SpaceX Falcon Heavy

Thank You

We did it! I would first like to thank each and every one of you for supporting and promoting this proposal from 0 to 10,000. Your engagement and passion for this project kept me motivated to continuously improve the set to my utmost ability. Thank you so much! I also want to thank my students, cullenwelch, AFOL Man, Now You Know, and Everyday Astronaut for all their support. A big shout-out to my siblings: Brad, Tiff, and Dan, for lending me their share of our 30-year old LEGO bricks to help get this project started. Also my mother, Renee, for her unyielding encouragement. And my wifey, Kari, for all her love and support while putting up with my constant mess and disheveled 3AM appearances these last few months. Wuv yew Karwis.

Let's Keep this Party Going

Although LEGO Ideas will soon lock this project down for preservational purposes, we should definitely keep this party going! I cordially invite you to join me at this project's official Facebook page here.

Those of you who love LEGO, space exploration, random things, and fun can catch me over at my modestly-sized YouTube channel: Cloudlicker.

I'm also on Twitter and Instagram. Forewarning: I don't use them much, but I keep telling myself I will ;)

A Future to be Excited for

There have been so many great NASA-themed LEGO sets to date. From the first LEGO space shuttle of 1990 to the magnificent LEGO Ideas Saturn V of 2017. But as the new space-race progresses, new players are making their mark on history. And because of what we have accomplished here, you and I are now a part of that history. For the first time ever, a SpaceX project has reached 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas! LEGO fans around the world are ready to see SpaceX become an official set. As a science educator, it thrills me to think about how many people this project could inspire to engage in space exploration technology. Perhaps contributing, in some small way, to a spacefaring future we can all be excited for.
In the coming months, LEGO will begin the review process and decide which proposals to green-light for production. I'm hopeful that our trailblazing project will be one of them.

So as we celebrate the past, and look to the future, I leave you with these words of encouragement:

"The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur." -Elon Musk

Kevin

Facebook: LEGO Ideas: SpaceX Falcon Heavy

YouTube: CloudLicker

Twitter: @cloudlicker_me

Instagram: cloudlicker_me

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” -Elon Musk

Hey Hey!

This is another update regarding some more of your feedback. It was pointed out that the fairing had room for improvement. Specifically, the bottom part. So I rounded it out. I also replaced most of the 1x6 curved bricks with quarter shells. The inside platform was also raised one stud to account for the changes.

A special thank you to jiraph52 over at reddit for his help with this.

Have a blessed memorial day.

-khehmeyer

School's out for summer!

One of the amazing perks of being a science teacher is that I actually get paid to talk about rockets. What's really exciting is that I get to lecture on the subject at a time when a new space race is underway. So I took the opportunity to use my FH as a means to really engage my students in the classroom this year. It worked. Maybe too well. Some students actually pulled out their contraband (cell phones) to run up to my desk to take pictures of it! Brave souls. However, their excitement was contagious and only got me more excited. If I can do my part to motivate our youth to get involved in STEM-related programs and careers, then I believe I've done my job successfully. And I like to think that the future of science and space exploration will benefit from what these kids bring to the table.

-Mr. Hehmeyer

Hello!

Finally the Block 5 upgrades to both the F9 and FH are complete.

Here is a list of all the changes that were made:

• Completely blacked the landing legs.
• Placed black tile pieces on the bottom rim of the boosters.
• Replaced white grid fins with "titanium" grid fins.
• Enlarged and centered a SpaceX decal on center booster.
• FH decal moved down from the interstage.
• Blackened the interstage.
• Blackened the nose cones.
• Blackened the booster struts.
• Installed completely new external piping on the center stage.
• Replaced the white piping on left booster with smaller black pipes.
• Blacked out the right booster's external pipes.
• Improved the second stage's external pipes.
• Made the second stage 2 studs taller.

The FH version may be subjected to some tiny adjustments in the future since nobody knows exactly what the Block 5 version of the FH looks like yet. What you see below was the result of all the research I did on the information currently available. No doubt not everybody will totally agree with what they see. For example: some people believe the nose cones of the side boosters will be white. While some believe they will be black. I decided to go with the latter because the top of the center core (the interstage) is now black on the F9. So to me it would make sense that the nose cones will also be black since they too are subjected to similar heating on re-entry. Oh and the black just looks more rad in my opinion :) Also I did not put any SpaceX decals on the side boosters for this upgrade. I seem to remember reading an article several months ago that quoted Elon Musk as saying he was planning on changing that because he felt it was too redundant or heavy-handed. Or maybe I'm misremembering. Time will tell.

After all the updates made to this project since its inception, the current piece count is about 2018. And the rocket now towers at 32 inches tall. I included some extra pictures of the Tesla, Crew Dragon, satellite, and stand just so the entire project is shown in this update.

Have a look at the new look below. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by and supporting!

-khehmeyer

Hi friends,

I'm very excited to share with you the latest updates to the FH. These improvements are another response to some of your recommendations. Some of you have mentioned that you would like to see more of a rounded top to the fairings. Well, after doing quite a bit of research online I did manage to find a piece that fits the design (see pics below). Furthermore, I once again made improvements to the nose cones of the twin boosters. I found some LEGO half-shells that worked nicely, but are only available in orange. So I painted them white. It's a price that had to be paid for building a physical FH instead of using the LEGO builder software. The nice thing about it is that while LEGO will not create new molds for approved projects, they will change the color of casts if need be. So all is well.

I hope you like these recent improvements. Thanks for supporting and sharing all your comments. Here's to wishing the first launch of the block 5 good luck tomorrow! I'll see you at the next update.

Hello hello,

It's time to reveal the next addition to this FH project. Several of you have requested a simple display stand be added to the rocket (similar to that of the Saturn V). A few of you took the idea a step further and requested an entire launch tower be built. I ultimately decided it would be best to meet in the middle. I wanted to add something that would resemble the hold-down stand of the real launch tower, but also function as a display stand. And to be completely honest I was actually pleasantly surprised by how sturdy the stand made the rocket when it was finished. You can actually slide the thing across the table and the rocket won't even wobble. Below are the pictures of the final product.

Thank you guys for all the positive feedback and suggestions I have received! I will be releasing the next big update soon :)

-khehmeyer

On February 10th, just three days after submitting this proposal, we made it onto the LEGO Ideas' "Popular this Week" list. Since that day we have managed to remain on it. All the love you guys have shown this project is truly amazing. I am very thankful for your support.

Also, I am almost finished building the next new addition to the FH kit. It's something several of you have requested. I'm hoping to have the update posted by next week.

Until that time,

khehmeyer