NASA Mercury Space Capsule Full-Scale model
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- čas přidán 16. 03. 2018
- My hand-made model of the NASA Mercury Space capsule, Friendship 7, which took American astronaut John Glenn into orbit, is now on display at the Center for Aerospace Education at the Windward Community College in Kanehoe, Hawaii.
YOU can also see what it looked like as I was building/test-assembling it in my apartment . . .
• MVI 0467 - Věda a technologie
Legend says, that on quiet nights, this man spends his evening in his capsule...
Shhh. That's a secret.
Heck, so would I!!!
Great job, fantastic?!
Oh I would without a doubt
Me too...if I could find the door!! LOL
I'd be in there with Mercury audio tapes playing until I did a Gordo Cooper....zzzzzzzz...
I grew up with The Mercury Program and then there was The Gemini Program , The Apollo Program , I remember Skylab , then we went to the Space Shuttle Missions , now we're back with the Space X rocket launch and the Dragon Project , maybe I'll live long enough to see a flight to and from Mars , I think that would be great , hopefully I'll ever be here to see the first publicly televised encounter with Aliens , now that would really be outstanding .
I dont know how old u are,but the schedule for themanned mars mission is 2034 space x (not so sure if they will achieve it until then) and china is 2035(u can take this serious) . Maybe we meet up then to watch it together :)
Awesome! Great job! Thank you for sharing!
Incredible work!!! It really puts into perspective just how much smaller the Mercury capsules were compared to the Apollo ones. Once again....amazing work. Thanks for sharing.
John Glenn would have enjoyed seeing this if he had a chance before his departure of Dec. 08, 2016.
Your blood, sweat, patience, and passion brought it to the world. I think It deserves much bigger spacious space (not pun intended) for proper display. Warmest Aloha from Edelweiss
I feel quite fortunate that the college accepted my invitation to have it as part of their Space Center. It's a nice room with all sorts of space-related exhibits, many of them interactive. They actually had to move some things around to make space for my capsule. It's open, by reservation, to local school groups.
Thank you for sharing your hard work with us 🤙
Very well done!
Far out! 👍🚀
What a great find 👍 that space capsule looks cool 😀
It's not something I found. It's something I BUILT. That's my very own Friendship 7 capsule. Completely hand-built by me from scratch. You can see the entire build process here: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10208140663262027&type=3
@@RogerGarrett wow 🤩 I didn’t realize that. Very cool 😎
Beautiful capsule
Thank you. :)
Impressive
I saw the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule at the Udvar Hazy Air & Space museum, and I have to say that they are pretty tiny considering that they sent people into space
At the time of the Mercury missions they only had two rockets available for manned space missions, the Atlas and the Redstone. The capsule had to fit on those and they were only about 6 feet in diameter. And, of course, Mercury was only intended to accommodate a single person. With all the equipment packed into it, long before computer miniaturization, it was a pretty tight fit for the astronaut. Even getting in and out of it was quite difficult.
How did you form the concave lines in the metal. They are perfect
Well, first of all, it's not metal! :) It's cast resin. I basically hand-carved a whole slew of master parts, like those "shingles" with the grooves in them, out of rigid foam, the kind used for home insulation. I started by making some jigs to initially carve their overall size and curvature. I made cardboard (poster cardboard) templates of where all the grooves went for each such shingle and transferred those drawings to the front surface of the rigid insulation. Then I used a router to form the basic grooves, and sanded the edges to smooth them out. Each such shingle (and other parts) were coated with epoxy resin and sanded down smooth. From THOSE I made 2-part silicone rubber molds. And used the molds to cast the parts in epoxy resin. Everything is then bolted on to an internal support structure which is mostly simple wooden boards.
If you have access to Facebook you can see the entire build process here:
facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10208140663262027&type=3
Is this model still at WCC? If not, where is it now?
Did you use a set of drawings from the contractors?
I gathered together as much information and drawings as I could find but I wasn't able to find really good engineering drawings.
