Own your own space museum

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, blather, Gah., history, Hmm..., models, news, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 162021
 

Difficulty: stuff’s in Finland.

I was directed to an online auction of space replicas. The first items were things like 1/72 scale Space Shuttles and 1/72 scale Saturn V’s and Atlases and Redstones… nice enough, but nothing out of the ordinary.

BUT THEN…

14. Apollo Lunar Module cockpit full-scale replica 1:1

And…

15. Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle full-scale replica 1:1

And…

16. Gemini spacecraft full-scale replica 1:1

And…

17. Space Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle full-scale replica 1:1 (front section)

And…

19. Mercury spacecraft full-scale replica 1:1

And…

27. Apollo Command Module Exterior replica 1:1

And not last and certainly not least:

21. Saturn V scale model 1:10

Gimme gimme gimme gimme…

Where would I put a 1/10 scale Saturn V if I had one? I have no friggen’ clue.

The auction appears to be a bankruptcy auction:

Online bankruptcy auction under the authority of trustee Mr. M.W. Schüller of Lexington Advocaten in Hoofddorp concerning the inventory originating from the bankruptcy of John Nurnimen Events B.V. at Schiphol. The goods are located in Finland.

“John Nurnimen Events” still has a functioning website, but was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands, so I’m a bit confounded as to what’s going on here. On one hand I’m saddened that such a  collection of awesomeness was apparently not a profitable enterprise; on the other hand… it’s Finland. I’m unclear that that would be the best place for such a thing. The specific website for the “NASA – A Human Adventure” traveling exhibition is offline, though it’s archived.

Opening bids on all these things are 100 Euro each. I have no idea what they’ll go for, though I imagine shipping costs could be a bit spendy.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 1:30 pm

Europa Clipper to fly commercial

 Hmm..., news, politics, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 122021
 

And not on the bloated, far behind schedule and vastly over budget SLS:

NASA to use commercial launch vehicle for Europa Clipper

EC will instead fly on a commercial launch vehicle, as yet undetermined but very likely to be a Falcon 9 Heavy. The F9H is indeed a capable vehicle, but it does not have the throw weight that SLS is supposed to have, so instead of a three-year direct flight to Jupiter the spacecraft will take a more circuitous six-year flight that does gravity assists past Earth and Mars. An advantage of that is that after an October 2024 launch, the probe will do a  flyby of Earth in December of 2026; it should be interesting to compare views of Earth of “before and after,” what with the new radioactive pock marks, ash clouds, scorched regions that the next some years are looking likely to feature.

And from another direction, the loss of the Europa Clipper mission is just one more “why the hell are we spending money on this monstrosity” nail in SLS’s ginormous coffin.

 Posted by at 6:09 pm

Another project: early Convair lunar lander

 art, history, models, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

Recently finished, the CAD model for a 1/144 scale kit for Fantastic Plastic. This Convair idea utilized the same “landing boat” that Fantastic Plastic recently released in 1/48 scale. It’ll be a fairly simple kit. The design was illustrated in a number of renderings from the very late 1950’s/early 60’s, used often by or in conjunction with Krafft Ehricke as he tried to sell Americans on the future in space that they would soon have.

The vehicle had a landing boat at the top and a habitat module below it; below that is the stage with three RL-10 rocket engines, with six drop tanks around it. *Presumably,* the tanks, along with the landing gear, would be dropped shortly after launch from the Moon, with fuel in the main core providing not only the boost back to Earth but also a braking thrust to at least slow the ship, because I have *serious* doubts about that boat surviving a lunar re-entry.

 

 Posted by at 7:58 pm

Warp update

 art, models, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 112021
 

It has been officially decided to go with 1/288 scale for the IXS Enterprise, making the model somewhat larger. Progress continues; the pylons have some more detail, the warp rings have been split into three inner segments, four outer segments, with a wall thickness of about an eighth inch and a hollow within, allowing lighting for those so ambitious.

 Posted by at 12:56 am

Going to Warp

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., models, news, projects, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 102021
 

My first book contract had the due date for the manuscript in July, 2020. But guess what, a pandemic came along and shoved that back a full year. So I got a *second* contract, with a due date in January 2021. But guess what… pandemic pushed it to March. That book is *almost*  done, but I’ve taken a bit of a break from it to work feverishly on a completely different project: a CAD model of the “IXS Enterprise.” This is a notional spacecraft designed by artist Mark Rademaker to illustrate what a spacecraft based on an Alcubierre Warp Drive might look like; NASA has used various renderings of this vehicle quite often for that purpose.

The CAD model, which is being produced with the assistance and approval of Mr. Rademaker and Dr. Harold White of NASA, will be used to 3D print master parts for a 1/350 scale resin model kit to be released by Fantastic Plastic. As originally designed the IXS Enterprise had a length of 62.3 meters (which is being changed due to recent updates in the design) and the overall diameter is 41.3 meters. The model will thus be 17.8 cm/7 inches long by 11.8 cm/4.64 inches in diameter. This will put it in scale with the Polar Lights NCC-1701 Enterprise kit and the Moebius XD-1 USS Discovery kit, along with a whole bunch of ships.

UPDATE: there has been discussion about the scale of the model… chances are fair that it will get bumped up to 1/288 scale from 1/350. That would make it 8.5 inches long by 5.6 inches diameter.

The project to convert the  original CAD model into a printable kit is proceeding at a good pace.

 Posted by at 2:18 am

Now Available: 1/48 Convair Landing Boat

 aircraft, art, history, models, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 032021
 

A model I CADded up last year for Fantastic Plastic is coming along in the process. This was a design that was constantly flacked by Krafft Ehricke of Convair back in the late 1950’s, included in everything from small Atlas-derived space stations on up to lunar landers. The references for it showed the design wandering all over the place in terms of shape and dimensions; whether this was due to the design constantly changing or – as seems more likely – artistic license is not entirely clear. Evidence suggests that the design was improved and evolved to become the “landing boat” for the larger Project Orion vehicles designed int he very early 1960’s by General Atomic. GA was a division of General Dynamics, and there was some crosstalk about various aspects.

Convair Space Station Lifeboat

The model is not yet now available for sale, but will be soon. It will be a pretty straightforward kit in 1/48 scale.

 Posted by at 9:46 pm

More on SN9

 AARRRGH, aircraft, art, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 032021
 

Scott Manley analyses the crash of SN9:

Problem, crudely, was that one of the two Raptor engines meant to  ignite for the landing maneuver doesn’t ignite. *Why* that happened is as yet unclear, but it looks like the engine (specifically the turbopump) was falling apart. The end result is that it seemed it hit the ground at about 120 mph, resulting in RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly). Ouch.

 

This remarkable slo-mo footage of the thing coming down is not to be missed:

It’s beautiful in a way. The fact that nobody was on board, and the fact that it wasn’t an example of taxpayer funded blaot, makes the loss non-tragic. Of course, if you work at SpaceX, your mileage may vary.

 Posted by at 7:51 am
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