecraft, along with resin slabs to represent the
solar panels. The ball bearings are to be glued to the outside of the
module pieces to represent fuel tanks. Several illustrated pages of
instructions describe the basic construction of the kit.
 |  |
| The RealSpace and Vista Kvant II and Kristal module parts side-by-side. The RealSpace parts are to the left of the Vista parts. | The RealSpace Mir core and Kvant modules are to the left. The Vista Mir core and Kvant module parts come as one piece. |
As to the accuracy of the kits, the RealSpace kit has the configuration as of the first shuttle docking (STS 71) to the station. So all it would take to model that scenario would be to add a 1/144 scale shuttle orbiter kit made up as the Atlantis. The RealSpace kit includes parts to make the Orbital Docking System carried in the shuttle's cargo bay. Since the shuttle was docked to the front of the station (actually to the Kristal module, but it was docked to the front of the station) and a Soyuz was docked to the rear port on Kvant, no Progress spacecraft was attached to the station at the time.
The Vista kit, on the other hand, includes a Progress spacecraft, along with a Priroda module (not yet launched to Mir). Well, it's not a very good model... it looks a lot like the Spectr module seen below, only a bit longer. Both the Spectr and Priroda modules in the Vista kit were made before the modules were launched to the station, so Vista just used basic forms, requiring the modeler to do a whole lot of work to make them correct, or just toss them and start from scratch. Or model an early configuration of the station... whatever. At least their ad in FineScale Modeler warns that modeling experience is required for this kit. And I don't think they mean the Cindy Crawford type of modeling...
On a gut level, I like the RealSpace kit better. I think it will require a lot less work to make it look like the real Mir station, especially with the photoetched parts. It also includes a stand which the Vista kit does not. Both kits' instructions appear adequate, although the Vista kit calls out different sized tubing than was included in the kit... Besides, the RealSpace kit is cheaper and involved a lot less hassle to obtain. I'll probably build the RealSpace kit sometime... the Vista kit looks like it would take too much effort (I am supremely lazy, you know...) to make into a presentable model, in spite of the fact that it's closer to 1/144 scale than the RealSpace kit.
 |  |
| The RealSpace Spectr part is on the left. As you can see, it is much more accurate than the Vista Replica's part, which is little more than a plain cylinder. | The RealSpace Soyuz part comes as a complete spacecraft, while the Vista Soyuz comes in two pieces. Again, the RealSpace part has insulating blanket detail molded into the part. It also includes a tiny resin part (not shown) for the periscope. |
| Module | Full length | Full diam. | Realspace length | Realspace diameter | Vista length | Vista diam. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | 12600 | 4350 | 74 (1/170) | 26 (1/167) | 84 (1/150) | 29 (1/150) |
| Kvant | 5300 | 4350 | 42 (1/126) | 26 (1/167) | 40 (1/132) | 31 (1/140) |
| Spectr | 9100 | 4350 | 74 (1/123) | 25 (1/174) | 83 (1/110) | 28 (1/155) |
| Kristal | 11900 | 4350 | 74 (1/123) | 25 (1/174) | 82 (1/145) | 28 (1/155) |
| Kvant II | 12200 | 4350 | 75 (1/163) | 25 (1/174) | 84 (1/145) | 29 (1/150) |
| Soyuz | 50 | 16 | 44 | 14 | ||
Sven Knudson