You might be interested in knowing that I've started a Facebook page for those interested in building full size models of the Mercury capsule. You can see it here:
facebook.com/groups/594902934275108/?ref=bookmarks
One member has actually built two models, one 1/4 scale, one full, and actually made of metal just like the real thing, incredibly detailed. Mine was made mostly of a resin plastic.
Really great, did you do the interior as well ?
No, I haven't done the interior..
Actually, the most difficult part of building a Mercury Space Capsule is the outside, due to the compound curves and all those grooves.
The inside is basically a lot of flat surfaces, which would be pretty straightforward, though getting all those switches and dials and such would be pretty costly. If I ever do build the interior I'd actually NOT put it inside the model. I'd have it as a separate exhibit so people could sit in the seat and play with the switches. Getting in and out of the capsule, through the hatch, is very, very difficult.
How long did it take you to build it? Great video! Just discovered it!
Great! Question- can you make a video explaining some of the processes used in making this?
I don't have a video of the process and, frankly, I don't have the experience of making that kind of video, but you can see photos of the entire build on my Facebook page at...
facebook.com/rogerinhawaii/media_set?set=a.10208140663262027&type=3
@@RogerGarrett No matter, it's still amazing! :)
I know I am doing for a science project
You should join the Mercury Space Capsule Builders Facebook page. facebook.com/groups/594902934275108/
I wonder if the inside of the capsule is replicated....
Aloha!
No, I only built the outside. The inside is actually the easy part to build, what with it being mostly flat surfaces, seat, panels, and such. The really difficult part of creating any capsule like this is all the "shingles" with their multitude of grooves all over. I basically hand carved masters of the many unique shingles out of rigid foam, coated the foam with resin and made molds from those master shingles, I then did resin casting to make them all. Next was joining them all together, in a number of separate sections so that it could all be bolted together, and UN-bolted for getting it out of my apartment (where I built the whole thing) and out for display. It is now on display at Windward Community College in Hawaii (island of Oahu).
It took nearly two years to build, so I was pretty exhausted after that, so I never did get around to building the interior. It's also incredibly difficult to get into and out of such a capsule. The hatch does come off, but t's pretty much permanently attached now, at least while on display. And, yes, I did sit inside the empty capsule while it was in my apartment, just for fun and to fantasize about being an astronaut! :)
If I ever do get around to building the interior I would make it a separate display, so that people could easy sit in it and play with all the buttons and switches. :)
Can you show us the interior
Only the exterior was built, so looking inside would only reveal the interior support struts. I did add a large photo of the interior of the actual Friendship 7 capsule positioned behind the window so that by looking through the window you kind of see what the interior looks like, but it's not a modeled interior.
@@RogerGarrett oh
Cool. How long did it take you to make it? What scale is it made to? (chillerman)
It took over a year to build the capsule you see here. It's made from a two-part epoxy-plastic casting material. I made hand-carved original panels from rigid foam (DOW insulation foam), then coated that with epoxy to get a smooth surface, then made silicone rubber molds from those, and from that cast numerous copies. There were about 13 master molds. It's all coated with automobile quality spray paints (Dupli-Color Acrylic enamel), in Machinery Grey.
You can't see in the video but the hatch is a separate piece so it can open up for the "astronaut" to get in and out.
It was made entirely within my tiny 25th floor apartment living room. It's all made in numerous separate pieces and bolted together, so I could transport it from one place to another (and get it in and out of my apartment ). For now it's at the College, as noted above. I had previously shown it at our local Honolulu Mini MakerFaire in 2017.
Prior to building it as described above I had intended to make it of fiberglass. But I was unable to master the fiberglassing techniques. I set the project aside for a few months and eventually came across Quick-Cast by SilPak and that worked out fine.
Oh, and it's FULL SCALE, exactly the size of the real one.
@@RogerGarrett
Wow!
John Glenn would have enjoyed your creation if he saw this Mercury before Dec. 8 in 2016!!! Your sweat, blood, patience, and passion makes this possible! It deserves much larger spacious space (not pun intended) for a better display. Warmest Aloha from Edelweiss