Remembering when NASA stuck a Space Shuttle on top of a Boeing 747

Lego has released another NASA-themed set; this time, a version of the US space agency's Boeing 747-based Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with a Space Shuttle perched on top. Lego Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with Shuttle on top (pic: Lego) Lego Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with the Shuttle on top (pic: Lego) – click to enlarge It is …

[Flak]

Dear Santa...

Unfortunately my wife does not follow the Register, so I may need to drop some hints.

Actually saw the Space Shuttle Discovery coming in at Washington Dulles Airport in 2012 on the back of a 747 - totally unplanned and just happened to be there that day. Spectacular!

Had a second chance encounter with a Space Shuttle in NYC when the Enterprise came up the Hudson River on a barge a couple of months later. The crane to lift it from the barge to the deck of the Intrepid was the same one that lifted Sully's plane from the Hudson.

[Maurice Mynah]

Re: Dear Santa...

Blimey, I don't think all the lego I owned came to £200, it's not pocket money any more.

I had to make a special trip to see the Shuttle on top of a 747, had to cycle down from Cambridge to Stansted airport with some chums. I was very impressed that the whole setup worked.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Dear Santa...

"Blimey, I don't think all the lego I owned came to £200, it's not pocket money any more."

Was it ever "pocket money" prices? ISTR even the tiny little blue boxes that often had as few as 5-5 pieces in them were at least a full weeks pocket money and usually involved saving up enough because, well, kids. We still needed sweets and stuff too! Even Lego wasn't attractive enough to go without sweets for a week just for a paltry few Lego bricks! (I'm thinking late 60's early 70's here in the UK, for reference :-))

Some of the sets I remember getting as presents are Motor set, bigger and better motor set, and the Gear set[*] and one of the more expensive add-on I saved up for, the Light Brick set.

* I wonder if the picture of the ticker-tape thingy triggered my 7-8 year old imagination and got me interested in computers? Looks a bit like a paper tape punch or reader. I remember building it and feeding strips of paper through with stuff hand-written onto it, probably the 7 years olds answer to world peace from the "computer" :-)

[David 132]

Re: Dear Santa...

Heh - thanks for the links and the memories they sparked. My own Lego dabblings started circa 1980; I still have the 8860 and 8865 car chassis models (right here in front of me on my desk, in fact, and looking pretty darned good for being 40-45 years old). The light brick set that you linked to definitely brought back some long-buried memories; I imagine it was the one given to me for a long-ago birthday.

Fun (?) trivia fact of the day... I learned only a few months ago that "Forever Autumn", Jeff Wayne's iconic track from War of the Worlds sung therein by Justin Hayward, began life as the jingle for a 1969 Lego radio advert! Listen to the Lego advert here and compare with the War of the Worlds version of a few years later. So now the next time you're, say, captured by mad gunmen and threatened with violence unless you can name a connection between Lego and War of the Worlds... you'll be safe, and can thank me for it. No, really. :)

[Tim99]

Re: Dear Santa...

Kids, eh! In my days it was Meccano, and we were grateful, uphill both ways...

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Dear Santa...

I suspect most of us Lego users "graduated" onto Mecanno as a we got a little older :-)

[parlei]

Re: Dear Santa...

I actually kind of miss my old Mecanno set. That was fun to build things with.

[Aldnus]

Re: Dear Santa...

I completely missed Lego out and progressed straight to Meccano, as my father was a Mechanic and engineer he thought it more useful. he was right. Lego always felt childish and pointless to me as all anyone ever built was a house with not enough windowsf or silly cars that fell apart (if you where lucky enough to have enough wheels or the dog hadn't chewed one up. I had a good friend who was Lego Mad and had buckets of it and what did he build, Absolutely nothing. Now 50 years later with advent of technix lego, you can build stuff following instructions without the need for imagination. That i see is a step back.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Dear Santa...

I used to Lego build ships back in the late '60s and early '70s. Very few specialist bricks back then (although the 4x4 round turntable was a bit niche), the state of the art was round one-by-ones that had the grove cut at the bottom so they could fit between four studs, allowing me to use them as pivots for turrets and the base for masts on the centreline of the ships.

We still have some of this 50 year old Lego, now merged into my youngest(!) son's set (he's nearly 30 but is still interested in Lego), but he mainly makes pre-designed model, which get made and displayed. Sort of loses out on the real value of Lego.

I didn't graduate to Meccano. I went straight to fixing electronics!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dear Santa...

"Kids, eh! In my days it was Meccano, and we were grateful, uphill both ways..."

I had Meccano, but I also had Betta Bilda bricks, which was a cheaper version of Lego, made by Airfix (who also acquired Meccano in 1971 !!).

