Curiosity Rover from NASA STL files

This is the 'simplified' version from NASA's collection of printable 3D models, about 5" long.

Why would NASA have model files for my car?

Do you have a link for these files, Neil?

Here you go:

nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable

Most of these (terrain, asteroids etc.) are simple prints like a 3D map or two hemispheres/halves you glue together.

Most of the spacecraft and gadgets etc. are well thought out and should print without problems, although they seem to make fits a bit close (I have had to turn down flanges of my Saturn V so it will fit together!)

A few of them are 'grabs' of space probes from a program called NASA's Eyes converted to STL, they have lots of very thin surfaces and are not really printable.

Neil

Oh super! Looks like an interesting site altogether.

I remember the Saturn V rather well .... I went up to the top of one when it was sitting on the launch pad. My company had some equipment on the Apollo Service Module and NASA was concerned that on final checkout it wasn't operating correctly (it was). Apollo-14 if I recall.

Thanks a bunch!

Edited By Bandersnatch on 29/04/2017 18:39:36

Wow!

I remember the moonshots like yesterday! I was 7 and I remember looking up at the moon and thinking there were people on it!

Just finished the Saturn V, and sprayed it in stain-stop (makes a great primer!)

Neil

Me too. Some of the technology in those days was rather crude by comparison to today. Manufacturers' data (for design purposes) meant squinting at a microfilm screen for hours. The film cassettes were updated every couple of months.

And I recall getting a data-dump from NASA which equated to 10 continuous hours of pages spooling off the (thermal paper) fax machine.

We actually had equipment on all of the Apollo vehicles after 13. Gamma-Ray-Spectrometer and Mass-Spectrometer extension booms on 14 & 15. The packages were mounted on rails and held back against a heavy spring by an explosive bolt so that they could be jettisoned if they got stuck out (the booms were 25 and 30 feet long respectively and it would have been "messy" to fire the main engine with them out). They jettisoned them anyway before they left - partly to test the jettison mechanism under real conditions and partly (when they impacted the surface) to calibrate the seismometers they had left on the moon.

I also remember that the service-module had segmented bays like an orange. To allow the spectrometer booms to extend they had to remove the panel to that segment after Lunar Orbit Insertion, which they did by firing an explosive charge which ran around the periphery of the panel - with springs inside to push it out. All the astronauts went and hid in the Command Module while they blew it .... a little circumspect after 13!

I remember we had HF and VHF Sounder Antennas on 17. Can't remember what we had on 16 offhand.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 29/04/2017 23:32:55

Hey Neil,

here's challenge for you...!

Another 'space scientist' here. I built the beacon transmitters for Intelsat V. Two of these (total 7 so real mass production for this kind of stuff) were launched in a hurry to relay Prince Charles' first wedding over the Atlantic for the colonies to watch it on TV.

I came across the (false) rumour that NASA lost the designs for the Saturn V, actually they were all on microfiche. they have re-made the massive engines using modern techniques, massively reducing the number of parts and doing most of the manufacturing by CNC instead of hand assembly - but the basic engine design is a tried and tested heavy lifter that they would prefer to use rather than a new design.

Neil

I quite like the idea of making the voyager 1, but sadly it looks like one of the untested types, perhaps it would make easier work for the printer if the design could be broken up into separate programs and assembled?

I think voyager past a landmark moment a few years ago for being the first object man-made object to leave our solar system, nearly 40 years after it's launch, zipping through space at hundreds of miles per hour. some of the sensors are still relaying radio signals back to earth. Incredible to think it's literally the furthest mankind has ever sent anything and for that reason it has a rather underrated and special place in our history.

Michael W

It wasn't all bad of course. Microfilm didn't have pop-ups and roll-overs (But did have - sometimes awkwardly placed - scratches).