(images are clickable for larger view)
(Photo courtesy of Phil Broad)
This is my version of the shuttle, in April 2005
The "new and improved" shuttlecraft in August 2006
Like a lot of you who are reading this page, I’m a sci-fi fan. How many times have you asked yourself – hey, I wish I could build a shuttle or a LandSpeeder!
I was just a little too young to appreciate “The Original Series” when it was on NBC in the late 60’s. I started watching the reruns after school in the 70’s. A lot of the people I hang with are sci-fi fans. Karl, along with Kiki, Jeff and Brian have a Star Trek band called WARP11 (www.warp11.com) here in Sacramento Ca. Check them out…Buy their CD’s…Rock on…
(Photo courtesy Andy at SnapArific.com)
(Photo Courtesy Kevin Graft / Full Moon Photography)
My brother Kip and Karl, the lead singer and bass player from WARP11, (www.warp11.com) went to the Burning Man festival (www.burningman.com) in August 2000. They came back with tales of fun, dancing, “art cars”, technology, “theme camps” and so on. It sounded like a blast.
Kip, his wife Michelle and I rented an RV from a friend of his and we went to Burning Man 2001. I’ve gone every year since.
If you go to Burning Man, it’s difficult to see everything…and because I have mechanical, computer and electronic skills, for Burning Man 2002 I built an “art car” – a “Star Wars” Landspeeder, so I could entertain the crowd and drive around (“ordinary” vehicle are not allowed to drive around Burning Man during the festival).
Here’s a link to my Landspeeder page: (link to Trexxis Landspeeder page which is still being developed will go here!). Below is probably the most famous picture of the Landspeeder, taken at Burning Man 2004. This picture is of Mr. Wizard from Oakland with his electric Harley Davidson Landspeeder (on the left) and me with my gas powered Harley Davidson Landspeeder.
Also, for Burning Man 2002 our gang built a really cool “fish car”. Unfortunately the fish car was short lived and didn’t last long on the playa. But it could hold a lot of people, which my Landspeeder couldn’t do.
At the Burning Man 2004 festival my buddies Todd, Karl, Kiki, Jason, Odin, Niki, Em, Jen, Don, Dave, Mason, Becca, Katie and others were sitting around our theme camp discussing what we were going to do for Burning Man 2005. The discussion turned to “art cars”.
Now, it’s a little hazy who first mentioned it…and my memory is a little fuzzy for some reason…but my recollection was somebody said, in a slurred slash drunken voice, “heeey, we otta build a sshuttlecraf…and sshuttle people around the festival…” And someone else said “Yeah, we should build the shuttlecraft Galileo from “Star Trek!”
A couple of months after the 2004 festival, Todd, Karl and I began to discuss some details…would it be possible to build a full-size mock-up of the shuttlecraft “Galileo”, a prop from a 60’s television show, a prop that was never designed to be mobile…would it be possible to make a reproduction, put it on some kind of automobile chassis with wheels and a motor and drive it around, like a “parade vehicle”?
I started to work out the details in my head and then later, on paper. I took a look around the ‘net and found Phil Broad’s excellent site (http://www.cloudster.com/Sets&Vehicles/STShuttlecraft/GalileoTop.htm). Without Phil’s site, the shuttlecraft “Galileo” might never have happened. Phil, I have to give you a shameless plug – who’s the man? You, that’s who!
Phil has a lot of great detail on his web pages including pictures like this (below). Hmmmm…I was going to build a shuttle with wheels…so while the height of the two vehicles might be the same – the perspective would be wrong – the TV prop didn’t have wheels…and it didn’t have any windows on the sides and making that door would be a nightmare and…making the warp engines! How the heck was I going to hang warp engines with those “wings” and “struts” from the vehicle? Am I just freakin’ nuts or what?? Too much time on my hands?
(Photo courtesy of Phil Broad)
I found out the television prop was made of wood, metal and Masonite hardboard. While some details would have to be changed or modified, I knew I could make a pretty accurate vehicle, one which would be instantly recognizable and would bring joy to a lot of people, both “non-believers” and Star Trek fans (Trekkies and Trekkers, OK?).
And, to top it all off, I could take my “art car” to Burning Man and have the time of my life, shuttling people around the playa! We could dress in “Star Trek” uniforms, talk Klingon, shoot lasers at each other and show videos on LCD panels inside the shuttle…the ideas kept flowing from everyone involved!
What we didn’t realize was there would be a lot of heartache, disappointment, frustration, long days and nights, aching muscles, broken bones and broken relationships, amputated fingers…
Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time!