These used much smaller bricks, and a few extra bespoke items, like clip together green roof tiles. They also made "foundation-type" bases for the bricks to be built up on, forming a stable base for the building you were making.

https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Betta_Bilda

[Annihilator]

Re: Dear Santa...

"Blimey, I don't think all the lego I owned came to £200, it's not pocket money any more."

Well when did you buy it? Because if it was 1995, you're talking about the equivalent of £100 in 1995 money. It's always been "expensive". I've just rediscovered all my childhood lego, and a few are still with boxes and price tags (Woolworths, thanks for asking). 6450 (a light and sound police van) was apparently £8.99 for 87 pieces in 1986 - about 10p a piece. Adjusted for inflation, it should be about £26 - about 30p a piece.

Lego today still hovers at the 10p a piece mark. It's arguably cheaper, but some of the sets are getting bigger. Checking for the biggest set in 1986, it was about £65 (model 5580), equivalent to £200 today - or basically this model, but with a 1/3 of the pieces.

Yes, I put a lot of time and effort into justifying my purchase decisions to my wife :-)

[Rob Daglish]

Re: Dear Santa...

I look at Lego sets and think "gosh, that's expensive", win reality my kids are using the same sets I had nearly 40 years ago, and it's showing every likelihood they'll be perfectly usable by their kids in the fullness of time. I don't think any other thing from my past has lasted so well, so is it really that bad?*

Also, have you seen the price of model trains lately? Wow...

[phuzz]

Re: Dear Santa...

There's a few good pictures of a Shuttle sat ontop of it's 747, with Concorde in the background, eg. Now that would have been a sight to see

[Steve Davies 3]

At least

This one won't blow up before/during/after launch unlike a certain Musk Craft.

While the original shuttle was plagued with problems and led to two major failures, it proved that reusable spacecraft did work. A V2.0 Shuttle would have been a lot more reliable but by the time it came to retire the V1,0 models, the USA had lost the get up and go spirit that Pres Kennedy instilled into the nation.

I'm sure that if the Musk project does not show big improvements very soon, he'll pull the plug on it probably in a single tweet.

Well done Lego.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: At least

Talking of Musk...

The fictional Drax hijacked a shuttle off the back of a 747 ferry flight in the film Moonraker...

May be there will be some 3rd party sticker sets to depict shuttle from the film.

Hugo Drax/Elon Musk

Consonant/Vowel counts in first and last names match.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: At least

Yes, I wonder why they would transport a Shuttle fully fuelled.. Also didn't need the booster rockets, perhaps because it was launched from the 747? Why didn't NASA think of that?

Luckily I was too young at the time to let those kind of details distract me.

[Annihilator]

Re: At least

Not to mention fully fuelled without even having a fuel tank attached to it :-D

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: At least

Yes, artistic license has been stretched and is close to breaking. The main engines being fed from the external fuel tank in the real shuttle

[awavey]

Re: At least

Challenger, Columbia not ring any bells with you ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: At least

He is the bell. EOL.

[Persona]

Re: At least

Statistics show that 40% of the shuttles that went to space blew up killing all 7 astronauts on board.

Unfair, but true.

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: At least

Management assured the public and government that the chances of total loss were 1:100,000.

A certain Mr. Feynman disagreed, agreeing with the engineers.

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” It's a sombre statement.

[Annihilator]

Re: At least

Yep, from memory Feynman and the engineers put the failure rate at about 1 in 50. Which as it turned out, was still optimistic for the first failure.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: At least

"Yep, from memory Feynman and the engineers put the failure rate at about 1 in 50. Which as it turned out, was still optimistic for the first failure."

But that turned out to be pretty much spot on for the entire shuttle programme (2 failures in 135 missions).

That was the catastrophic failure rate, which according to Feynman's book, he worked out by asking the engineers for their estimate of the systems they looked after being responsible for a total mission loss and working out the probability of at least one of those events happening. NASA management took the same estimates but came up with the 1:100000 figure by ANDing the estimates together. ie they calculated the probability of all possible catastrophic failure happening simultaneously! Feynman pointed this error out to them and was appalled at their indifference. But he also acknowledged the huge pressure that NASA was under from the government at the time, hence NASA saying that things like how the shuttle was inherently safe "by necessity" ie they _had_ to say that, even if it wasn't true.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: At least

"NASA management took the same estimates but came up with the 1:100000 figure by ANDing the estimates together. ie they calculated the probability of all possible catastrophic failure happening simultaneously! "

Management trying their hand at being scientists. Never ends well. But their egos and wallets sure get inflated.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: At least

And that 40% of the shuttles flew 94.7% of their mission and safely returned. The remaining 60% of the shuttles flew 100% of their 97 missions safely returning each time.

[Persona]

Re: At least

My 40% quip was showing how statistics can be deceptive. But so are the statistics showing how many missions "safely" returned.

