NASA Program Coaster/Paper Weight

I live on the Florida Space Coast and from my driveway watch launches from Kennedy Space Center. Many of my neighbors are involved in the space program. My next door neighbor is a team leader for NASA’s “Mobile Launcher 2” which will support the Space Launch System’s efforts to put astronauts and heavy cargo on the moon in preparation for sending humans to Mars. My neighbor is enamored with my Glowforge Plus and asked if I could make about 30 coasters/paper weights with their project logo. He is going to give one to each of his team members. So we collaborated and came up with a three-layer design (MDF base, MDF ring and Florida, and medium cast clear acrylic as the top engraved layer. My Glowforge did awesome rendering the logo (after some manipulation in Gimp); it took two passes to get it to where I wanted. So here’s the finished product:

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Very cool. My mom lives in Titusville and has had front row view from the river to see the launches. It’s an amazing sight. My husband and I are looking towards Satellite Beach/Melbourne Beach to move to sometime this year.

Very nice project.

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Easy living here, as I’m sure your mom told you. You would have a much better view of the launches at the beach, but it’s very cool no matter where you are viewing.

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Thanks. I think what I like most about using the GF is planning projects, or deconstructing images, and trying to make it all work. So precision in Inkscape and Gimp make this old guy focus and concentrate, and when things all come together, it’s a joy.

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This is very professional. I’m sure your neighbor and his team are delighted. Maybe they will send one to the moon for you! And then on to Mars of course.

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Wow, good job!

Nice work!

We docked at a fish camp on the Intracoastal once in the late 60’s. Did not pay much attention to where we were.
In the middle of the night, the boat was vibrating and there was this huge roaring sound. I thought we were being ground under a barge or something, and ran up to the deck in my nothings.
Just in time to see a cool rocket launch from the other side of the waterway.
Weird part was everyone else slept through it. That sort of thing worries you some.

I have intentionally seen a few more since, and a launch needs to get onto your bucket list if you have one.

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You will have better results with a vector version of the logos.

NASA_logo_black bechtel-logo-vector

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NIce job!

Ready for blast off.

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There are a few forum folk living in the area. In Gimp you can create an outline as a mask , save it as a path, and export it as an SVG into Inkscape and have nice sharp vector lines. Also along the way flip it backwards and engrave the back side of the clear acrylic. I worked on the Titan Launch thing many years ago commuting from Orlando, but got to watch a few Shuttle launches, and returns.

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Very cool. The layered idea for the coasters is what really makes this pop!

Thanks, Ryan. I was working from a jpg of the team’s logo, so had to deconstruct the logo (separate out Florida, for example) to get the different layers. Putting the launcher on a separate layer would have made it pop even more if I could figure out a way to “stain” the engraving, but since I was making 30 of these, I decided not to make it any more complicated. Given the fact the Glowforge was working from a jpg for the engraving, it did a very good job IMHO. A vector of the logo would have made it even better.

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Very cool. They will love them.

The manner laid out in Gimp above would have done that.

Very cool. Looking forward to it. :hugs:

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