Picture of the LED sign I built for our 2004 Burning Man theme camp “Camp Lunatic”.
Our theme camp “Camp Lunatic” on the Esplanade at Burning Man 2004
I came up with a budget of $3,000 and if I could buy a vehicle in the $500-$1000 range, that would be perfect. I knew I’d be covering up the body with plywood or sheet metal so to save money I hoped to find a body-damaged large 80’s era Chevy, Ford or Dodge van. I spent a few weeks looking on Craig’s List, the local paper, Auto Trader, etc. and could never find what I wanted. Even though my brother Kip is a mechanic and I have mechanical aptitude, I didn’t want a vehicle with a blown engine or transmission – and there were plenty of those!
I live in Sacramento, Ca. Every day on the way to and from work, not long after I started to think about this project, I realized there was a chassis of a “Class C” motor home parked in this guy’s yard.
Here’s a picture of a typical Class C motor home (this is not the motor home I used to build the shuttle)
At first I wasn’t all that interested in the motor home chassis in this guy’s yard, this vehicle was parked for months and months and it had been left out in the rain, sun, heat and cold. But finally, without having much luck finding a van-type vehicle and realizing I had to get started on this project soon, one day I stopped and took a closer look. I left a note and the guy called me within hours. Fortunately, Sacramento County had cited this guy for having too many vehicles in his yard and he had to get rid of this “Class C” motor home chassis immediately!
The chassis was in pretty good shape but had a bad starter motor and it wouldn’t start. I went down to the local Kragen’s, bought a new starter motor and the owner of the chassis and installed the starter. The engine, a Dodge 440 magnum, started right up. This chassis was perfect for what I was going to do…
The motor has 72,000 original miles on it. The engine ran well but need a tune up and the tranny seemed to work fine and the motor has brand new headers, exhaust pipes and mufflers! What a find…
The guy wanted $750 but after some negotiation, I bought it for $400 and drove it home and parked it in my driveway. The cab with the chassis is about 24 foot long (see picture).
OK, so you may be asking yourself – what happened to the “box”? Where’s the rest of the R.V.?
The owner told me he went under an overpass that was too low and tore the box right off the chassis. Oops…
My neighbor Wally is retired Coast Guard and he has excellent mechanical skills. He even designed this really cool reciprocating engine; he claimed he could get 500 H.P. out of an engine about the size of a rotary engine.
The first time he saw me standing next to this beat up old RV chassis, he of course, gave me “that look”. He’d got used to the occasional loud rock music, the lasers, the explosions, etc. and now what did I haul home and park in my driveway, next to HIS home…?
I told him what I was up to: I wanted to build a reproduction of the Star Trek shuttlecraft Galileo on “this chassis” and then take it to Burning Man 2005 as an “art car”. He wanted to help.
My plan was to build the frame out of 1” X 1” rectangular steel tubing, with a sheet-metal skin. But I really didn’t have a lot of experience with this type of frame and body. I did have a lot of experience with wood, so after some discussion I decided to make the frame out of 2” X 3”s with a 3/8 inch plywood skin on the sides and a ½ inch plywood roof.
Wally made some drawings of a plywood frame (see below) and he “ran the numbers” to see if plywood would support the weight. Those of you who have worked with plywood and understand its properties know plywood is strong stuff. But – plywood can be heavy. Still, figuring this was a RV chassis after all, supporting the weight shouldn’t be an issue, and didn’t the RV have a fridge? Couches? Cabinets? Beds?
There were compromises – we couldn’t walk on the roof. And the vehicle would still be sorta rough up close – it would fool no one…it would be obvious the vehicle was made of plywood, instead of metal. We also needed a way to hang the warp drive engines and there needed to be a door or doors and windows. The “box” had to be strong and rigid and I wanted to keep rain and dust out – at the Burning Man festival, it can get REAL dusty and occasionally thunderstorms pop up. Rain would be too much of an issue except for all the computers and electronics I’d plan to put inside – I didn’t want them to get damaged.
Here are two of Wally’s original drawings, showing the plywood frame detail and the “warp nacelle” hard points:
And
I got this vehicle in October 2005, which is just before the start of our rainy season (which runs from about November to around April). So, not knowing how long this was going to take (I had never built a space shuttle before) we started right away. The first thing we did was build a rectangular frame all around the vehicle.
