Autochrome

This is looking great! Better than my challenge submissions anyway lol

I’ve been reading the beginning of Proxima for a few days now and saw the pictures, but I didn’t know you helped with the KSP screenshots. Nice work! Also, I feel you with the midterms, schoolwork has been eating up a lot of my time recently, preventing me from working on my timeline.

I might try and reattempt these challenges if I have time because it’s been almost a year since I first did them, and with a shuttle that looks bad by my today’s standards.

1559

When I came to my senses, there was a large crater in front of me, the nearby forest was on fire, and the small river I had discovered earlier had been destroyed. I quickly limped away from the scene with my injured leg and guessed that the orbital missiles were again, sent by the mysterious KFATA, and the device inside of the satellite was a trap, probably for me although I don’t know why. As the crater receded from my sight and there was no sign of civilization close, I wondered how I was going to survive in the wilderness now, without any food or shelter.

So it did blow up, but on reentry.

@Dr. Kerbal I see that this challenge is dead. Would you want me to do the challenge again on a harder difficulty to “revive” it?

I can also agree that this looks great!

ET Refueling Mission 5 - Under Nuclear Power - March 1985 I'm going to start putting the updates of this timeline of this thread in spoilers, because it already has a thread of its own, and I don't want this to take up a lot of space on its "secondary" thread.

ET Refueling Mission 5 - Under Nuclear Power - March 1985 This update is a bit late because I have been busy with other things outside and inside KSP, but I hope this post makes up for it. The Aquarius Program: Part 4 After realizing the current method of using solar power was not enough to prevent boiloff of the Hydrogen Fuel, NASA prepares a small nuclear reactor to tag along for the next refueling mission, ETRM-5, to provide power, as a Plan B in case of this situation. The nuclear reactor and the Centaur R combined is going to use the upper limit of the Titan IIIE's payload capacity. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ March 2, 1985, Launch Day of ETRM-5 The Titan IIIE sits on the pad at Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, waiting for launch. ETRM-5 lifts off from the pad to space! The Titan executes a 90 degree roll program. Pitching over to achieve orbit of the Earth. Booster Separation The first stage of the rocket continues the climb to orbit. Fairing Separation, revealing the Centaur R and nuclear reactor payloads. Stage Separation The second stage finishes the journey to orbit. Orbital Insertion completed with 11m/s left in the second stage. Payloads Deploy Correction Burn of the Centaur R and the nuclear reactor to arrive at the ET Refueler. The Centaur R reaches the ET Refueler with the reactor in tow. The Centaur aligns with the secondary docking port on the External Tank. Docked Undocking from the Nuclear Reactor to dock to the primary docking port. Docked to the refueling port. The Centaur R begins to refuel the ET. After the refueling is finished, the Centaur is discarded via destructive reentry through the atmosphere. After the deorbit of the the Centaur, the nuclear reactor is powered up to provide power to the Refueler during the dark portions of its Earth orbit.

Here's a Sneak Peek of the Next Aquarius Program Post... (Sorry this post is a bit late, I have been busy with other things outside and inside KSP, but I hope this post will make up for it in the next few days.)

The next post is going to be delayed, due to schoolwork and other KSP projects I'm working on. Expect it to come out sometime next week, if anyone wanted to know.

Now that we are three posts into this little sub-mini series I’m doing, what are everyone’s thoughts on it? This is my first time doing anything like this, so I want to make sure I’m doing it right.

The insulation is similar to the one used on the S-IVB, which was better at preventing boil-off than the normal Shuttle insulation. In addition, I'm using power to stop the boil-off. Lastly, I don't need to fill the entire ET, just to around half.

ET Refueling Missions 2-4 - More of Them Bite the Crust - February 1985 Nothing much in this small update, just a progress report on the status of the missions to the ET Refueler. The Aquarius Program: Part 3 After the first launch of the Centaur R, the rest of them and their Titan IIIE counterparts are prepared to head to space and visit the modified External Tank. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ETRM-2 February 5, 1985, ETRM-2 Launch of ETRM-2 Payload Deploy Docked Disposal of Centaur R through Reentry. ETRM-3 February 11, 1985, ETRM-3 Launch of ETRM-3 Payload Deploy Docked Disposal of another Centaur Refueler through reentry. ETRM-4 February 18, 1985, ETRM-4 Launch of ETRM-4 Payload Deploy Docked; refueling process begins. Death of the fourth Centaur R to Earth's atmosphere.

ET Refueling Missions 2-4 - More of Them Bite the Crust - February 1985 Nothing much in this small update, just a progress report on the status of the missions to the ET Refueler. The Aquarius Program: Part 3 After the first launch of the Centaur R, the rest of them and their Titan IIIE counterparts are prepared to head to space and visit the modified External Tank. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ETRM-2 ETRM-3 ETRM-4 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ That's it for this update, and I hope that you have a great day!

