Countdown Clock

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is shown atop Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this artist's concept. Its maiden flight is scheduled for January 2018. Credit: SpaceX

HEAVY DUTY:  We've had our eyes on an upcoming launch for years now, and the T-minus clock is about to start ticking in earnest. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is set to launch from the Space Coast's historic Pad 39A. That's the same pad from which Apollo 11's astronauts launched to the moon. I was lucky enough to get to visit the old site during the Mars Science Laboratory launch back on Thanksgiving weekend of 2011.

This shot is from standing under the old 39A launch pad. This is one of my favorite photos I've *ever* taken, and I've taken a *lot* of photos.

It's exciting to thing about rockets rumbling to life on that pad once again. 

CJ will tell you a bit more about it all. ... 

The Falcon Heavy rocket is a spacecraft designed at SpaceX scheduled to launch in January of 2018. According to SpaceX's website, when Falcon Heavy lifts off in 2018, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit over 54 metric tons (119,000 lb)--a mass equivalent to a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel--Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost.

The test flight of the Falcon Heavy is planned to carry the Tesla Roadster weighing 2,723 pounds, designed by SpaceX's Elon Musk. The long-term mission of the Falcon Heavy rocket is to bring humans to places such as the moon and Mars.

Recently, Musk, CEO of SpaceX and founder of electric car maker Tesla tweeted photos on Wednesday of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket in a hangar in Florida where it's being prepped for its maiden launch.

Elon Musk ✔@elonmusk

Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.

The Falcon Heavy is pretty much three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together with a second stage added to the top of the center rocket.

The exact launch date has not been announced, but whenever it is, you know we'll be watching!

THREE-DEE: Wednesday afternoon, CJ and Annabelle attended a two-hour class at Living Computer: Museum + Labs. It was called "Designing for 3D Printing." Before attending class, the kids each had to register for a (free) account on TinkerCAD.

The 3D Printing course I took at the Living Computer Museum was mainly about how 3D printers worked and how to make an effective 3D print model that will stand up to gravity and pressure. Our instructor explained that if something on your model is at more than a 70 degree angle and doesn’t have any support, the molten plastic will droop on the bottom due to gravity. He told us that one way to prevent this is to keep your models upright and compact or use temporary supports that can be removed later. If you have very thin attachments that sit on the ground, you can add a thin layer of material called a “Raft” to expand the area of contact and keep your project more stable, minimizing flaws.

Near the end of the workshop, we used a 3D print model-making program called TinkerCAD (www.tinkercad.com). TinkerCAD uses simple blocks and shapes that can be put together in many ways to make almost anything you could want to 3D print. Our instructor walked us through many tutorials on the TinkerCAD website. Between that and students' questions, in the end, we were left with only a 30-minute period to work on our custom 3D models. I was very disappointed that we spent so much time talking and not much working, as it really took away the part of the workshop that was advertised (the model making). I felt bad for our instructor, as he was trying to keep up with numerous kids who wouldn’t stop asking questions or having temper tantrums about not knowing what to do (despite being told by both the website tutorial and the instructor what comes next). The part where we did get to work was fun, but as previously mentioned it was rather short-lived.

So, while there was valuable information, you can see the kids were left wanting a LOT more personal hands on time. The good news is, thanks to TinkerCAD, they can play around with the 3D modeling on their own time.  

They get to pick up their creations next week some time. Hopefully, I'll remember to post photos.