Every now & then being in the space/aviation field gives you the privilege to meet extraordinary people. After a long day of lecturers I ended up hanging out making paper airplanes with Paul MacCready. It was like talking shop with Orville Wright. Magic evening.
Sometimes we work on engines for spacecraft & sometimes more Earthly ones. We been getting the support boats ready for our submarine’s dive tests. A carburetor rebuild & the SeaSwirl will be ready to launch. Don’t forget infrastructure in your space programs!
Ascender 36 is getting a new command/control system, new helium valves and a new internal structure. It will take to the air again this August.
Up top conducting airship to orbit research. On this one we were testing engine systems.
Here is a great article about our work in the current issue of “Airship: The Journal of the Airship Association”. They don’t have an an on-line addition but here are a couple of pics. You can find the association at: http://www.airship-association.org
Bring a rocket and have the students carry it in from your car. It’s amazing how many astronauts you can create in one day.
We got a large 3d printer for printing, well, large parts.
The gang assembled it and after test prints. It was ready to try something large. For the first big print we wanted to keep it simple. We printed a external battery box for the submarine.
We just finished the bottom section. It was a 150 hour continuous print run.
Now onto the lid. We have 4 printers now and they run pretty continuously making submarine and airship parts.
