International Space Station

[bianfuxia]

5 hours ago, dnl42 said:

This is looking quite fascinating. I do assume it was contemporaneous 'interesting' configuration.

 

Way to go, Dad! Seriously, getting girls into tech is very important. I've read that girls excel in math and science as pre-teens, but drop out after--probably societal pressure. Keeping her interested in the topic may lead her into a technical career--or not, but at least she can make a better-informed decision.

 

TL;DR

My wife grew up in Poland, and seeing the US space program unfold on TV (TBH, I was quite surprised to learn the Polish gov't allowed this) was greatly inspirational to her. As a 6 year old watiching Neil take that Giant Leap, she declared she was going to be involved! Of course, people around her patted her on the head and said that was a nice. Luckily for her, she eventually emigrated to the US (a feat that I am eternally grateful for) and set herself on a path be be involved in space. She got a Mech Engr degree usually 1 of 1 or 2 in her classes. She's now retired, having been the Spacecraft System Engineering Manager on a number of unmanned spacecraft, as well as Program System Engineer in NASA Mission Control.

This is a wonderful story - thank you for sharing. I'm too young to have watched Apollo live - I just made it into the "Apollo generation" by arriving as 17 went into lunar orbit. I love to read stories like your wife's especially of people who at the time probably seemed incredibly unlikely to wind up doing such things. It's so inspiring, not just for me as Dad to a daughter but even for me personally - life's not over and if other people can do remarkable things maybe there's still a chance I can too! 

[81-er]

15 hours ago, dnl42 said:

My wife grew up in Poland, and seeing the US space program unfold on TV (TBH, I was quite surprised to learn the Polish gov't allowed this) was greatly inspirational to her. As a 6 year old watiching Neil take that Giant Leap, she declared she was going to be involved! Of course, people around her patted her on the head and said that was a nice. Luckily for her, she eventually emigrated to the US (a feat that I am eternally grateful for) and set herself on a path be be involved in space. She got a Mech Engr degree usually 1 of 1 or 2 in her classes. She's now retired, having been the Spacecraft System Engineering Manager on a number of unmanned spacecraft, as well as Program System Engineer in NASA Mission Control.

That's one hell of a career! I fully agree that girls should have the same opportunities in STEM subjects as boys, something I’ve tried to encourage with my children. I’ve always tried expose them to the wonders of science and engineering, as well as getting them involved with the DIY around the home. That one has a double benefit as I get some help while they’re learning life skills. It also goes the other way too; I’ve never been worried when my son wanted to play with his sisters’ dolls etc, because one day he might decide he wants kids of his own and encouraging his nurturing instincts isn’t a bad thing.

 

James

[bianfuxia]

Made some more progress tonight and over the last few days. 

 

 

This white pod is part of the station - should be the Zvesda module, one of the Russian elements that was almost the first piece of the ISS. Silver one is the ATV remote spacecraft.

 

In this next pic you see the dilemma:

 

The small pyramid thing on the left of the main set of pods is the cupola. The cupola is a cool window set-up that points to Earth...but here it is pointing sideways. It actually belongs on the bottom of the pod to the left.

 

 

So...here we go with the saw. It was way easier and faster than i expected.

 

 

 

It won't be too hard to fair that into the pod, but the hole in the other one is a bit of a mess. Luckily it'll be connected to the other pod, so all I need is a bit of a fairing to join that up, rather than to make the whole hole smooth. 

 

Once I have fixed all that stuff up, I'm going to have to decide whether to spray paint all these modules silver, or think about using some kind of adhesive foil. They're pretty shiny in real life.

 

Here's the ISS in roughly the configuration i'm going for:

 

(NASA pic, copyright free)

 

And here is the cupola (both NASA pics:

 

 

 

That astronaut is named Tracy Caldwell Dyson...but I think it's fair to say she has some resemblance to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Aliens in this pic. 

 

The first shot of the cuploa exterior shows how bad you could go to town on the super detailing if you were so minded. I don't think I can face it. The cupola on this model is about the diameter of my thumbnail.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday @bianfuxia, a "Room with a view" doesn't come much better than that I'd imagine. And yes, Tracy does look a little like Sigourney/Ripley in that photo.