Here’s Wally working on the frame:
…and here’s Wally welding a section of the frame, installed on the chassis:
The rectangular frame running around the outside of the vehicle is complete, here’s Don cutting the roof off:
Maybe it’s just me but it looked sorta funny with the roof and doors and side pillars cut off. The chassis came With two seats but the passenger seat was toast, so I tossed it. My plan was to replace the seats at a later date anyway…
Next we started on the frame, the support for the plywood box. We got the basic shape from this drawing we got from Phil Broad’s web pages:
The frame and the body ended up taking months to build. At the time, it looked like it was going to go pretty fast and we were on the right track but to be honest, it was a tremendous amount of work. This picture was taken of three of the plywood frames laid out on my driveway, one on top of the other.
The picture below shows the frame is installed on the chassis. It may appear that they’re not “flush” with each other but they are. Distortions in depth and the angle of the picture make it appear the frames are not lined up with each other – but they actually were lined up pretty well.
Note I changed some of the dimensions to make the insides taller, so people could stand up inside. Also, the top is not as wide as the television prop. Look closely and you can see how we hung the plywood frames off the rectangular steel frame that ran completely around the vehicle.
The first of the plywood panels goes on:
Here’s a picture of me, standing in the back of the shuttle, after a long, long day of working on the shuttle…
Here’s Wally and Todd standing next to the shuttle, after more plywood panels were added:
Here’s a view inside, looking towards the front, before the “nose” was built
This picture shows detail of the “tumbledown” and the angles – the panels “above” the floor are at a 10 degree angle and the tumbledown is also 10 degrees.
The hardest part was creating the “nose”.
I had to get at the engine to check fluid levels, the belts, etc. The nose needed to be stout, leak free and the right proportions - it had to hold the windows, displays, solar panel, etc. etc. The angles in the nose really were complicated.
Here’s a picture showing the “top” of the nose, just after the plywood was installed
I realized that I was going to have a LOT of electronics and fortunately I got a donation of 5 almost-new 12V 100 amp-hour electric-vehicle batteries that were used in a “Think” electric vehicle. I used three of them in parallel for the shuttle, in place of the standard “starting” battery. This way I’d be able to deliver a higher current to my doo-dads. And, before you write to me and tell me these batteries are not designed for cranking an engine, etc., it’s been over a year, without issues. The batteries are in great shape. I also have several large 12V Photo Voltaic panels – including four 5V 5A “quad-lam” surplus panels I bought that were formerly used in the Carissa solar power producing facility in the Mohave Desert. In other words, using these solar panels in conjunction withthe vehicle’s alternator and a solar “charge controller”, I’d never have dead batteries – I could let the electronics, lights, fans, audio system run 24 hours a day at Burning Man and other venues, probably without issue.
After all the plywood panels went on, we sanded the panels and fixed a number of imperfections – we made the panels as flush with each other as possible. We filled in the screw holes and seams between the panels with silicon caulk – to make the body weather proof. We painted the whole thing primer gray and then we painted the body with 4 coats of white exterior house paint, to make it as smooth as possible.
I’d send out regular emails to friends and family with the pictures and descriptions of what we had done the previous weekend. I sent out an email with this picture below, which shows what I thought (at that point) what the shuttle might look like.
Purists – hey, don’t give me a hard time about the lack of shuttle details, the complicated curves and the extra windows and so on. I’m a realist, this is an “art car” and this vehicle will be driven on the street. I knew I’d have to see out of the shuttle and the three tiny front windows on the TV prop just weren’t enough. Too, I have a limited budget, I didn’t have unlimited time, I only had time to work on the shuttle on the weekends and August 2005 was approaching fast!!
I got a decal shop to make the graphics for the shuttle. I used the correct fonts and the decals are almost the exact size of the graphics on the TV prop. I cut holes for windows on the side and installed Lexan windows. I put legal lights on the sides and on the back.
Here is a side view of the graphics…
Here’s another view taken shortly after the graphics were applied.
My neighbor Craig installed carpet and he often brought home almost-new carpet. He came home one day with a truck-load of almost-new carpet he pulled out of a house. He donated rolls of carpet to the shuttle – a nice beige color. Perfect for hiding the dust of the Black Rock Desert, where the Burning Man festival is held.
Here’s a picture standing at the back and looking forward. I put three “skylights” in the roof, using Lexan and metal frames and we painted the roof black. If you look closely, you can see the front and side windows have been installed.
What the “real” shuttle looked like inside
(Drawing / photo courtesy of David Winfrey)
Rhonda donated a bedroom dresser which we immediately cut up to hold the fridge – we needed a fridge to keep our beer cold, eh? Our buddy Odin donated some “Star Trek” looking chairs. Todd came up with a cool Star-Trek-looking black leather couch. Emily donated bottles of vodka. Others donated wire, laughter, encouragement, etc.