Alright, I have another problem. The Hydrogen in the ET is boiling off too rapidly to stop, which I expected, so I turned on the boiloff prevention option using electricity. However, the battery runs down and the hydrogen starts to boil off after the battery dies, so I am basically back to where I started before every Centaur R refueling mission. Do any of you know how to refuel the ET without all of the hydrogen boiling off with Centaur R's or another vehicle? Edit: This could potentially work, but it might take 25 Centaur R's or more, which would way too long for every Space Shuttle Moon mission (I'm almost starting to think the Shuttle was not meant for this ).

ET Refueling Mission 1 - Return of the Toxic King - January 28, 1985 Here is the second post of this alternate timeline, which I have decided to name "You Are Go For TLI", or "Go For TLI" for short. I made a standalone thread for these posts, which can be found here. I hope you enjoy this installment of the series, and have a great day! The Aquarius Program: Part 2 After the launch of the External Tank Refueler on a Saturn V, NASA prepares for the first launch of the modified Centaur G refuelers, called the Centaur R, to dock with the modified ET on a Titan IIIE, which was last launched in 1977, but is brought from the dead for these series of missions. Two weeks later, a Titan IIIE is rolled out to Launch Complex 41's pad for ETRM-1, one of the many missions required to get the ET Refueler enough to refuel a Shuttle's External Tank. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 28, 1985, Launch Day of ETRM-1 The Titan IIIE with the Centaur R sits on the pad at Launch Complex 41. We have a liftoff of the first ET refueling mission of many! We have confirmation of Roll Program. Surpassing the speed of sound; Max-Q. Pitching over to get into Earth Orbit. Booster Separation. Fairing Separation. First Stage Separation; continuing to orbit. Orbit Achieved of Earth; Payload Deployed. Solar Panel Deployment. Correction Burn to reach the ET Refueler. The sunlight shines on the Centaur R as it draws closer to the modified ET. The target has been spotted; the docking attempt of the Centaur R begins. We have soft capture of the Centaur R. Hard dock achieved. The sun sets on the ET Refueler-Centaur R combination; refueling process starts.| The refueling process is finished; Centaur R gets ready to undock. The Centaur undocks, and leaves the ET behind. Deorbit Burn of the Centaur R on RCS. Death of the first Centaur R from reentry. (o7) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ With this first mission done, the rest of the first set of Centaur R's and their Titan IIIE's are prepared for launch to the ET Refueler.

ET Refueling Mission 1 - Return of the Toxic King - January 28, 1985 The Aquarius Program: Part 2 After the launch of the External Tank Refueler on a Saturn V, NASA prepares for the first launch of the modified Centaur G refuelers, called the Centaur R, to dock with the modified ET on a Titan IIIE, which was last launched in 1977, but is brought from the dead for these series of missions. Two weeks later, a Titan IIIE is rolled out to Launch Complex 41's pad for ETRM-1, one of the many missions required to get the ET Refueler enough to refuel a Shuttle's External Tank. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 28, 1985, Launch Day of ETRM-1 The Titan IIIE with the Centaur R sits on the pad at Launch Complex 41. We have a liftoff of the first ET refueling mission of many! We have confirmation of Roll Program. Surpassing the speed of sound; Max-Q. Pitching over to get into Earth Orbit. Booster Separation. Fairing Separation. First Stage Separation; continuing to orbit. Orbit Achieved of Earth; Payload Deployed. Solar Panel Deployment. Correction Burn to reach the ET Refueler. The sunlight shines on the Centaur R as it draws closer to the modified ET. The target has been spotted; the docking attempt of the Centaur R begins. We have soft capture of the Centaur R. Hard dock achieved. The sun sets on the ET Refueler-Centaur R combination; refueling process starts.| The refueling process is finished; Centaur R gets ready to undock. The Centaur undocks, and leaves the ET behind. Deorbit Burn of the Centaur R on RCS. Death of the first Centaur R from reentry. (o7) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ With this first mission done, the rest of the first set of Centaur R's and their Titan IIIE's are prepared for launch to the ET Refueler, which will be in the next few posts of this alternate history series.

Not going to lie, I kind of forgot about this thread, but it looks great so far! Keep it up!

