My newest Space creation is the Lunar Mobile Lounge which has actually been at several BayLUG meetings, even though I never posted about it here.
The concept is based on the “mobile lounges” at Dulles (Washington, D.C.) International Airport, which ferry passengers from one terminal to another. However in this case, they ferry people to their waiting spacecraft which landed nearby. Since most spacecraft that people build out of LEGO don’t have wheels, it would be hard for them to dock to the moonbase – it would require some very high-precision flying to land right at a moonbase connector! Therefore I felt there was a need to be able to carry people to and from spacecraft.
Since the spacecraft might have doors that vary in height, I used a scissor lift mechanism to allow this vehicle to raise and lower the passenger compartment – something the Dulles lounges also can do – to match whatever height is needed. You might remember I asked back in March about ways to do this – I ended up using a worm gear to drive, through a short geartrain, a spool that would wind up a string that was attached to the moving leg of the scissor lift.
The vehicle is equipped with an airlock which includes the moonbase connector. The airlock has two doors to the outside – the moonbase connector and a door with stairs leading to the ground (when the vehicle is lowered all the way, that is). There is one interior door, a sliding door which connects the passenger area with the airlock. On the roof you can see the plumbing for the airlock mechanism – hoses and compressors and a big tank for air which are used to alternately drain and fill the air in the airlock and passenger areas. On the underside of the roof are the vents for taking air in and out of these areas.
Click the photo above to see more, or click to look on Flickr (slideshow) or on Brickshelf (pending moderation).[tags]lego,space,moonbase[/tags]
One thought on “Lunar Mobile Lounge”
Comments are closed.