sandman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2009
- Messages
- 10,563
- Reaction score
- 20
James
Great pics. I actually have the whole declassified Merc capsule design manual. There is incredible info in it. Every detail of every system and component of the capsule inside and out.
I will be starting on the maid body again today. I'm having to print off every thing at a 30% reduction through photo shop. That percentage looks like it's going to be about right.
Rocketbuilder
In response to post 23. This part of the construction in the pics is about four to five hours of work. As far as the weight , I won't know that untill I get it together and weigh it. There's so many parts, I'd have to print and cut out every thing then weigh it all. I have to make the shingles for this thing...AGAIN. There's 1,300 dimples (if I rember correctly) to cut out, on the 1/4 it was tedious enough, I can't emagine what it's going to be like at a smaller scale. Here of some pics of the first shingle build.
The amount of work involved with detail and documentation if fine, Gus and I did it on ours.
But, we did what NASA did back then. We built a boiler plate version first just to see if it would work.
I say make the boiler plate version simple at first, just to see if it even works. Make the capsule roughly to shape with cardstock. The tower on the boiler plate could be a body tube.
Concentrate on the propulsion unit design. Get that to fly and jettison a parachute.
Then make a final model with details.