An Duong is a Rolls Royce aerospace engineer and a great fan of SpaceX. On top of a great talent for designing 3D printable parts, he has a real passion for sharing 3D printing knowledge, awareness and educational projects. As a hobby, to both build on these passions and support these extra-curricular activities, he designs, prints and sells incredible replicas of SpaceX vehicles, such as this incredible 3D printed Starship model, via his MoreThan3D portal.
After the Dragon and Crew Dragon, the next major projects could only be SpaceX’s Spaceship, which is about to launch its SN9 prototype. Duong explained: “I remember when I was a young kid, I used to look at the sky on a clear night, counted the stars and wondered: “What’s out there?”
“I believe many of us dreamt of becoming astronauts, or being part of space exploration when we were little, and then started to realize that it was nothing but a fantasy when we grew up. But everything has changed! Thanks to Elon Musk and SpaceX, I am living my childhood dream, again! […] So I’ve decided to do something a bit crazy and hopefully, share my passion in space exploration to as many children (and adults) as possible by creating a MASSIVE 1/12 scale model of SpaceX’s Starship. Why did I say ‘MASSIVE’? Because it’ll be over 4 meters tall and it’ll probably be the largest 3D printed Starship spacecraft model you’ll ever see!”
Manufacturing on Demand
Duong’s current design is based on the SN8 and the upcoming SN9. The design will be modular so, as the real rocket is being developed, he can replace parts to keep it as accurate to the latest version as possible. Below are the 3 raptors that will be attached to the bottom of my starship. The next step would be to design a proper Thrust Puck to mount the 3 engines. As you can see, I made a very simple plate just to test the thrust vectoring gimbal mechanism and it looks great!”
Since this is such a unique project, Duong is sharing every step, every success as well as mistakes that he made along the way. Once completed, he will publish the STL files so anyone can make their own starship (at both 1/48 and 1/12 scales) on their own 3D printer. Duon usually also sells the completed products if for those who just want to own this piece of space art without having to build it.
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Author: Davide Sher
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