Subject:
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Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build
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Date:
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Fri, 5 Nov 1999 04:19:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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726 times
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Wow! that's quick!
In lugnet.build, Kevin Loch writes:
> Cool! Actually, I'm surprised NASA diddn't do this with sojurner back
> in 96.
Actually, I would not know. JPL is one of many NASA centers, and there
are 6000 employees at JPL with hundreds of projects and no chat rooms
like this, to be sure. Legos have been used to build rovers and stuff
for kids as part of outreach efforts, but to my knowlege, no project
has made an "official" Lego model. What other projects have done is
contract out to a model maker - we did that too and got a $10K estimate!
Our instrument is rather arcane, and the ideas we need to demo is
something we have been puzzling over for a while on the back-burner.
Nothing fancy, and we kind of like the aww-cute reaction to using Lagos.
The down-side is not being taken seriously or seen as playing too much.
Ya, I know, really square, but the media blows the strangest things all
out of proportion.
> This probably means gluing the non-moving parts together. That is how
> all of the "official" models like store displays are built.
Ya, I figured as much. What kind of glue? Cyano-acrylate (super glue)?
And I would not do any gluing until last, of course. Even the order one
glues in is critical, for sure.
> For most of us this is a vary expensive and time-consuming effort.
Right. I would never volunteer my own collection (or my daughters).
I can fiddle with it during lunch or something. Expense-wise, well,
I imagine if I spend a lot less than 10K everyone will be happy, and
a lot less could be as much as $300 or so.
> very few elements are made in chrome and particularly gold.
Humph. I wonder if I could get some parts chromed at another shop . . .
> This would be the easiest part. The answer to the complete inventory question
> is mostly yes, you will probably find all the parts you need in the "official"
> ldraw releases. I would recommend MLcad for this step.
ldraw? MLcad? Details, please. Or at least a URL.
I'm actually in the Science Division, my degree is in physics. I'm
called an engineer because anyone without a PhD is called that, and
I'm much handier with tools than anyone else in my section. I have
been able to get by in the shops here with simple line drawings, mostly
because what I need is not too complex. Lego-cad would be cool, though.
> There is no catalog of parts that us hobbyists have access to.
Mega-bummer, man. I wonder why.
> However, LEGO has been known to support various private artists and corporate
> initiatives that "show off" their products well. I can't imagine that they
> would not see the benifit in NASA media models made of LEGO elements.
> Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't been done already.
It has, but at a high level. Just finding who did it would be a hassle
for me. I could call, but if it gets too complicated or involves an
agreement on paper . . . Well, you're right, I should try. Our
project just isn't that big. Peter Jennings may mention us some night,
but only once, I'll bet, and you'd never know JPL was involved. You would
not beleive how hard we have to lobby the media to get coverage! So I'm
not so sure Lego would want to spend a lot of effort on us, but I could
string them along on the environmental angle, hmm . ..
Whenever I hear of conspiracy theories in regards to planetary exploration
I just gotta laugh. Everything we do at JPL is 100% public, but the public
never hears about it. You couldn't keep a REAL secret better!
It occurrs to me that a lot of the NASA managers in senior positions
that make money-spending decisions are just too old to "get" Legos.
At 39, I am probably at the edge of GenL. (GenX'ers who know Lego).
> I'm using a Sparc 5 right now, and the site came up reasonably fast
> Like most Internet bottlenecks, yours is probably related to peering rather
> than backbone performance (Hint: if you do a traceroute and see "192.41.177"
> or "198.32.136" you are using "public" peering which is useless. You might
> also see a jump in latency at that point.
I am not quite that network savvy. I will discuss your suggestion with my
own gurus to decode what you said. Sorry, man, I learned on punch cards
and know just enough to be dangerous. I get the feeling that that is the
right question to ask or will lead to it. Thanks for everthing. Good night.
- Mark.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
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| (...) Are you talking about modeling the MISR Terra Spacecraft out of Lego? (...) Unless the scale is really out of control, I would guess that it could be done pretty cheaply - unless you wanted to motorize it and use Mindstorms. (...) I would (...) (25 years ago, 5-Nov-99, to lugnet.build)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: JPL engineer needs help with space instr. model
|
| (...) Cool! Actually, I'm surprised NASA diddn't do this with sojurner back in 96. (...) This probably means gluing the non-moving parts together. That is how all of the "official" models like store displays are built. (...) For most of us this is a (...) (25 years ago, 5-Nov-99, to lugnet.build)
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