@Spidermanager:
I’m watching the cross-country portion of Men’s Nordic Combined at the Winter Olympics, and I was wondering why there were patches of snow surrounding the course that looked dark, and then I realized it’s the middle of the night and the course is lit up like high noon with a sea of floodlights.

@Harmonious_Building:
Oh, but we have plenty of time now, and modern sets to compare them with.

@NatureBricks said:
"I had this set as a kid. I lost probably 90% of it before I was 6."

Well that explains your username, lol!

I have this! Brand new! And for sale if anyone is looking, then YOU can be number 3,626

@Spidermanager said:
"At least they won’t get bombarded by traffic, they’ve got enough lights on this thing to rival Las Vegas."

They were just ahead of their time...oversized loads these days seemingly have a million warning lights.

I had this set as a kid and the Shuttle is one of the few that I kept build from then till now.

First real space shuttle lego build.
Sadly it has stickers and they didn't had new prints for the figs.
Still a great build sadly I lack display space

@deathmoth said:
"(I used to un-hitch the trailer and stand it upright when it was blastoff time.)"

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a picture in a Lego catalog of the shuttle standing on it's tail like it was ready for liftoff. I don't think the trailer was anywhere in the picture.

This came out arou d the time I entered my Dark Age, so I missed it. For 400 pieces, there is certainly a lot going on here.
I much prefer these old motorbikes to the new ones.

It's a great set!
So much to play with, and also in combination with 6339. Can't remember if the shuttle of that set also fit on the trailer (don't think so) - minus boosters of course.
Do remember getting a little frustrated with the rear support (the little fence-piece) always being bumped off. Also I was really intrigued by the use of a 2x3 plate to enlarge the rear deck of the motorcycles, as well as the technique to make the truck a 5-wide.

I've got this build last year (partially taken apart by now i'm afraid) for my boys. Unfortunately, some of the "fingers" of the arm have broken off - must remember to get them from BL.

I never thought of the problem of shuttle transport in a world of 4 wide vehicles before. I love all the wheels on the trailer, although I wonder would you ever transport something as heavy a shuttle and have the wheels hanging in the air rather than sitting on the trailer.

I got this set for my 10th birthday, so this article evokes happy memories!

I got back into LEGO in 2019, and what often surprises me is that certain part types are much older than I realized. For example, the "Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 1 1/3 with Curved Top" already appears in this set, whereas I thought that it was a relatively new part.

If only they made this set a decade earlier. For me as a kid this would have been the ultimate Lego set, impossible to top.... I mean, Space Shuttle!

@ambr said:
"I never thought of the problem of shuttle transport in a world of 4 wide vehicles before. I love all the wheels on the trailer, although I wonder would you ever transport something as heavy a shuttle and have the wheels hanging in the air rather than sitting on the trailer."

The shuttle is hanging on the booster as well, so these are strong points and can carry the weight of the shuttle. Not transporting on the wheels is to avoid the flattening of the tires over time while standing still.

I got this set for christmas as a kid. I think the first christmas i can remember, i would have been 4

Are they really a 'launching crew' though?

Is there any lore or head canon as to what the Launch Command "V" means? Brickipedia was a bust.

LOOK how much playability this simple set has .
Today it would cost $49.99 / 39.99€ (comparing price to new City set pricing)
Yet it has more stuff than any City set in this price.

@DaBigE:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4YuyLYfpcXk

Yup, tons of warning lights. For those who wonder, this is a video of a “superload” that recently made the news regarding its multi-day trip through Pennsylvania. By my count, the trailer (2 lanes wide and sitting on a dozen fifth-wheels) and rig combined sit on 110 tires, and I wasn’t even aware until watching this video that they apparently had another truck tethered to the back end (I’m guessing to help with braking and maintaining control on declines).

@Reinier:
Maybe it’s the Soviet Buran, a compact-sized knock-off of the NASA orbiter, which flew a single unmanned mission before being destroyed when its hanger collapsed.

@Brickodillo:
Nope. The riders need to be wearing fezzes and doing figure-8’s in the middle of a parade.

@ambr:
Well, the real orbiter got strapped to the top of a 747 and flown from Texas to Florida. To get to the launch pad it was mounted to a platform on Sandcrawler-sized tank treads. And of course it flew from Florida to Texas (after a slight detour, of course). I don’t know that they were ever transported in this manner, except probably when being sent to the various museums where they currently reside. And in those cases it probably wasn’t just a standard flatbed as seen here.