2 catastrophic failures (STS-51-L, STS-107).

3 near-misses with high failure probability (STS-1, STS-27, STS-93).

6 missions with significant foam strikes (STS-7, STS-32, STS-50, STS-52, STS-62, and others noted in CAIB reports).

Aside from the 9 they were lucky to survive there were about 20 more with serious concerns often discovered post flight. Just because they didn't blow up doesn't mean they "safely" returned.

[that one in the corner]

Re: At least

> . Just because they didn't blow up doesn't mean they "safely" returned.

If they landed without damaging anything/anyone in the process, then they returned safely. No scare quotes needed.

If a flying vehicle loses two thirds of its wings, all but one of its engines and the top of its tailplane, but still lands without damaging anything/anyone then it has landed safely. Ok, this one is somewhat hyperbolic, but considering the damage that planes suffered during wartime yet returned and landed safely...

Similar usage usage for cars: "despite the tyre having been lost, he was able to maintain sufficient control to safely come to a halt away from the carriageway".

I know what you are trying to get at: due to the situation, they were in (increased) peril during the process of returning and landing, but once the process was complete it was done so safely.

[MyffyW]

Re: At least

The Space Shuttle was a flawed design in that it tried to perform too many tasks in one vehicle:

- Human access to LEO (Soyuz and later CrewDragon have proven more economic)

- Satellite launches (you don't need wings or life support for that)

- Satellite retrieval (interesting, but not something to include in your version 1 vehicle)

- Downrange manoeuvrability (quite what the US military where intending to do with that is anyone's guess*, AFAIK it was never used but it's why the shuttle had those delta wings)

As an example of human ingenuity, it's worth celebrating. As an effective space vehicle, less so.

[*This downrange capability did worry the Soviet Union, so as part of some great-game nonsense maybe there was some value]

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: At least

I wouldn't say flawed, but certainly the shuttle programme had to include a lot of varied missions.

One of which was purely military, to launch spy satellites that previously had gone up on uncrewed rockets. The dimensions of those satellites were already well defined having been driven by the imaging requirements back in the 1950s and this drove the size specs for the space shuttle's payload bay. When the ISS came into being, the size of the modules was defined by what would fit in the shuttle bay.

So following that thread, the ISS modules up there now are the size and shape they are because of technical design decisions made by scientists and engineers working on spy satellites about 70 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: At least

"This one won't blow up before/during/after launch unlike a certain Musk Craft."

'Enterprise' was never launched, was it? It was used for the landing tests (hence the 747) but I don't believe it was ever launched into space?

[MyffyW]

Re: At least

Correct, in common with it's Lego model it had plastic tiles.

It was built for aerodynamic testing, with potential to convert to space use that was never exercised.

[frankvw]

Ironic

And sad, too... when Lego can show more accomplishments than NASA right now. :-(

[WonkoTheSane]

Won't be getting this set

However, LEGO™ have just announced the winners of this quarter's IDEAs review, and those WILL be getting my moneys.

* The rocket & launch tower from Tintin's "Destination Moon"

* Godzilla (Monsterverse version)

Mine's the one with a brick separator in the pocket

[Roj Blake]

Re: Won't be getting this set

But still no rocket from A Grand Day Out

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Won't be getting this set

Surely that would be a Meccano set ?

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: Won't be getting this set

They need to develop the 'Cream Crackers' model first.

[jake]

Don't tell Congress!

It'll no doubt be banned for miscegenation.

[An_Old_Dog]

The Other One

I'm waiting for a LEGO kit of the other one -- a Buran attached to the top of a Mriya.

[Roland6]

Re: The Other One

To the same scale?

[Xalran]

Re: The Other One

That would be great.

[Roland6]

Re: The Other One

There is this version also at 1/110th scale:

MOC-95312 1:110 Buran with Antonov AN-225 Carrierplane

Don’t know to what extent you could replace the Gobricks used with Lego bricks…

[Dabooka]

Nope, that's awful

Forgive the negativity but at some point something needs to be said; that 747 is laughable.

It needs a custom nose minimum, it's too far off to be even funny or quirky. £200+...?

[Scotthva5]

Re: Nope, that's awful

Beat me to it, it looks god-awful. At this point Lego is just trolling their fan base.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: Nope, that's awful

Given the scale of it, I think it's pretty good. At that scale, it will never be smooth and aerodynamic anyway and I think they've captured the overall sense of the bulging front end of the 747 fairly well for the brick size.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nope, that's awful

It sure is a matter of taste but most of the 17 LEGO photos with different angles and distances, linked in 'two sets in one', do look quite alright to me.

