Based on my current experience, I’m wondering what the NASA engineers did when they were building the Saturn V and looked around and inevitably realized that they had some leftover parts. Probably figured someone was playing a joke on them and had a good laugh. But then perhaps started wondering about the possible effect of an oopsy on the first stage of a projectile hurtling through the atmosphere at 6164 miles per hour.

Personally, I’m choosing to believe that the five, small, untouched pieces of my set that don’t seem to belong anywhere, other than out of my line of vision, aren’t crucial to the integrity of the rocket, and will be just fine in a bag, in a drawer, rather than in the first stage construction.

This attitude probably means that I am not a “steely-eyed missile man” and should not be trusted with assembling anything with moving parts. That said, to the naked eye, the rocket is starting to take shape, though I keep wondering whether I am noticing, but should continue to disregard, what might be an almost imperceptible lean of the structure. How important could a few tiny pieces be?