Author Topic: Humor - Flight-Tested Space Shuttle Replacement for Super-Cheap  (Read 17214 times)

Offline iamlucky13

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I hope Chris and the mods will indulge me in creating a fun thread. The photo below seemed to good not to share. Thumbnailed for fair-use, click for original:



You've got you appreciate the flame from the "engine."

While I'm at it, I might as well add the cake one of my groomsmen and his wife made for our wedding. It's labeled as Endeavor on the other side, and "Not missing this launch" is a reference to me missing STS-119 due to the flow control valve related delays.


Alright, have at it. Let's see some more imaginative shuttle or other space-related recreations (things that don't belong in the model-building thread)

Offline JMartJr

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I'll play your little game... ;D

1: One of several commercially available Space Shuttle kites.  Engine exhaust is a "flame" windsock...

2: Alien technology reversed engineered for a large wind-inflated kite.

3: Kite made in 2006 to celebrate Thailand's THEOS satellite.  Flown (sort of) at the International Kite Festival that year.  AT the neext festival, in 2008, it have been lightened and re-bridled and flew much better (read: at all.)

Of course, we're going to need some more string...

My son's short, simple video on space colonization.
www.fotki.com/JMartJr
Tooo many pictures of kites and kite festivals.

Offline Chris Bergin

Heh, always room for a fun thread.

I want one of these:

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Offline Orbiter

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Heh, always room for a fun thread.

I want one of these:


I'll take this for a spin any day.
« Last Edit: 03/30/2011 10:53 pm by Orbiter »
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Offline Space Pete

Redneck Shuttle! :D
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Offline padrat

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Kind of on the same topic, anyone ever see the episode of "Top Gear" where they built a shuttle out of a Reliant Robin? Was a pretty cool idea, even though it had a fiery finale. Do a YouTube search.
If the neighbors think you're the rebel of the neighborhood, embrace it and be the rebel. It keeps them wondering what you'll do next...

Offline northanger

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Kind of on the same topic, anyone ever see the episode of "Top Gear" where they built a shuttle out of a Reliant Robin? Was a pretty cool idea, even though it had a fiery finale. Do a YouTube search.



Monty Python could get us to Mars!

Offline JayP

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Kind of on the same topic, anyone ever see the episode of "Top Gear" where they built a shuttle out of a Reliant Robin? Was a pretty cool idea, even though it had a fiery finale. Do a YouTube search.

Yeah, that one was great! I would have liked to see if the RC glide part would have worked.

BTW. I think that is a photo of it in Orbiter's post a few back.

Offline kch

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Kind of on the same topic, anyone ever see the episode of "Top Gear" where they built a shuttle out of a Reliant Robin? Was a pretty cool idea, even though it had a fiery finale. Do a YouTube search.

Yeah, that one was great! I would have liked to see if the RC glide part would have worked.

BTW. I think that is a photo of it in Orbiter's post a few back.

Indeed it is!  Started off well, that flight did ... would have been so much better if it had glided horizontally ... ;)

Offline padrat

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Yeah I'd heard others talking about that too. I wouldn't doubt that it was added later. Guess they figured since it failed, might as well fail spectacularly!
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Offline Ronsmytheiii

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Off topic, but origin of the F-1 comeback?

http://www.southparkstudios.dk/clips/sp_vid_104277/
« Last Edit: 03/31/2011 04:32 am by Ronsmytheiii »

Offline ugordan

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Guess they figured since it failed, might as well fail spectacularly!

I believe they actually rigged it from the start to "fail" and shoved explosives in it to make it more spectacular. Much easier than actually trying to land that thing and fail in a non-spectacular way.

Offline chrisking0997

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You've got you appreciate the flame from the "engine."



boy, Bigelow has been busy lately :)
Tried to tell you, we did.  Listen, you did not.  Now, screwed we all are.

Offline padrat

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Well regardless, I thought it was quite humorous to watch.
If the neighbors think you're the rebel of the neighborhood, embrace it and be the rebel. It keeps them wondering what you'll do next...

Offline Chris Bergin

Kind of on the same topic, anyone ever see the episode of "Top Gear" where they built a shuttle out of a Reliant Robin? Was a pretty cool idea, even though it had a fiery finale. Do a YouTube search.



Monty Python could get us to Mars!

By the way, the guys that built that Reliant Shuttle are members of this site. Very nice guys, huge respect for the real shuttle guys.

There's a thread somewhere.
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Offline JayP

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Guess they figured since it failed, might as well fail spectacularly!

I believe they actually rigged it from the start to "fail" and shoved explosives in it to make it more spectacular. Much easier than actually trying to land that thing and fail in a non-spectacular way.

If they never intended to try to land successfully, which I had considered (because remote-control elevons would be expensive), I wonder if the thing they launched was actually a car and not just a styrofoam mockup.  It's pretty clear in the video that the "shuttle" had no rockets firing, although they said in the narration that it would.  The only rocket plumes come from the ET and SRBs.  If that "shuttle" had been a real car, that stack would have been (a) very heavy to lift, and (b) very unbalanced on the shuttle side without rockets on the shuttle firing into the CG.  Wouldn't it?  Not that I'm a rocket scientist or anything. 

They showed a little infrastructure of the ET but kept the camera pretty well away from the Reliant Robin during construction.

Whiile the Top gear guys are pretty well known for their "stunts", I think they were really trying on this one. I read somewhere that they actually spent about 4 months designing and building that thing (not just the week or 2 implied in the show).
As far as the engines, If you look closely, they were only mounted in the ET. The SRBs have no exhaust at all comming out of them. The fins on the back of the ET would stabalise the stack. I have seen plenty of smaller, model rocket, Shuttles that used the sam design. The rockets that were in the robin "orbiter" were ther togive a lst minute kick accelertion on landing if the guy flying it by RC needed to stretch the glide. They said that on the show. That is the same thing DFRC did on the original M2-F1.

Offline simonbp

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Off topic, but origin of the F-1 comeback?

http://www.southparkstudios.dk/clips/sp_vid_104277/

We will always remember you Wizniak, the first whale to reach the Moon...

(And those are H-1s on the Mexican Air and Space Agency's Saturn IB.)

Offline simonbp

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The fins on the back of the ET would stabalise the stack. I have seen plenty of smaller, model rocket, Shuttles that used the sam design.

And if you look in Jenkins, most of the early "ET+SRB" shuttle concepts did too. It was only later that they removed them...

Offline Bubbinski

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Is that a DC-3 "Gooney Bird" fuselage?  Sure looks like it!  A nod to 2 classic flying machines. 

I'd sure enjoy having lunch there sometime.
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

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