[David 132]

Re: Nope, that's awful

OTOH, I do have sympathy for the "stop making custom pieces for just one set" argument. I recently built the 10321 Corvette model - a birthday present! - and, not having built any Lego from kits since circa 1990, I was startled by how few custom pieces there were. Whilst the lines of the 1961 Corvette source were replicated with a fair degree of accuracy, it seemed obvious that most of the pieces had applications elsewhere and weren't "Corvette-specific".

But I do wish that this Reg article had a photo of the finished model in profile, so that we could judge for ourselves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nope, that's awful

Agree.

Not even close.

Even its own mother would reject that one.

[imanidiot]

It's a nice-ish set and I don't think it's THAT expensive given current LEGO pricing in general, but I too have passed on this set. For one due to lack of a place to put it, but also because I just don't like the aesthetic of it. There's just something a little off about it. Not enough to not make it immediately recognizable but also just enough to make me not care about it.

[Spamfast]

For one due to lack of a place to put it

Build it, have it clutter up the dining room table for a couple of weeks until it starts collecting dust and complaints from the significant other then break it up and put the bits in the big box under the bed.

Or are you one of these sadsacks who keep all their built Lego kits in a cabinet for ever - Airfix/Revell Models for Dummies style?

Do you superglue the bricks together to stop your creations from falling apart as well?

¡CHECK THE ICON! ;-)

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

A shuttle of that scale looks familiar

I believe I've seen a LEGO Space Shuttle of similar scale before: 1990's set #1682, where all the proportions were wrong, the external tank was gray, and the tower was fixed on the ground instead of on the Mobile Launcher Platform. (And forget the whole long ramp, Crawler-Transporter, etc.)

This shuttle appears to be just a little larger (if anything -- the scale of the bay doors is about the same) and with more custom parts, but I bet I could make my old version fit that 747.

My son has a pretty decent looking non-LEGO 737 MAX 8 model (which hasn't crashed as many times as it's real counterpart) that I could marry ye ol' shuttle to. Fixed landing gear, but it might be good enough to educate the kids.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Maximum profit

Sadly, Lego rejected my suggestion for maximizing their profit margin, which was to create a line of Cisco networking equipment made out of Lego.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Maximum profit

Lego aren't contractually allowed to do that, until they've built my bloody flying car!

[Nelbert Noggins]

Oh dear, I'd hoped after Artemis Lego might have given up on trying to shrink too far.

The Rover, Discovery, Apollo Lunar Lander, Perseverance, even Saturn V are a good size. There is even a small Lego City set space shuttle that looks better than what is in this set. :(

Thankfully the new Pixar Luxor Jr set is very nice (and cheaper)

Hopefully Lego will return to sensible sized NASA sets in future and not these odd looking attempts.

[Mage]

Boing!

Some day all Boeings might look like that.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Boing!

The X-32 prototype kind of did, in my opinion. Strangely, the Air Force didn't love it and went with X-35 instead.

[BartyFartsLast]

Very nice

Just in time for a nice chunk of overtime pay next week.

I actually saw the Shuttle being carried piggyback flying over Manchester UK, an incredible sight.

[Dr_N]

Re: Very nice

Yes, I also remember seeing it when at school as it flew over on a stop-off in the UK. 40 odd years ago.

[Nematode]

Remember...? Yes, I ruddy well do. We were on holiday on a narrow boat near Heyford, two families, each Mum Dad & 2 kids. I was taking the boat through a lock and wondered where all the help had gone. The boat was kicking around with the influx of water having had the ropes demanned by said disappeared crew and for some reason whilst managing it all alone, I stubbed my sockless big toe, which bled everywhere and ruddy hurt. Eventually the crew returned and asked me "Did you see the Shuttle go over?". Blue words emerged, mainly at their negligence making me really hurt my toe, and after a little while more words on why tf did they not realise I couldn't see it due to being deep in a lock? Of course, the water rush had blanked out the 747's noise.

No, I ruddy well don't want a Lego version, it'll only remind me.

[TheProf]

This is LEGO?

Looks like it was built in Minecraft.

[anonymous boring coward]

I do love Lego. I wonder if something like a 2/3 scale version of Lego would be a good idea? (2/3 in one dimension would be a pretty significant reduction in volume per piece.)

[I ain't Spartacus]

You're not asking for a 2/3 scale lego shuttle then? Shame. Would be amazing. Maybe just a tad expensive, and hard to get in your sitting room. But amazing, nonetheless.

[Luiz Abdala]

What do you mean, there is no RC version of it?

Ok, a first glance on google showed no RC version of a 747 with a shuttle on top, in flyable toy version.

Static displays, you got both for the 747 with Shuttle and the Antonov 225 Mirya with the Buran on top, though.

Apparently, there is a Space Shuttle RC on its own, but no 747 attached for mere US$26.95 (https://www.museumofflightstore.org/).

That would be interesting.