I made a drawing of what I thought the interior might look like:
Cool Star Trek looking couch…
Here’s an early picture of the interior, showing the bedroom dresser we’re using to hold the fridge. This picture also shows a 60’s stereo cabinet we got as a donation. We stripped it and painted it gray and we planned on using it as a bar, as indicated in the drawing above. But later we tossed it, when we realized it was too big – it blocked the rear door we added later. Here you can also see the back panel is installed, with a rectangle in the middle for the Lexan door (which wasn’t installed yet).
This picture shows the front carpet and details of the interior of the front of the shuttle, before all the switches, flashing LED’s and displays were added. The wires hanging off to the left are for the solar panels on the roof. The purple and black wires above the front window are for the solar panel on the front of the vehicle – see picture below…
This picture shows the solar panel above the front window. I put a label on the solar panel – “Stockhammer” is the last name of Kiki, who sings and plays keyboard in the Star Trek band “WARP11” (www.warp11.com)
I spent hours during the winter building displays with flashing LED’s, etc. Here’s a picture looking over the captain’s seat…
The two LCD displays, which happen to run on 12V DC, showed various star Trek animations, videos we created, funny Star Trek bloopers and other stuff we downloaded off the ‘net. I used a Dell laptop to show the videos and a 2 channel VGA splitter to split the video signal to both LCD displays. Also, the Dell laptop, like most laptops, has an audio out, so there’s a connection to shuttle’s audio system for the audio. I have about 400 MP3’s on the laptop, so we’d also use the laptop as an audio player, rather than have a car-stereo type of player. The laptop sits on top of the engine cover, between the pilot seat and co pilot seat and it’s got Velcro strips to hold the laptop down. Not that we’re braggin’, but this set-up worked astoundingly well; everyone commented on how cool it is, how well it sounded and so on. The wires hanging in the background were tacked up and hidden, not long after this picture was taken.
The picture below shows the main overhead display. There are three lights in the center – one says “no smoking”. The middle one says “Naughty” and the one on the right says “light up”. As the pilot, I want to be able to flip a switch and turn on the “no smoking” light. I don’t smoke (anymore) and never planned to turn on the “light up” light, rather I just thought it was humorous to have one. The Naughty light is pretty self-explanatory – I couldn’t wait to get on the PA system and say “This is your captain speaking. Welcome to the shuttlecraft Galileo. The “Naughty” light is now lit, you may now move about the cabin freely. Thank you for flying the shuttlecraft Galileo!”
In this picture you can also see the 25 watt external P.A. amplifier on the dash – there’s a large PA horn in the front of the vehicle. You can hear it easily a block away! Perfect for yelling geeky and Star-Trek things – “Captain Kirk would kick Darth Vader’s ass”, “Move your Romulan battle cruiser or I’m gonna load photon torpedo’s”. On top of the dash there’s a reflective blanket – this was only used to keep cats from sleeping on top of the dash (this was before I got the door on).
This is the panel on the wall over the pilot. The panel has switches for the fans, the panels and displays, switches to turn on the audio system, switches for interior lights, switches for exterior lights, etc. There are two 110V AC inverters and a switch to turn those on. The green light that’s on in about the middle of this picture is a 5 channel digital audio recorder I designed. This plays background “Enterprise Bridge sounds” – the beeping, clicking and the whirling sounds you’d hear in the original series.
The two digital voltmeters show the voltage of the solar array and the actual battery voltage. I’m a big fan of Ron Howard and his movies, especially “Apollo 13” and thought it would be cool to have a “Main Bus A” and a “Main Bus B” and then maybe fake some explosions or smoke in the warp engines outside and start yelling over the PA: “We’ve got a problem. We’ve got a Main Bus A under volt…now we’ve got a Main Bus B under volt. We’re venting something into space…”
(Drawing/Photo courtesy of Phil Broad)
Finally, the “wings” were built out of plywood and the “warp drive engines” were built out of 18”, 10 foot long sonatubes – ya know, those tubes used to create concrete columns…
The “front” of the warp drive engines is 18” punch bowls from “Party America”. Behind the punch bowls I built a hi-intensity LED array that flashes, creating the red-flashing look at the front of the Enterprise’s engines. Technically, the shuttle’s engines never flashed or were lit up. But I thought it would look cool, so I built an array…anyway.
In this picture, showing the rear of the shuttle, the Lexan door was installed, grab handles were installed, a rear step was installed with a bright light illuminating the step. Rope lighting was installed, the fans were installed (behind the grills) a LED “moving message” display was installed over the door (which displayed “Welcome to the shuttlecraft Galileo! We’ll be leaving shortly. Please come inside, take a seat, put on your seat belt and relax. Nothing can possibly go wrong. Go wrong. Go wrong.)
