Cosmostrader

A kitbash of the Fliskits USS Grissom

I've never seen the movie but I found it with a Google search on "Comedy sci-fi spaceship". This ship is about as "mod" as it gets. It looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would design. In some photos it looks like there are 3 engines in the center, in others it looks like 4 and yet in some movie stills it looks like just one big motor. I went with three central motors. 

I bought the full kit version rather than the Descon version. That gave me all the paper in the instructions and the face card with which to work. I even used the NAR application! This kit has more parts than you can shake a stick at. I think the only thing in the kit I didn't end up using was the bag and the hang tag.

The Build

 This is the photo that I used to build the rocket. (3 motors?) I blew up the picture to several sizes and kept sizing up the nosecones to the printed picture. I finally ended up at around 300%. I then added cut lines for the fins and lines for the nosecones. (Click on the picture to see the full version) The printed picture was what I used for all dimensions. I then cut on the lines to make fin patterns. The fin tabs in the picture were much more generous than I needed but better to be safe than sorry.  I ended up making through-the-wall fins for the three main fins , but the fins on the outboard pods are glued right to the transition paper. 

Just to keep it a true kitbash, I made my own motor mount tubes using the order form paper. I cut 1" x 2" pieces and rolled them around a spent motor. Once dried, I glued in a section of tubing from the Grissom for a motor block. You can see in the picture how outboard pods were made this way. The central cluster was made by gluing 3 rolled tubes together and three motor blocks were then glued in. I then placed the three MMT assembly on to a piece of the face card and traced them and cut them out. This piece is the major diameter to which I glued both the forward and aft transitions. The three motor blocks fit nicely into the larger Grissom tubing. Motor hang on all MMT's is about 1/4".

I made the transitions using VCP and printed the pattern on the instructions. This is some pretty hefty paper. All totaled, I printed eight transitions. The larger diameter on these outboards were made from pieces of the face card stock. I had to sand the ojive out of the nose cones on the both the pods and the center nose cones. I did manage to get the ojive down to being more conical, but the main nose cone wasn't long enough to remove it completely.

The Finishing Touches

I made a 4" parachute using the center of the supplied plastic chute material, 1/3 of the string and half of each tape disc. The chute is a bit small, but I didn't have much room. To keep the weight down, I cut a small slit in the base of the nose cone and poked in the glue soaked piece of supplied Kevlar© thread. 

Once it was fully assembled and fillets were applied, I brushed a thinned out wood glue on all the transition paper to stiffen it up. The generous fillets were smoothed out and thickened up using Elmer's Fill 'n Finish. It took more time with the Fill 'n Finish and sanding the three coats of primer than it did building the whole rocket. Two coats of Testors metallic aluminum finished it off. The finished weight was 18 grams. 

Would it be stable? I didn't sim it but my instincts tell me it is, but just barely. The ship appears in  different colors in some of the different shots I found. It looked silver in the movie still so that's what I went with. Putting motors in the out boards was an option. I was afraid it would go way off course if one of the outboards didn't light, so the first flight will be on just the three central motors. 

The flight

I made an igniter assembly for it by soldering the leads onto  disassembled MicroMaxx igniters. To make sure I had enough power, I used my marine battery and my home made launch controller. I've never used MicroMaxx motors, but I soon found out that these little suckers jump right up to full speed right away. I lit several other models before doing the Cosmostrader so I could get used to them. I played heck trying to snap pictures of them as they ripped off the pad like little bottle rockets!  I finally got to the Cosmostrader. I took a picture of it on the pad, just incase I never saw it again, it shredded, or busted on impact. My wife did the countdown and sent it up. All three motors lit and she ascended into the heavens. Well, ok, into the air above my backyard. It went to about 40 feet, the nose popped off and the chute came out. The chute just started to open as it hit the ground. 

But Wait, there's more!

Although these next rockets are not part of my entry, I just wanted to share them with you. I just had so much building momentum,  I made several more rockets with the materials left over. Everything on these other rockets were made with the materials left over from the Grissom and all use MicroMaxx motors. Things like launch lugs and motor mounts were made with rolled instruction paper.

SR71 Whitebird	Lawn dart	Wacky Tube fin rocket
chute recovery	Back-slide	featherweight recovery
10 Grams	4 Grams	6 Grams
2 MM cluster	1 MM motor	2 MM motors
It flew but could have used a touch more nose weight.	This few very well.	It flew but only to about 50 feet.

And More!

Somgris flying saucer	Zamphier	Midnight Express (FlisKits paper tiger)
tumble recovery	tumble recovery	featherweight recovery
2 Grams	4.5 Grams	5 Grams
1 MM motor	1 MM motor	3 MM cluster
		(nothing yet)
I launched this sucker 3 times just trying to get a picture! Beautiful flight, every time!	This one corkscrewed. Not a pretty flight.