Heart of Gold

from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

As popular as this book, trilogy, and myth are, there are very few pictures of the Heart Of Gold on the Internet. In fact, all of my design has come from the VHS movie with the exclusion of one picture that appeared on the net, although that appeared to be from the movie also and should be discounted.

Construction

Mainly, I wanted to design a rocket with an outer "shell" that would have a standard inner unit in order to fabricate more than one design (see my other entry)

First, I took 1/2" strip of the face card and fashioned a ring, I took another strip and glued it to the first one for reinforcement. I then took the three smallest tubes and cut them in half (three halves for each unit). I took the three tubes and glued them to the ring to make up the beginnings of a tripod.

I then took the two larger tubes and cut them in half. I then slit along the length of one tube and wrapped the un-cut one with the bag to protect from gluing. I then too the slit tube and put it over this assembly and glued two strips of the instruction sheet over the gap. I then glued the tripod to the larger tube.

I took the hang tag and cut this up to make motor mounts by wrapping them around a Micromaxx engine and gluing CAREFULLY. I made a total of six of these for both entries. I then glued them to the end of the uncut larger tubes.

At this point I realized that I should not have cut the tubes in half, as this would cause a lot of friction upon ejection. the then trimmed the uncut large tube to about 1/2" long. I then took the balsa nose cones, cut the points off, glued the kevlar between the widened large tubes and the "plugs made from balsa nose cones. I then made an Estes style motor mount and glued that to the motor mount.

Lost? this is a rear ejection unit. at ejection the engine mounts, uncut large tube, shock mount and kevlar are kicked out the back pulling the streamer till the kevlar reaches its full length. Think of the parachutes used on funny car dragsters.

Well, I had used most of the parts for the rocket units and the shell for my other entry, so I didn't have much left to use. I ended up using the instructions to make up the complete shell for the heart of gold. I took a slab of parafin wax and used a foam cutter to cut the general outline of the forward half of the ship. the rear half I made an open box to help with stability. I then soaked a sheet of instructions and pressed it onto the wax form. While being careful to avoid tears I made a few. after this dried I went and made a second for two halves of the forward hull. I them glued these together and painted the whole assembly with wood glue for strength. I them took small strips of the instructions and soaked them and glued them over the tears. I then added some crescents to the aft hull to simulate the protrusions as shown on the movie.

Anyway, I never played with Micromaxx, let alone a cluster. I heard some bits of rumor, including soldering. I went and loaded them up and put it on the pad Steve stopped by to punch the launch button while I snapped pictures.

Nice thing is, that with Micromaxx you can do all your prep indoors and use your back yard to launch!

Got off work, it was dark. Night Launch! In the headlights of my trusty truck I was able to get things all prepped.

IT WORKS! OK, something don't look right, does it? Only two of the three engines lit. Did not find this out til halfway through editing, and after all the GSE was put away. still counts, right?

Ready to go again.