Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: NASA Retro-Reflector Replica!
Adam makes a replica of one of NASA’s classic lunar experiments: a laser ranging retroreflector left on the Moon that are used for precise measurement of the orbit and orientation of the Moon relative to Earth. It’s a model that makes use of off-the-shelf prisms that mirrors light directly back to its point source, like the mirrors on road markers or bicycles. This replica is of the kind of retroreflector array NASA is sending with current Mars missions. And for this quick build, we see the debut of some tools like the sheet metal nibbler and unibit!
7 thoughts on “Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: NASA Retro-Reflector Replica!”
Leave a Reply
Show And Tell
Adam Savage’s Indiana Jones Grail Diary Prop Repli…
Adam shares one of his oldest movie prop replicas: a recreat…
One Day Builds
Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Hyperdodecahedron Mo…
A perfect weekend project is this beautiful model kit: the H…
Making
Adam Savage Tries on Puppet Mouth Masks!
Adam's love of puppets and affinity of masks get mashed up i…
Enter the Infinite Office – This is Only a Test 59…
Will guests this week as we discuss the major new features of the Oculus Quest 2's impending V28 software release and review the latest episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Plus, what we hope to see out of Apple and HTC's upcoming virtual events, and our hopes for Disney's mysterious lightsaber design! Thanks to Will for guestin…
One Day Builds
Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Painting Iron Man Ar…
Now that his Iron Man Mark I suit has been chrome painted an…
Making
Adam’s Vintage Automatic Testing Micrometer
Adam shows us this vintage automatic testing micrometer that…
Show And Tell
How Adam Stores His Vintage Aerospace Sunglasses
Last year, Adam showed us his vintage Ray-Ban aviator sungla…
Making
Ask Adam: Predicting Results on MythBusters
Tested member Steve B asked Adam, "In the early seasons of M…
One Day Builds
Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Galloping Horse Anim…
Adam has a background in animation, so it's with great pleas…
Making
Ask Adam Savage: How MythBusters’ Crew Size Change…
How did the MythBusters camera and safety crew size change t…
I think the considerable width of the O-rings really needed to be taken into account on the hole spacing for that to sell itself. Kinda looks more like a plastic DJ light from Party City than a piece of precision equipment :/
Looks a whole lot like what NASA and other space administrations have out in space currently.
Yeah only not really.
Looks close enough to me
Dude, try getting an inexpensive, small glue gun. They heat up fast and work well in tight spaces. They’re small enough so that you can rotate the point against the project severing those ‘tendrils’ that you don’t like. I stopped investing in expensive glue guns and never looked back.
Also, next time try using a larger clamp and secure the granite plate to the table, and hold the piece by hand. You can rotate it quickly making small marks and get the job done faster.
One more tidbit… as a woodworker, I discovered that most of the woodworking tools will cut aluminum. That may offer you more options in the future.
Great build, can’t wait to see what’s next
I remember certain observatories shooting a laser beam at the retroreflectors left on the moon.
I try and bring this fact up to the “sorry, but we never went to the moon, it was all fake” crowd. But I really don’t care what they think 🙂
This one is even closer to his model:
https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/spacecraft/laser-retroreflector-for-insight.html