This picture shows the grills on the front and the outside mirrors painted black.
What a great time we had at Swabbies! Unfortunately, the shuttle had waay too much to drink and things got out of hand, the shuttle kept pushing it’s way up towards the front of the stage...
It was time to show off the shuttle. WARP11 (www.warp11.com) was going to have a show at Swabbies bar and marina on the Sacramento river (www.swabbies.com). But the shuttle wasn’t really ready to drive on the road (it wasn’t registered or insured yet) so the shuttle was towed there instead. A friend of Karl’s called him to tell him the incredible news – “Dude! You’re not going to believe this but I SWEAR TO YOU I saw the Star Trek shuttlecraft being towed on the freeway…”
(Photos courtesy Andy at SnapArific.com)
And someone (who shall remain anonymous but whose first name is Jeff and who plays drums and sings for a band in Sacramento) “broke the shuttle in” and left a condom on the dash afterwards.
There was an article about the Swabbies show on CNN:
The shuttle was pretty much done at this point.
Then the trouble began…
When you look closely at the pictures, it may not look the shuttle is all that big. The shuttle is 26 feet long…which is not that big of a deal. Unfortunately, it’s too wide – the shuttle, with engines attached, is 124 inches wide – which is too wide for California roads and highways. But, it was only after the engines were attached did we realize this was a problem. I read the restriction details when I was working on getting the vehicle registered with the California D.M.V. and I happened to catch the width restrictions oh the DMV web pages.
Oops.
The plan, you see, was to drive the shuttle from Sacramento, Ca. to the Burning Man 2005 festival, which is about a 5 or 6 hour drive on Highway 80. Suddenly I’m like “holy shit. The shuttle is too wide for the highway…”
The engines actually could be removed fairly easy, in fact we planned it that way, thinking we wouldn’t want cardboard tubes so low to the ground, for such a long drive, the tubes would get damaged and the punch bowls might get broken by a rock. The plan was to take the engines off the vehicle, throw them inside and when we got to the Burning Man festival, put the engines back on. Within reason, basically there aren’t any width restrictions at the Burning Man festival.
The warp drive engines inside the shuttle for the trip to Burning Man
Then, finally it was ..
After spending literally hundreds of person-hours building, soldering, painting, cursing, bandaging cuts on the fingers, arms, legs, head, etc. etc. and spending thousands of dollars on materials, beer and gin & tonic, the day had finally arrived! This was IT!
The RV was all packed up, the shuttle was ready, in one hour Todd and I were going to hit the road and drive the shuttle to Burning Man 2005!!!
One of my brothers is a pretty good mechanic. He had been after me for several months saying things like “You’d better spend more time driving the shuttle around to work the kinks out and find any issues!”
So, at the last moment, Todd and I decided to take a final drive around the block to test everything on the shuttle.
We drove the shuttle around the block. And, when we got back, there was fluid leaking out of both the rear seal on the transmission AND the front seal on the differential! Holy Shit!!
Not just a little fluid…but a LOT of fluid leaking out of the seals. And then the freaking engine coughed and hiccupped, like it was starved for gas or the timing was off or something!
What the hell happened?? Everything had been fine…but… like a dummy, I didn’t listen to my own brother and I didn’t drive the shuttle around much at all, everything seemed to be fine!
Unfortunately, towing the shuttle around to places like the tire shop to get 6 brand-new RV tires, towing the shuttle to Swabbies on the Sacramento River, etc. damaged the seals, even though we dropped the driveline. The seals were original and were a bit old; moving the drive line back and forth must have caused the damage.
The very first time I had the shuttle towed, the tow truck driver was a lazy idiot and he didn’t drop the drive-line. I didn’t know, at the time, that this could cause all kinds of problems to the tranny or the rear end.
The realization hit us - there was no way we were going to be able to drive the shuttle on freeway 80 all the way to Nevada in the freaking summertime!
OK – so there was really only one option – put the shuttle up on a trailer and tow it there and then replace the seals when we got there. So I arranged for a tow vehicle and a trailer. Try to find a tow vehicle and trailer the week before Labor Day weekend!!
So…OK, I found a truck and trailer and somehow we got it on the trailer, sounds easy, right?
But look closely – we had to remove the engines, the side panels, the windows (the shuttle is HUGE so we decided to remove the windows to let the air go through the vehicle for the trip up). We had to remove two tires - the trailer was too narrow when all 4 rear tires are installed. We had a frustrating time getting the shuttle ready and chaining the whole thing down. OK, so everything looks OK, right? The truck I rented should be able to tow this, right? It’s a Ford F250 – a ton and a half...
