#Kaci Heins

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IHS Towers partners with Limitless Space Institute to boost STEM education in Nigeria

IHS Towers, a leading telecommunications infrastructure provider, has joined forces with the Limitless Space Institute (LSI), USA, to revolutionize science education in Nigeria by training teachers in space technology. This collaboration is aimed at enhancing the quality of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education across the country. During a media roundtable and public…

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Autopista al espacio, revoluciona la difusión de su programa

PROGRAMAS ASGARDIANOSAriadne Gallardo Figueroa OBSERVA LAS OPCIONES QUE TIENES PARA PODER ENTENDER DE FORMA DIRECTA EL VIDEO EN 5 IDIOMAS OPCIONALES SIGUE TODOS LOS PROGRAMAS Y ESTE EN ESPECIAL QUE TIENE OPCIONES MULTILINGÜES https://www.youtube.com/@AsgardiaSpaceNationTV En este emocionante episodio, el anfitrión Dan Profir habla con Kaci Heins, directora ejecutiva del Instituto del Espacio…

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Yes, that LEGO Saturn V set is everything you hope it’s going to be

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Timelapse video of a LEGO Saturn V construction, recorded by Ron Zaguli.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into. Yes, I love LEGOs. (Who doesn't?!?) I played with them extensively as a boy—building castles, X-wings, and battleships, and then throwing my entire collection into a large cloth bag to create entirely new things from the whole mess. All the same, a few decades later, a Saturn V set with 1,969 pieces seemed a bit, shall we say, daunting?

Robert Pearlman, a friend and colleague who knows everything about space, had finagled a pre-release set from LEGO on the condition that his site, CollectSPACE, along with Ars and Space.com write about its construction. When he asked if I was interested, I jumped at the opportunity. But then when Friday morning came and I showed up at Space Center Houston around 8am, I began to wonder. How long would this behemoth take for a rusty LEGO has-been like myself? (The experts at the Brothers Brick had needed five hours, after all). My wife and kids were counting on going to the aquarium that evening.

I'm happy to report that Robert and I assembled the rocket in four hours and eight minutes. We didn't take many breaks (you can watch the timelapse video above for confirmation of that). And, well, even though we worked pretty hard at it, the process was damned fun. Oh, it was a fair amount of work—more than once I marveled at the idea that NASA had actually built these things for real, at a scale of 110 times larger, and their rockets had to actually breathe fire. But the build remained thoroughly enjoyable.

Building the rocket was, in fact, never tedious. During the construction, I had none of the frustrations of doing some little step wrong and then having to backtrack 10 or 15 steps. I made a few small errors, but they were easily corrected. Most of the time, my principal thought was, "Oh, that was clever," or "That's really cool." The experience proved empowering for my inner geek.

The Saturn V model photographed with one of the three remaining real Moon rockets.

These first four photos were taken during a public tour of Rocket Park at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, as operated by Space Center Houston.

CollectSPACE

Hey, our rocket has been in space just as much as this one has!

CollectSPACE

But our engines were never fired.

CollectSPACE

Here are Robert Pearlman, left, and Eric Berger, right, getting ready to build the LEGO Saturn V.

Ron Zaguli

Robert did the first stage and main engines, while I worked on the upper stages and command/service module.

Ron Zaguli

Here's my capsule and launch abort system, held up against a scale-model of the real thing.

Ron Zaguli

Along the way, we talked with Kaci Heins, Education Supervisor at Space Center Houston.

Ron Zaguli

Oh look, we're done.

Ron Zaguli

It's almost like we caught a prize fish!

Ron Zaguli

Say "hello!" to the tiny astronauts.

Ron Zaguli

I've visited the Saturn V on Johnson Space Center's campus probably a dozen times in my life. It's immense. But one can appreciate the scale of the operation from an entirely different perspective when building the LEGO set. The "crew" members are so small you almost can't hold onto them. Moreover, as you build the Saturn V, you're going to think about the brave men that went to the Moon for the first time almost 50 years ago. How they sat on top of all that potential energy, ventured truly into the unknown, and changed the world forever.

As much as any toy ever could be, the Saturn V LEGO is a worthy tribute to their achievement—and the other 399,997 Americans who worked on Apollo in the 1960s.

Listing image by CollectSPACE

from Ars Technica http://ift.tt/2qD0DG7 via IFTTT