Good job with the cupola transplant.       Regards, Jeff.

[Bengalensis]

Good to see more progress here, and extra points awarded for taking the trouble to work through the corrections.

 

I think I would prefer to use paint for the "silver" rather than foil, but then my paint of choice would be something suitable from the Alclad or MRP palettes, or similar. It also depends how bright and shiny it should be. If we're talking something like those bright photos in space of the Apollo command module, then it can still be painted, but will be less tolerant of handling wear. Foil, like BMF, is very useful, but I find it more awkward the larger the areas are (or too tiny as well for that matter).

 

That view out of the cupola... wow... it might actually be worth the rather involving journey to get there... 😎

[Norman]

I am enjoying your thread very much here , congrats on moving the viewing cupola ! in regards painting or foiling that's a very personal modelling choice and is totally in the minds eye imagination of the modeller entirely , what I mean is it really comes down to how you see it, I make many real space and sci-fi projects and ponder this question in every build, two things that make it difficult for me are my perception of scale effect and how I myself will be happy to view the subject in my cabinet in the future , not easy to satisfy those ! also it comes down to my skills set too !! , we model for ourselves first and share here to inspire and garner support etc so good luck with whatever you decide , cheers 

[Thom216]

For a moment I thought the hatch was open!😉

Nice bit of transplant work.

[bianfuxia]

Earlier in this thread I showed a few of the ways I'd done solar panels in the past, and was considering for this model. Since then at the little discount shop my kid loves for its craft supplies - and thank goodness that's the shop she likes (because it's pretty cheap!) - I found some more of the sparkly cardboard I'd used on my Tiangong/Shenzhou, except with much smaller sparkle radius. Yes, that's a technical term. Sparkle radius.

 

I am keen to achieve this appearance:

 

 

So I started up with measuring the cardboard.

 

 

The middle panel is the one I'd painted earlier using the blue spray paint and misted gold spray paint method. It's ok, but I prefer the sparkly sheets, even though I admit they are possibly a bit over the top.

 

 

 

 

I think I can just adhere them straight to the plastic parts, maybe with double sided tape.

 

As a display piece I think this exaggerated appearance is going to be better and more satisfying to look at than a more understated painted approach, especially because there is just so much real estate on these panels. There are eight of those wings you see here.

 

Even though it's not accurate looking, I will probably go with this.

[wimbledon99]

The sparkly sheet looks good to me  

 

Where will you be hanging this? It's gonna need a  room of its own!!

[arfa1983]

It's fabulous!

[Bengalensis]

Interesting idea. As the panels are laying on the workbench it may look slightly too much to my eyes, but once the whole model is finished and up on display it will most probably look great with the full model in view, possibly amazing! I would go for it and see what happens. 👍

 

I'd be tempted to try on a scrap piece if it's possible to find a way to add the fine pattern of lines seen in the reference photo, just to get it out of my head if nothing else. On the other hand it would then have to be done with repeatable precision, or it's better to avoid it.

[bianfuxia]

On 10/5/2023 at 4:08 AM, Bengalensis said:

Interesting idea. As the panels are laying on the workbench it may look slightly too much to my eyes, but once the whole model is finished and up on display it will most probably look great with the full model in view, possibly amazing! I would go for it and see what happens. 👍

 

I'd be tempted to try on a scrap piece if it's possible to find a way to add the fine pattern of lines seen in the reference photo, just to get it out of my head if nothing else. On the other hand it would then have to be done with repeatable precision, or it's better to avoid it.

I did try this, and it wasn't really a very satisfactory result. The surface of this card is quite uneven when you get up close to it - I tried running a fine pen over it using a ruler and while the line was basically straight, it was broken up by all the little lumps.

 

I've decided to go with this approach pictured above. I've since cut all the gold ones because I was able to buy some more at the shop. unfortunately they were out of the blue, but luckily there was just enough left of the offcuts that I could trim some to fill the remaining couple of panels.