Look at this picture – you can see how far the shuttle went past the end of the trailer…
OK, it was finally time! The months of work, etc. We drove out onto the freeway and….
The trailer fish-tailed all over the place.
It was scary – there’s no other word for it. As soon as I got above 48 MPH, the trailer started swinging violently back and forth in the lane – totally dangerous. It was obvious the truck and trailer combination wasn’t going to work.
The following morning, we dropped the shuttle back in the driveway of the family compound, returned the truck and trailer and hopped into my RV and headed to Burning Man 2005 without the shuttle. I only stayed a couple of days, I was totally miserable, I felt like such a failure. While on the way there, the fridge in my R.V. died a sudden painful death, leaving me with melted ice cream, soft cheese, soggy lettuce, no ice, etc. I couldn’t sleep, I was all bummed out. I wandered off by myself at like 3:00 AM and got my hair all singed off by an art car that had a flaming propane cannon!
Sure, I guess I became “Burning Man” for a few moments ha ha ha, what an irony. Here’s some advice – don’t wear black jeans and a black T-shirt if you’re gonna walk around Burning Man at night!!! Put on something reflective or wear flashing lights, for God’s sake!
I got back to the camp, took one look in the mirror, told myself “if I stay here any longer, what? Am I gonna get killed or something?” I figured I just wasn’t meant to be at Burning Man 2005…
The shuttle sat around for months. And no, we didn’t catch it on fire, I’m only kidding…
It finally came down to two choices – throw the whole thing away or fix all the issues. I thought it out in depth – the current shuttle is too big, too wide and too heavy. I’d have to change a lot. But I couldn’t go on with this failure hanging around my neck. I have to rebuild! I have to take the shuttle to Burning Man 2006!
A lot of people donated items and their time to the shuttle. A few people donated money. Thank you all for what you’ve done and to all those who supported this project:
Todd, Karl, Kiki, Don, Odin, Kip, Brian, Wally and Fuzzy.
Thank you for checking out these web pages, looking at the pictures and reading this far.
There’s more…! The shuttle lives!
Believe it or not, I stripped the whole chassis down to nothing and I’ve started again. This time I’m going to do it right – I’m going to fix all the mechanical issues and make the shuttle look more like the TV prop, with the right proportions and I’m going to make the shuttle out of metal, instead of plywood. It will be a whole lot lighter!
Ha! They laughed at me at the university, they laughed at me! But I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!
Stay tuned to this bat channel! More to come...!
(Photo/drawing courtesy of Phil Broad)
Believe it or not, I stripped the whole chassis down to nothing on April 15-17th, 2006 and I’ve started again. This time I’m going to do it right – I’m going to make the shuttle out of aluminum and steel, instead of (heavier) plywood and 2 X 3’s. When completed, expect this “new and improved” shuttle to be a whole lot lighter, sturdier and hopefully, it should look better…the proportions and dimensions and some detail should make it look more like the TV prop.
The idea this time is to make a carnival-ride of sorts, sort of a video game but…real and with substance. If you will, maybe like the “Back to the Future” ride at Universal Studios or the “Indiana Jones” ride at Disneyland. Read on and you’ll see how I’m going to do this...
Anyway, first thing I did was drink a few shots of Patron silver (for strength) and then I took a sledge hammer and a cut-off saw to the “old” shuttle, which had to be…um…de-commissioned…here at the Planetia Utopia shipyards, on the third rock from the sun…
The chassis was stripped down to nothing…and here Rick Gomez and I have started welding up a metal frame, using a flux-core wire-fed MIG. These pictures were taken on April 23, 2006.
Ha! They laughed at me at the university, they laughed at me! But I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!!
On May 7th 2006, the frame was mostly done and I started to put the roof on - .040 sheet aluminum, 4 X 8 feet, with a 1 foot fold on each end. In other words, the roof is 6 feet wide and the “ears” that are “hanging down” over the sides are 1 foot on each side.
Here’s a look inside, looking towards the front of the vehicle. The “white stuff” is 100% (exterior) silicon / adhesive – this glues the aluminum to the steel frame. I ran a bead over each frame-piece and most of the silicon didn’t “squirt-out” when the panel was pressed onto the frame.
