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LEGO Creator Expert NASA Space Shuttle Discovery (10283)

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But since we’re on the topic of other shuttles, here’s the new 10283 Discovery next to 10213 Shuttle Adventure, as well as 1995’s 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad orbiter, and the shuttle from 21321 International Space Station from 2020. Together, you can recreate the highlight of STS-31, with the ground-breaking space telescope first being placed into orbit. One highlight of 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery is the amount of information crammed into the manual. At almost every stage there are fascinating tidbits focusing on different aspects of the Shuttle’s construction, history and flight details, and before the build even commences there’s a beautiful double spread filled with photography and facts. NASA Space Shuttle Discovery combines these important aspects of LEGO design, achieving impressive authenticity and incorporating various functions. Additionally, the scale has increased considerably following previous Space Shuttle designs, reaching 54cm in length and therefore integrating greater detail than before. Box and Contents Spacelab and the similar Spacehab would be another great aftermarket set mod, which placed a module inside the cargo bay that expanded the interior space available to the shuttle and was used on several free flying missions before the ISS and its lab space was installed. http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/i/streams/2013/December/131202/2D9835101-spacelab-30th-annivesary-1.jpg

Yes, yes you definitely should. It’s a satisfying build that will challenge you, but not to the point where you’re tearing your hair out. Plus, it’s one of the most beautiful and recognizable Lego builds out there. In NASA style, I recorded some "lessons learned" from constructing this set. The first one is to have a very large surface. My available desk space was roughly 3 feet by 2 feet (1 meter by 0.6 meters); I'd recommend a little larger as organizing the pieces, manual and ever-growing shuttle got tougher as the hours continued. I made it in the end, but it was a tight squeeze as the final set is 8.5 inches (21 centimeters) high, 21 inches (54 cm) long and 13.5 inches (34 cm) wide.

From the review, it sounds like the interior of the tube is severely truncated, and the main mirror (which should completely fill the tube) would then have to be moved towards the aperture. The 3x radar dish is clear, where a mirror should be silver. It doesn’t completely fill the aperture, like the real mirror should, but neither is it small enough to represent the little chunk that is directly inside the aperture (unless clear is the big mirror, and gold is what’s just inside the aperture). Either what you’re seeing as the forward second mirror is supposed to represent the entire length of the real interior, or someone might have goofed and given it a glass lens instead of a mirror. LEGO has produced various renditions of the Space Shuttle and 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery appears exceedingly accurate. The model measures 54cm in length which is larger than previous designs and has enabled the designer to create shapes which have proven very challenging in the past, notably including the distinctive nose. Furthermore, the intricate details demonstrate outstanding fidelity to the original spacecraft.

Excellent detail continues across the wider camera, spectrometer and spectrograph housing, where different instruments detect and record data. The yellow highlights around the exterior accurately recreate handgrips on the Hubble Space Telescope but the associated light bluish grey sections look awkward. Unfortunately, these pieces are unavailable in metallic silver. On a WAG, it could be an anti-corrosion coating. My dad was a C-131b mechanic in the USAF, and he said that aircraft are routinely stripped down to the bare metal so you can inspect them for stress fractures, then repainted. Unless you want to drill out the rivets, pull all the structural components apart, and then re-build it, you pretty much aren’t going to be able to do that level of inspection on the interior, but you also don’t want your frame to be weakened by corrosion. I’ve seen steel framing members for pole barns, which have a protective red coating to keep them from rusting between the time they’re made and when they’re turned into a building.

What's in the box

Admittedly, the combination of smooth and studded surfaces does appear odd, although I am impressed with how different elements are combined. Additionally, this design ensures correct colours around the nose, including at the tip where the dark bluish grey section looks fantastic. The reaction control thrusters seem relatively realistic too, although two more thrusters should be fixed on top.

Gah! I meant C-141b. So, I was right. He said that the C-141a and C141b had a particularly bad problem with electrolysis between the rivets and the material they were holding together. When he first started working in them, the exteriors were largely paint-free (probably because it takes a few hundred pounds of paint for each plane). Then they started painting just the biggest problem areas, and eventually the entire exterior. The paint helps prevent corrosion, but it costs weight off your max payload, I think ice builds up on painted surfaces more than the bare metal, and you can’t inspect the metal surfaces for fatigue without stripping the entire paint job off. On interior surfaces, you can’t do that level of inspection without stripping all the rivets and disassembling the entire plane. But, metal fatigue will show up on both sides of a piece of sheet metal, so a full exterior inspection basically eliminates the need to see every interior surface anyways. For those who might be introducing themselves to the shuttle, I love how the set embeds a little bit of education into the build. I already mentioned the facts in the manual, but what I also love is just how much the set shows in terms of the shuttle's capabilities. It's obvious from looking at it that it was designed to land somewhat like a plane.What remains to be seen is if more national space agencies (Roscosmos in particular) will warm up to Lego collaboration and if its something the can be sold to the public in the same volume as NASA sets can. Unless Lego wants to dive into Mercury and Gemini or Skylab it has already about ran the gamut of manned NASA programs, but Roscosmos offers up the possibility of the Soyuz and its ancestors as additional Lego sets to keep up this "space theme." Several appealing functions are also provided, including the deployable landing gear which is ingenious, while the Hubble Space Telescope appears spectacular. The metallic silver colours are attractive and numerous important details are included, matching the Space Shuttle in that regard. Their consistent size is also welcome, at an approximate scale of 1:70. Clearly, if you’re a space enthusiast set on displaying all the NASA LEGO kits, you’ll have to be OK with a variety of scales, as the ISS and the new Discovery are in wildly different scales. Nevertheless, they look pretty great together. See also: 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V (and more). In fact, it’s such a wonderful design that had the LEGO Group decided to release this separately, it would no doubt garner huge praise. As it is, this is just a small part of this set, and the fact there is a gigantic Space Shuttle to build next makes for a very exciting prospect. Just over 30 years on from the original mission, The LEGO Group wanted to delve deeper into people’s passions for space to really uncover what they think of the great beyond. Including, what the next 30 years could hold, the future of space travel and if there really is life on mars.

The elegant delta wings incorporate dark bluish grey 2x2 curved slopes, depicting the thermal protection tiles which were vitally important on the original Space Shuttle orbiter. Their curving shape looks absolutely brilliant and I think dark bluish grey was the correct colour choice. This model displays Discovery's markings from mission STS-31 during 1999, hence the NASA logo deviates from its modern counterpart. The new LEGO NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, which was developed in collaboration with NASA, is a complex 2,354 piece build that pays homage to this pioneering moment in space history and marks the 40th anniversary since the first Space Shuttle flight on 12th of April 1981. The set, aimed at adults, features the Discovery orbiter with functional landing gear, payload bay doors, elevons and rudder; and the famous Hubble Space Telescope, which can either be folded and contained within the payload bay or expanded with solar array and displayed separately. Both also come with a display plaque which features key data from the mission.

Shortly after launch, it was discovered that the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror had been polished to the wrong shape. Thankfully, this mistake was corrected using the COSTAR system which was installed during 1993. This rendition of the telescope includes a removable section to represent that famous repair and the resultant void cleverly connects the telescope with its aforementioned deployment display stand. The first thing I have to say is that this model looks pretty darn great. It’s by far the most accurate LEGO Space Shuttle yet, and the combination of the two models together is enough to make any space fan feel a mighty need to have this in their collection.

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