11 April 2021

According to Wikipedia, the Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by NASA.

The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982.

Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites and interplanetary probes.

They also conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-Mir program with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS).

One of the Shuttle’s payloads was the Hubble Space Telescope, as featured in this LEGO kit.

The kit has 2,354 components, which sounds a lot but pales into insignificance compared with LEGO’s 9,036 piece Colosseum model.

LEGO kits are manufactured by The LEGO Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. They started making these interlocking toy bricks in 1949. An often quoted fact is that LEGO are the leading manufacturer of tyres. The Guinness Book of Records confirms that since 2006 LEGO has made around 306 million rubber tyres each year for its kits. In 2010, this number was topped at 381 million tyres, easily beating all other tyre manufacturers.

In the early years, the environmental impact of plastic products was little understood. Times have changed, and LEGO has undertaken to make LEGO bricks from sustainable sources by 2030. This means that materials must be responsibly produced, using renewable or recycled resources, generating little or no waste, use sustainable chemistry and be fully recyclable at the end of their life.

LEGO was around when I was young, but it held no attraction. My construction kit of choice was Meccano. Meccano was created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool and consisted of reusable metal strips, plates, angles, wheels, axles and gears. Rather than a LEGO push-fit, parts were assembled by means of small nuts and bolts using a screwdriver and spanner. Construction was therefore more time-consuming, with disassembly being frustratingly slow.

Another interesting kit allowed you to build houses using miniature bricks - possibly the Spears Brickplayer kit illustrated below. Buildings were assembled using a special mortar, and taken apart by soaking in water to soften the joints. While far closer to real construction methods than either LEGO or Meccano, the projects were slow and messy to build. This is probably why these are now only usually found in museums and eBay listings.

So having waited until retirement to build half of a remote-controlled stunt racer with grandson Robert, it was time to build a substantial LEGO model for myself. The kit is 18+ rated, which is apparently a rebranding of their ‘Creator Expert’ range and does not imply that sex, violence or bad language are involved. We’ll see …

12 April 2021

On our family visit to the Kennedy Space Center in 1991 we had seen the Ambassador Shuttle. This was a full-size replica that was apparently originally built for a traveling Space Fair sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. It breaks down into transportable segments allowing it to travel around the world.

From rather further away we had also seen the Atlantis Shuttle on the launch pad being prepared for its STS-44 mission launch. Interestingly, in May 2009 Atlantis flew a seven-member crew to the Hubble Space Telescope. The crew completed five spacewalks totalling 37 hours to install new cameras, batteries, a gyroscope and other components. The Hubble had been launched a year earlier by Discovery, the subject of our LEGO model.

The Space Shuttle programme was a defining moment in space exploration and a huge technical accomplishment. However it came at a high cost that no one who watched the Challenger launch on TV will ever forget. Seven astronauts lost their lives in that tragedy in 1986 and a further 7 in the Columbia disaster of 2003.

16 April 2021

While waiting for delivery, do some background reading and find out that in May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 LEGO kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the LEGO Bricks in Space program.

I also have a quick reminder of what the Shuttle model will look like. To get an idea of scale, there is a photograph of the LEGO Shuttle Discovery designer Milan Madge looking rather pleased with his model.

22 April 2021

The model arrives by post today - well packed and secure.

Decide to score lines in the cardboard box so that the top opens as a lid - this seems far preferable to opening it at the ends, and raises the question of why LEGO don’t make this approach easier.

25 April 2021

First construction phase - to complete the Hubble telescope.

The manual has 320 pages and I’ve just reached page 56. The majority of the pages comprise illustrations, with very little text. However unlike many flat pack furniture instructions the diagrams are very clear, so that with attention to detail you can identify the correct parts and position them accurately. The build went quite smoothly apart from a brief period when some components appeared to be missing. The parts are all in numbered bags and once it became apparent that there were two bags labelled as '2', work could resume.

On the model pictured below the aperture door is open, exposing the secondary mirror assembly. The two high-gain communication antennae are stowed.

29 April 2021

Second stint, covering the shuttle stand. Have now reached page 70 out of 320, but have yet to start the shuttle body itself.

Only one part was missing from components bag 4, and this was readily located in an unmarked bag. There are quite a few parts left over, and whether these are surplus or for future use time will tell.

6 May 2021

Third stint, covering the lower wing structure and undercarriage. Have now reached page 93 of 320, but more significantly have completed stage 33 of the 503 stage main shuttle build.

8 May 2021

Fourth stint, building on the earlier wing structure. Have now completed stage 201 of the 503 stage main shuttle build.

The fun fact at stage 103 was that the nose and the leading edges of the wings take most of the re-entry heat - up to 1,600°C (2,912°F). LEGO have not attempted to replicate this property, presumably on cost grounds.

9 May 2021

Fifth stint, continuing with the main shuttle body. Have now completed stage 256 of the 503 stage main shuttle build, so roughly half way through.

Today's Guardian cryptic crossword has a clue that refers to LEGO as 'childish things'. The crossword compiler, Everyman, clearly is not up to date with LEGO's latest models aimed at an older market.

10 May 2021

Sixth stint. Have now completed stage 300 of the 503 stage main shuttle build, so roughly 60% complete.

This stint was particularly fiddly due to the need to apply adhesive stickers to the inside of the bay doors. Fortunately they are strong and sufficiently tacky to be able to be re-applied if (when!) aligned incorrectly.

The actual shuttles left their payload bay doors open when in stable orbit, to help cool the shuttle. On Earth, air is warmed mainly by convection and conduction, but in space heating occurs by radiation only. Without a means of cooling, the shuttle surface facing the sun would be heated excessively by solar rays.

The picture below shows Discovery flying near the International Space Station for docking. Its doors are open, showing the Leonardo Multipurpose Logistics Module stored inside (courtesy NASA).

11 May 2021

Seventh stint - mission accomplished!

It's been an interesting build, especially as it's the first LEGO model I've assembled. Brother in law Keith will be the next to build the model, and he won't have the advantage of having individually numbered bags of components. This will make his build significantly harder.

Observations: The instructions are first class and sufficiently detailed that errors are minimised, as long as care is given to select the right part and align it correctly … however if parts do need to be separated, the tool provided is remarkably effective.

The quality of the pieces is impressive, with no plastic flash or other defects. It will be quite a challenge for LEGO to replace this plastic with a greener, non oil-based version.

There were many pieces left over, although this is apparently normal. Presumably LEGO duplicate those parts that are often lost, being cheaper than having to process requests through their customer support. However it would have been nice to have some extra stickers, as these are quite tricky to apply neatly and they may be damaged when re-aligning.

LEGO brick blindness - it is surprising how often a component cannot be identified, even when located amongst a few other pieces directly in front of you. Another frustration is failing to locate a second piece before realising that only one is actually required.

Many of the shuttle features are included, but hidden, such as the two crew decks with their seating and instrumentation. For those features that are visible it would be useful for LEGO to provide an annotated diagram showing the purpose on the equivalent part on the actual shuttle.

And finally the cardboard box. LEGO have been hugely successful, branching out from building bricks into movies, theme parks and robotics. They appear very able to think outside the box, but not about the box itself. The box is the interface between builder and components, and it would be good if the box were more useful as a storage device. I did raise this with LEGO Ideas, but the bot that replied wasn't particularly interested.