Hey, speaking of squirting white stuff - that reminds me of a story. I was at this wedding and the groom’s dad had a little too much to drink. He says (to his own kid!!) “Larry, the bes par of you ran down yur momma’s leg.” Totally unbelievable!!! The groom is actually a damn decent person, a really cool guy. An absolutely true story…
Getting back to the shuttle, I wanted to use as few rivets as possible. The silicon adhesive was suggested by my friend Mick Pacello, who builds really beautiful Chevys in his shop here in Sacramento. Using silicon “quiets” the vehicle; the sheets of aluminum won’t flex and bang while driving the vehicle. I also thought the vehicle would look more “finished” if rivets didn’t show. Using silicon adhesive would also help make the vehicle somewhat weather-proof – I could use it to seal the seams and keep rain, dust and the wind out. And finally I wanted the body to be flat and seamless, so when people looked down the sides, the body would look professionally done.
Here’s a look at some interior detail – this picture shows one of the LCD display brackets welded to the ceiling. To the immediate left is the door.
There will be multiple LCD flat panel displays inside the shuttle. The bracket shown in the picture will hold the LCD people will see first, when they climb inside. The other LCD’s will show WARP11 videos, LCARS animations, videos created by Karl Miller of Serious Magic (www.seriousmagic.com) etc.
Several people commented they felt this shuttlecraft needs more windows than it has. Actually there’s a huge front window and each of the driver and passenger side windows are 16 inches high by 4 feet long. When you’re at Burning Man, and you’re in a “art car” or a “mutant vehicle”, you’ll want to be able to see the sites and yell funny and witty things at the “burners” - “Hey, I’ll buy you a pony if you’ll have sex with me” or “I realize I can’t have your virginity but can I have the box it came in?”
Anyway, I didn’t want this shuttlecraft to look like a school bus. The TV prop only had three tiny front windows and no side windows at all. So, to improve the experience of the passengers, I’ll put small video cameras on the outside of the vehicle, hooked to displays inside the vehicle to show what’s going on outside. Also, there are microphones and speakers and a PA system. The driver and co-pilot and the passengers will be able to talk to those outside of the shuttle and be able to hear them too.
This next picture, taken on May 28th 2006, shows Todd test-fitting one of the Lexan windows. In this picture, the shuttle has been skinned with .032 aluminum sheet. I sanded the whole shuttlecraft with a 120 grit block and painted the skin with ordinary exterior grey primer. A couple of people told me “You can’t do that. You have to use primer with zinc chromate in it”, blah, blah, blah.
Pessimists always remind me of the cartoon character “Glum” on the
1968 “Adventures of Gulliver” series – remember it?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Gulliver)
In the cartoon Glum was a constant pessimist. He’d always be mumbling “it’ll never work. We’re all doomed...”.
In any case, I can’t say this would work for your aluminum application but you can see for yourself it worked OK for this shuttlecraft.
These pictures, taken on June 4th 2006, show the first of the “warp nacelles” being fitted to the body
This picture shows the “triangular” door on the driver’s side. This is a typical “Star Trek” shape – you’d see this shape in other doors and hallways of various “Original Series” sets.
About this time I made a pic of what I thought the shuttle will look like. This pic is “drawn” directly over the frame and body as it exists at the time I made this pic. Let’s see how accurate it turns out to be (keep reading). I make no excuses for the lame copy and pastes…
OK, so I don’t claim to be a George Barris, “King of the Kustomizers”, creator of the Batmobile, the Monkee-Mobile, the Munster coach, etc. - (http://www.barris.com). But even the most cynical of you out there in cyber-space hopefully will appreciate the time, effort and attention to detail that’s gone into this shuttlecraft!
Here’s an early look at the inside, looking toward the rear. The steel frame is 1” X 1” rectangular steel tube. Because it can get really hot here in Sacramento and it can get verry hot (and very cold) at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada high-desert, I decided to insulate the shuttlecraft with 1” thick Styrofoam. You can buy it at Home Depot in 4 X 8 sheets. There’s an added benefit to using this foam – it stiffened the panels and made them “more straight” and flush. Also, if you thump a panel on the outside, it feels…dense.
On June 10-11, 2006 I added one of the “radiators” to the back of the warp nacelle and started on the aluminum trim, which hides the seams and straightens the lines.
This picture shows a view of the “tumbledown” on the passenger side. I’m cutting and trimming aluminum sheet to keep out the noise and dust and to cover the front wheels. The plate over the front wheel needs to be removable – it’s screwed onto the frame. All the tires are brand new but ya never know – I might get a flat and have to change a tire. And if the sheet was glued or riveted on, it would be pretty hard to change a tire!
The “warp nacelles” are removable too, so I can get at the rear tires. You may be wondering why I don’t try and cover the whole tire and why the tumbledown is only 1 foot long.
