Subject:
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Re: MOC: Thousand Astronomical Unit Probe (NEF)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space, lugnet.build
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Date:
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Wed, 8 Aug 2001 19:27:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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729 times
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In lugnet.space, John J. Ladasky, Jr. writes:
> In lugnet.space, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
>
> > http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~lfbraun/TAU.html
>
> Greetings, Lindsay,
>
> You knew that you would get my attention with this one, right? I'm working
> in this same time frame, the near future. I hope to give you some company soon.
Excellent! Yeah, I had hoped I would smoke you out. Are you
settled in at JHU now? (And if so, can I give you a hard time
about not coming to BrickFest? :) )
> Nice model, faithful to the Daedalus concept.
I wish I could have done a better job with the pusher plates--
Daedalus, if memory serves, looked like a giant barbell with
deuterium globes packed in the middle. What I built actually
looks more like the USAF's experimental "Put-Put" vehicle,
which used conventional explosives (!) to prove the principle of
external-action engines on a vehicle. They got it up to about
1000m, if I'm not mistaken.
> Those saucer sections are
> becoming more useful all the time. What is the origin of those huge angled
> gray parts?
Maarten Kind, LEGO4YOU, Netherlands. ;) BrickBay. They're
actually from the grandstand set of the *old* Soccer sets,
the ones that were never available in the US. AFAIK, they
were never available in any other sets (though I've heard of
other colors--can anyone correct me on this?), but they're
really cool and I've been pining for them for a long time.
I think Maarten has two left. :)
> And, what's the scale of this model?
It's meant to be "Minifig--selectively compressed." The drive
system is identical (in fact, the exact parts) to what I'm
putting on the ship--the origins of this TAU probe are "hey,
I've got the front of the ship, and the pusher plate, so why
don't I add a "head" to the pusher, call it a probe, and get
some free criticism/publicity?" :)
> Lastly, why does your
> probe at the top have what appear to be solar panels, when you're talking
> about travelling out to the dark depths of space, at 1,000 AU? (The panels
> do look cool, I'm just wondering about their use.)
The thought is that the panels would only be used if something
happened and the powerplant that runs the electronics fails.
Because it's an unmanned craft, nobody can go out and fix it,
and it'll be so far away that it may have moved significantly
by the time anyone could even dream of retrieving it.
But with even the tiny amount of power produced by those panels,
a small core of systems--a *really* small core--could be kept
running either to keep the timing on the pulse engine to get it
home, or else to send out a very weak distress signal and whatever
information it can about what happened. Granted, it might by that
point be pushing a mere hundredths of a watt around, but with
orbital (and dark-side lunar, more importantly) observation posts,
that could be detected and so TAU wouldn't just vanish into the
ether (so to speak).
So the panels are a catastrophic-failure backup. The antennae,
by the way, deploy outwards so that when the ship is outbound
it can still receive and transmit in short gaps between detonations.
They extend about a stud farther than the outside diameter on the
large sections.
For HMS Experiment, everything above the upper saucers will
be shed, and a new fuel module and structure will be built in the
style of the ship. (I also have to make provision for the scoops.)
> 2015 for a manned Mars landing? Feeling a bit optimistic, aren't we? :^)
Call it subtle propaganda. ;) If we say it enough, maybe
they'll do it...if we say it enough, maybe they'll do it...
if we say it enough, maybe they'll do it...if we...etc etc
all best
LFB
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: MOC: Thousand Astronomical Unit Probe (NEF)
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| (...) You knew that you would get my attention with this one, right? I'm working in this same time frame, the near future. I hope to give you some company soon. Nice model, faithful to the Daedalus concept. Those saucer sections are becoming more (...) (23 years ago, 8-Aug-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.build)
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