The Aquarius Program - Space Shuttle to the Moon This is a project I am doing in KSP that I'm currently posting in Space Shuttle Adventures, but I thought it might deserve its own thread, so I'll put the posts here. This Alternate History of the Space Shuttle is where I try to send a Shuttle to the Moon in 2.5x KSRSS. The main goal of this timeline is to set up some sort of crewed station in Low Lunar Orbit, and potentially find water on the poles of the Moon. The rest will be explained in later posts in this thread. I hope you enjoy this Alt-Space Shuttle History, and make sure to nitpick this timeline if you want to, so I can improve it in the future. I already made the first post of this timeline in the Space Shuttle Adventures thread, so I'll just repost it here. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STS-200 - A New Beginning - January 14, 1985 The Aquarius Program: Part 1 In the late 1970's, NASA officials realize the Space Shuttle's potential to return humans to the Moon after the Apollo Program, and devise a program to do so, the Aquarius Program. The main goals of this program are to return people to the Moon permanently, and second and most important, to discover ice at the Lunar Poles, to possibly use for drinking water at a Lunar Base, or to make rocket fuel for refueling depots in orbit. The way that NASA has planned to send a shuttle to the Moon is to launch a External Tank Refueler on one of the last remaining Saturn V's, and to slowly fill up the empty tank with modified Centaur-G's launched by Shuttles or Titan III launch vehicles, then dock with a Space Shuttle's ET that the shuttle carries with it to orbit. The shuttle will then ignite its modified Block III RS-25's and burn for the Moon. Workers immediately begin on modifying an unused External Tank for use a refueler, and paired it up to the two stages of the SA-514 Saturn V, slated for launch in the beginning of 1985. The External Tank Refueler will be reusable, so hopefully the last remaining Saturn V will not have to be sacrificed for the sake of human exploration. With the beginning of the explanation of the Aquarius Program out of the way, let's fast forward to the launch of the modified External Tank on the Saturn V. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 14, 1985, Launch Day of STS-200 The Saturn V with the ET Refueler sits out on Pad 39A, waiting to launch to a 28.5 degree inclination orbit. We have F-1 Main Engine Start. Liftoff! We have a Liftoff! We have cleared the tower! Beginning to pitch downrange of the launch site. We have confirmed shutdown of the 5 F-1 engines; S-II Stage Separation. J-2 Engine Ignition. We have confirmation that the S-II Skirt has been jettisoned. The S-II Stage continues to orbit with the empty External Tank Refueler. Beautiful views of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. Pitching down to insert into Low Earth Orbit in only one continuous burn. Nominal Insertion into orbit; shutdown of the J-2 engines. The Refueler has been deployed into orbit! The mission is looking good so far. The Solar Panels under the ET are beginning to hinge outwards for deployment. The hinge outward maneuver has been completed. The Solar Panels have successfully deployed! The ET Refueler will now wait in LEO for Centaur-G's to refill it so it can refuel the Shuttle's External Tank for the Moon.

Here's a little sneak peek of the upcoming Aquarius Program Post #2...

STS-200 - A New Beginning - January 14, 1985 Sorry for the small delay, I was busy with schoolwork, so without further ado, let me introduce you to this project of mine. The Aquarius Program: Part 1 In the late 1970's, NASA officials realize the Space Shuttle's potential to return humans to the Moon after the Apollo Program, and devise a program to do so, the Aquarius Program. The main goals of this program are to return people to the Moon permanently, and second and most important, to discover ice at the Lunar Poles, to possibly use for drinking water at a Lunar Base, or to make rocket fuel for refueling depots in orbit. The way that NASA has planned to send a shuttle to the Moon is to launch a External Tank Refueler on one of the last remaining Saturn V's, and to slowly fill up the empty tank with modified Centaur-G's launched by Shuttles or Titan III launch vehicles, then dock with a Space Shuttle's ET that the shuttle carries with it to orbit. The shuttle will then ignite its modified Block III RS-25's and burn for the Moon. Workers immediately begin on modifying an unused External Tank for use a refueler, and paired it up to the two stages of the SA-514 Saturn V, slated for launch in the beginning of 1985. The External Tank Refueler will be reusable, so hopefully the last remaining Saturn V will not have to be sacrificed for the sake of human exploration. With the beginning of the explanation of the Aquarius Program out of the way, let's fast forward to the launch of the modified External Tank on the Saturn V. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 14, 1985, Launch Day of STS-200 The Saturn V with the ET Refueler sits out on Pad 39A, waiting to launch to a 28.5 degree inclination orbit. We have F-1 Main Engine Start. Liftoff! We have a Liftoff! We have cleared the tower! Beginning to pitch downrange of the launch site. We have confirmed shutdown of the 5 F-1 engines; S-II Stage Separation. J-2 Engine Ignition. We have confirmation that the S-II Skirt has been jettisoned. The S-II Stage continues to orbit with the empty External Tank Refueler. Beautiful views of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. Pitching down to insert into Low Earth Orbit in only one continuous burn. Nominal Insertion into orbit; shutdown of the J-2 engines. The Refueler has been deployed into orbit! The mission is looking good so far. The Solar Panels under the ET are beginning to hinge outwards for deployment. The hinge outward maneuver has been completed. The Solar Panels have successfully deployed! The ET Refueler will now wait in LEO for Centaur-G's to refill it so it can refuel the Shuttle's External Tank for the Moon. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I hope you have enjoyed this first part in a series of posts I will be doing on this thread. Feel free to nitpick parts of this program, so I can improve it as I go along. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you have a great day!

Behold, the might of the legendary Saturn V! (Launch coming soon to a pad near you.)

I haven't read through it yet, but it's here: http://ssi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ssi_externaltanks_gimarc.pdf It's 171 pages, so it's definitely going to take awhile to read, but it has a lot of concepts in it.