On my “original” shuttle, I made the tumbledown 2 feet long. Unfortunately, the first time I drove out into the street, part of the tumbledown was torn off as soon as the shuttle bounced off the driveway and into the street. Oops…!
So…on this shuttlecraft, I’ll paint the tires and rims flat black and
the shadows will help conceal the tires.
Eugene Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry’s son, along with the excellent director Roger Nygard (Trekkies, Trekkies II, Mind of a Married Man, Bernie Mac Show) was in Lake Tahoe for an event at Tahoe community college.
Punkin’ and I drove up to Tahoe and had an interesting dinner with Eugene (“call me Rod”) Roddenberry, Roger Nygard and Daryl Frazetti at a local Sushi place. Daryl teaches at Tahoe Community College and he appeared in Trekkies II along with his cats. My friend T was in Daryl’s class and he was at the dinner too.
Eugene was a very cool dude; witty and interesting. So was Roger Nygard. I told Roger how much I liked his movies and how much I liked “Six Days in Roswell” (he edited the picture, Tim Johnson directed it). Punkin’ wanted to see “Six Days in Roswell” too so we bought a copy at Synapse http://www.synapse-films.com/shopping_cart/roswell.htm
At dinner, Punkin’ whispers to me “There’s geeks out there who would pay $1,500 to be sitting where I am right now!!” ha ha ha ha
Eugene’s web site: http://www.roddenberry.com/index.cfm
Roger Nygard’s web site: http://www.rogernygard.com/
In this picture you can see I’ve cut a hole into the port-side nacelle for a step, to get in and out of the vehicle easier. The step is one of those steel fold-out RV steps and I installed it so it would “fold” up into the engine when not in use.
Most of the body is completed. The letters are RTA (Ready To Apply) vinyl letters, with adhesive backing. I had them made at a local vehicle lettering / sign shop. Each graphic cost about $20.
Here’s a view of the inside, taken around July 8th, showing the insulation panels being installed and the panels being painted with ordinary grey primer. The “sign board” that says “Galileo II” is from the previous plywood shuttle.
Here’s a port-side view around July 12th, 2006.
Here’s a close-up of the gas-cap. I made the aluminum “ring” from a piece of scrap I found at a local metal salvage yard.
Here’s an early look at the back of the shuttle:
In this picture, taken around July 30th 2006, I’m working on the front of the vehicle (window, hood, lights, trim, etc.) and I’m installing the 30mW green laser-light-show. Yes, the laser is pretty high-powered. Sure, THE shuttlecraft from Star Trek TOS didn’t have a phaser to kill Klingons with. But this shuttlecraft does. Just in case I run into some Klingons still angry over the Tribbles.
It’s important to have a phaser, I’m going to Burning Man in the middle of the Nevada desert, there’s constant dust in the air. The beam should refract off the dust really well. But don’t stare into the beam with your remaining eye…
This picture shows early work being done on the dashboard. I completely removed the stock dashboard, welded two 1 X 1 rectangular steel tubes across the width to hold the aluminum panels full of switches, flashing lights, electronic stupidity, etc.
Here’s a pic of literally the first lighting test. Everything worked well the first time I turned it all on. But hey, I’m not braggin’, most of the wiring is pretty basic… Anyway, I didn’t want any incandescent lights; I wanted everything to be solid-state Light Emitting Diodes. But I had some 110 AC blue rope lights in my garage and I already had several 12V DC to 110 AC inverters, so I “wrapped” blue rope lights around the front of the warp nacelles and installed an inverter to power them. The 4 bright lights in the front are halogen Baja lights. So…not every light is LED’s but I can honestly say 99% of the lights on the vehicle are LED’s.
This picture shows the step built into the port-side warp nacelle, leading up into the shuttle. You can see the pipes and the plumbing and the plasma conduits glowing bright-red. This picture was taken before the red vinyl stripes were added on each warp nacelle.
This picture, taken on august 12th 2006 shows more of the lights. You can see the blue lights underneath, the lights inside the rear of the warp nacelles, the LED strips, etc. The “impulse engine” LED’s, all 840 of them, sequence back-n-forth. They’re super, super bright Agilent LED’s and, to look at them, they’re so bright, ya gotta wear shades or you’ll see red spots!
Here’s a picture of the front dome on the port-side nacelle. In the middle, there’s a spinning disc with LED’s on it, which generate various patterns. Picture taken by Tim O’Sullivan.
These next three pictures, taken by our buddy Tim O’Sullivan (http://www.timzpix.com), show the interior of the shuttle. You can see some of the LCD displays, the lights, switches, etc. The first picture is looking forward, towards the front.
Stay tuned, more to come!!