@rahlmaclaren:
Best guess is...5? That’s a number that, in Roman numeral form, was heavily associated with NASA, due to the Saturn V rockets used during the Apollo moon missions, Apollo-Soyuz mission, and Skylab mission.

You wouldn’t believe how much I wanted this set as a kid.

Well, you probably would actually.

It’s Lego after all.

@rahlmaclaren said:
"Is there any lore or head canon as to what the Launch Command "V" means? Brickipedia was a bust."

I didn't think much about it as a kid, but looking at it as an adult who works in the aerospace industry, I read it as sort of emblematic of "bridging the heavens to the earth", or maybe as a stylized wing figure representing flight. Interestingly, 31107 and 31117 both have a 'blue over red stripe', which I don't think is a coincidence.

If it went the other way -- a red "?" pointing up through the blue line -- I would interpret it as a reference to the red vector on the NASA round insignia (the official name for the chevron or "swoosh" figure, representing hypersonic flight), to the bar-less "A" of the NASA worm, or more generally as a rocket launch leaving the Earth and rising through the heavens.

I remember seeing this set every morning as a kid, since I had that poster from 6397 hanging in my room...

Sadly I never got this set though... I really like those space shuttle logos. Finding out that all of them were stickers was a bit disappointing, I always thought that 2x2 tile was a print.

Also note that this set was for a long time the only set to come with maxifig/Aquazone arms. They even introduced the new arm segment with Technic pin for this set, so they could get rid of the pre-assembled brick they used before.

The strange thing is that many catalogues used non-photograph images to show how the Canadian arm worked, but half of these didn't show this set, but 1682 instead! Given that the older set was never available outside the US it was quite weird to see an image of this 'non-existing' set^^

One of my favourite sets when I was younger. Still have it and the box.

@Atuin said:
"I remember seeing this set every morning as a kid, since I had that poster from 6397 hanging in my room...

Sadly I never got this set though... I really like those space shuttle logos. Finding out that all of them were stickers was a bit disappointing, I always thought that 2x2 tile was a print.

Also note that this set was for a long time the only set to come with maxifig/Aquazone arms. They even introduced the new arm segment with Technic pin for this set, so they could get rid of the pre-assembled brick they used before.

The strange thing is that many catalogues used non-photograph images to show how the Canadian arm worked, but half of these didn't show this set, but 1682 instead! Given that the older set was never available outside the US it was quite weird to see an image of this 'non-existing' set^^"

It's true and I didn't notice for 30 years! I guess promotion was out before the design was finalised X)

This is probably the grandest set I was ever given, but never fully assembled. I believe I assembled the shuttle itself, and the escort vehicles (only to dismantle them later). But never the truck. I received it at my grandparents house, away from the rest of my then tiny Lego collection. I lost just one wheel and abandoned it. I can't even remember what end the wheel was from, but it was probably the tractor unit. I had no other wheels like that.

While the set was never completed, It did become the ultimate Classic Town parts supply. By modern standards, this set looks unfinished, particularly with with very generic figures (I would have expected the escort riders at least to wear police uniforms).This very characteristic, however, really lends itself to parts supply for MOCs. Indeed, I believe I still have all the parts, But I cannot rebuild the set, because most of the parts are in MOCs which are quite precious to me. One of the riders is now a pilot for my 31071.

I think the most precious items in the set were actually the motorbikes. Throughout my KFOL days, I only ever had four of those classic motorcycles, two from this set, and one each from sets 6644 and 6664. I really longed for the large pack of motorbikes they had at school, but that was a schools only set!

@Atuin said:
"
The strange thing is that many catalogues used non-photograph images to show how the Canadian arm worked, but half of these didn't show this set, but 1682 instead! Given that the older set was never available outside the US it was quite weird to see an image of this 'non-existing' set^^"

It gets worse. My 1992 catalogue (which I still have) not only shows the older set in that diagram, but instructs you to 'take off fuel tank and rockets.' In my country, those parts would not be available until 1995!

@PurpleDave said:
" @DaBigE:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4YuyLYfpcXk

Yup, tons of warning lights. For those who wonder, this is a video of a “superload” that recently made the news regarding its multi-day trip through Pennsylvania. By my count, the trailer (2 lanes wide and sitting on a dozen fifth-wheels) and rig combined sit on 110 tires, and I wasn’t even aware until watching this video that they apparently had another truck tethered to the back end (I’m guessing to help with braking and maintaining control on declines)."

The tractor in the back is like adding a second locomotive to a train, but in this case, it also helps the back end steer better. After a certain length, the rear steering on the trailer becomes less effective without some power behind it.