 

Nothing to show so far but on the weekend I hope to really sink into this build, noting how little time is left!

 

i have also done a bit of putty work on the various pods but again, nothing really worth photographing.

[Bengalensis]

1 hour ago, bianfuxia said:

I did try this, and it wasn't really a very satisfactory result. The surface of this card is quite uneven when you get up close to it - I tried running a fine pen over it using a ruler and while the line was basically straight, it was broken up by all the little lumps.

 

I've decided to go with this approach pictured above. I've since cut all the gold ones because I was able to buy some more at the shop. unfortunately they were out of the blue, but luckily there was just enough left of the offcuts that I could trim some to fill the remaining couple of panels.

 

Nothing to show so far but on the weekend I hope to really sink into this build, noting how little time is left!

 

i have also done a bit of putty work on the various pods but again, nothing really worth photographing.

 

Sounds indeed like that will be the best way to go with the solar panels 👍

[bianfuxia]

Finally a little more progress. Yesterday I sprayed all the truss parts silver - a tamiya spray paint. Not that you'd really notice as it's practically the same colour as the plastic, but anyway. Revell suggested light grey but as the kit and instructions were done before the ISS even flew, I ignored that. As best I can tell from photos, it's a metal colour.

 

 

This is just one of the assemblies - two or maybe three to go. It didn't go so well together but it's ok. Inside there are five separate supporting parts. The actual weight of the station (in the model) is taken by some metal rods that will go inside there, similar to those shown earlier. I hope to get the rest of the truss built maybe tonight.

[bianfuxia]

 

 

So these are all the components of the truss structure. I built the other three today.

 

Laid out like that, they don't seem too big. 

 

Laid out like this, though...

 

Then I wanted to attach all 8 solar panel sails to show you the true horror of the size of this model. 

 

Until I noticed:

 

I had attached one end of the truss 90 degrees wonky. Luckily I was able to rip it apart and fix it. The whole length of that thing has a metal rod running right through it. That was actually the hardest part, getting it to go through all the interior holes. Some pliers and a bit of brute force, carefully applied but still brute, were needed to get it done. 

 

The plastic parts were quite warped on one section so there is ample glue and squeezing behind what you see now.

[81-er]

Looks about the perfect size to be a dining table centrepiece

 

James

[bianfuxia]

7 hours ago, 81-er said:

Looks about the perfect size to be a dining table centrepiece

 

James

I did contemplate trying to sell this idea to my wife....then I regained my senses.

[Moggy]

Man, your build is out of this world!

 

Cheers, Moggy (wannabe astronaut)

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, Moggy said:

your build is out of this world!

Er, I think that's the whole idea of a space station! 😁 Regards, Jeff.

[bianfuxia]

 

For these solar panels, I painted the middle section black on each one. A very tedious and boring task that was! But the idea was that with a layer of aluminium paint on the diagonal framework, and posed against a black or dark background, you couldn't really tell that the girder or lattice beam was actually just a clump of plastic. Hopefully the sparkly cardboard has now earned its keep - if you watch the vid you can see how it plays with the light just how I imagine a real one would with all the changing angles of sunlight in orbit.

 

Here are a few other photos and then a couple showing the full scale of the model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee cup for scale. It's quite unstable unless you have all the panels in place - they weigh almost nothing but enough to wobble that central truss. How it's going to hold up the pods of the inhabited part of the station is anybody's guess. I suppose the metal beam inside the truss structure is pretty strong even if the whole thing wobbles around.

[Bengalensis]

Good work on the solar panels!

They look very effective with some light and a little movement.

[arfa1983]

Very very nice. I certainly hope that's an espresso cup! 

[Mike N]

Wow, I now have a sense of how big that model is!!

[Rob Sutto]

Blimey Charlie that's a whoppa 

Any thoughts where you're going to put it?

Nice job with the solar panels, very convincing 

[bianfuxia]

Thanks all. Yeah it's pretty big. I have no idea where I am going to put it when done. Most probably I'll have to dismantle it and store it. If I put it up in the garage it'll gather so much dust, and something this big will not be welcome in our house for long!