parts [1.12.x] 'Project Orion' Nuclear Pulse Engine

[damerell]

Github shows https://github.com/BobPalmer/NuclearRockets/commit/8826e1e9ba063808a2762750ba4e1bf26aa29ebb as version 0.1.3.

[smjjames]

That was over two weeks ago, KSP-AVC only told me that there was an update today. I'm 99% sure it was just a false positive as it's happened a few times before.

[PanzerAce]

Don't know if you ever decided on what to do with these re: CTT. But for node name, I'm surprised nobody has gone to the obvious: "Torchship propulsion"

[Herbert]

Plase Add it on Different web because Kerbellstuff is...well it isnt working

 

[RoverDude]

1.1 Pre-Release is up!

 

0.2.0 - 2016.03.29
-----------
Compatibility with KSP 1.1

 

Download from GitHub:   https://github.com/BobPalmer/NuclearRockets/releases

[damerell]

I sent another pull request for the manual pulse function, this time against the DEVELOP branch.

[USER_NAME]

Update the download link please!

[blueExcess]

Why isn't it a part of the whole USI website? It's fantastic! But if it weren't for some random browsing and luck, I never would have even known this existed.

[Deimos Rast]

So I can't for the life of me get either the Medusa or the Orion (1.0.5) to work right. They make the booming sounds, and put out the tiny trickle of thrust as you would think they would from looking at the config (i.e. the AblativeOil fueled 0.1 thrust ModuelEngineFX engines), but there is nothing else. Two things I've noticed in my log that might be relevant:

On game load usually, (maybe occasionally on scene changes):
 

Spoiler

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at USITools.USI_PulseDrive.OnAwake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at PartModule.Awake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
UnityEngine.GameObject:Internal_AddComponentWithType(Type)
UnityEngine.GameObject:AddComponent(Type)
Part:AddModule(String)
Part:AddModule(ConfigNode)
PartLoader:ParsePart(UrlConfig, ConfigNode)
:MoveNext()

 

And when in flight with the engine, I get a ton of "NaN" log spam:
 

Spoiler

Packing Untitled Space Craft for orbit
HyperEdit: Orbit "Active vessel" changed to: inc=0 ecc=0 sma=10601000 lan=0 argpe=0 mep=0 epoch=0 refbody=Kerbin
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
nearestTT is NaN! t1: NaN, t2: NaN, FEVp: NaN, SEVp: NaN

etc............

 

My theory is that everything in the config is working fine, but the plugin isn't executing properly. Or something.

I can post a full log if you'd like.

Linux, 64 bits. Lots of mods.

Cheers.

[PortableGoogle]

On 4/19/2016 at 9:09 PM, Deimos Rast said:

So I can't for the life of me get either the Medusa or the Orion (1.0.5) to work right. They make the booming sounds, and put out the tiny trickle of thrust as you would think they would from looking at the config (i.e. the AblativeOil fueled 0.1 thrust ModuelEngineFX engines), but there is nothing else. Two things I've noticed in my log that might be relevant:

On game load usually, (maybe occasionally on scene changes):
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at USITools.USI_PulseDrive.OnAwake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at PartModule.Awake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
UnityEngine.GameObject:Internal_AddComponentWithType(Type)
UnityEngine.GameObject:AddComponent(Type)
Part:AddModule(String)
Part:AddModule(ConfigNode)
PartLoader:ParsePart(UrlConfig, ConfigNode)
:MoveNext()

 

 

 

 

And when in flight with the engine, I get a ton of "NaN" log spam:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Packing Untitled Space Craft for orbit
HyperEdit: Orbit "Active vessel" changed to: inc=0 ecc=0 sma=10601000 lan=0 argpe=0 mep=0 epoch=0 refbody=Kerbin
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
nearestTT is NaN! t1: NaN, t2: NaN, FEVp: NaN, SEVp: NaN

etc............

 

 

 

 

My theory is that everything in the config is working fine, but the plugin isn't executing properly. Or something.

I can post a full log if you'd like.

Linux, 64 bits. Lots of mods.

Cheers.

I haven't tried the engines yet as I am not there, but I did notice the thrust on them says .1, not sure if that is intentional or maybe why they are not working for you

[Mikki]

I just tested the 1.1 pre-release of this mod:

Seven Orion drives strutted to each other- excellent
A three Kerbal commandpod on top- a miracle
seven or eight... nine? ... heatshields on top of the commandpod- a simple must have
Bill, Bob and Jebediah- you know the drill



Would burn my eyes again (Blinded and happy)

[autumnalequinox]

It's simply gorgeous.  My eyes tear before the fast neutrons destroy my tear ducts.  

[jpinard]

Roverdude - how do these fit in with the rest of your mods?  I think this is final item pushing me over the edge to download and install every single thing you've ever released.  

[autumnalequinox]

On 4/27/2016 at 7:47 PM, jpinard said:

Roverdude - how do these fit in with the rest of your mods?  I think this is final item pushing me over the edge to download and install every single thing you've ever released.  

They all go together really nicely!   Roverdude's mods are the Lays Potato Chips of KSP mods.  Try one and you just can't stop!

 

...  i may have a problem  

[ThatOneBritishGuy...]

A quick question. Is this mod compatible with Community Tech Tree?

[Mikki]

On 2.5.2016 at 6:17 AM, ThatOneBritishGuy... said:

A quick question. Is this mod compatible with Community Tech Tree?

@ThatOneBritishGuy...

As far as i know yes, in stock career R&D are additional nuclearscience fields to explore, but... these drives are very very very expensive, the fuel is very vey very expensive. You need lots (several millions) of funds to obtain a single drive, if you can afford it allready i would buy the medusa drive.... with some smaller pulseunits... 

[Thraken]

On May 2, 2016 at 0:17 AM, ThatOneBritishGuy... said:

A quick question. Is this mod compatible with Community Tech Tree?

I play career, and yes it is compatible. This is actually kind of hard to place on the tech tree. The concept is from the 1950's and they didn't believe they were that far away from being able to actually build this. 

Of course it ends up being very powerful, and should belong at the end of the tech tree. Then there is the fact that all the tech required for this was never actually developed due to the ban on nukes in space. 

[Drelam]

On 19.4.2016 at 3:09 AM, Deimos Rast said:

So I can't for the life of me get either the Medusa or the Orion (1.0.5) to work right. They make the booming sounds, and put out the tiny trickle of thrust as you would think they would from looking at the config (i.e. the AblativeOil fueled 0.1 thrust ModuelEngineFX engines), but there is nothing else. Two things I've noticed in my log that might be relevant:

On game load usually, (maybe occasionally on scene changes):
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at USITools.USI_PulseDrive.OnAwake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at PartModule.Awake () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
UnityEngine.GameObject:Internal_AddComponentWithType(Type)
UnityEngine.GameObject:AddComponent(Type)
Part:AddModule(String)
Part:AddModule(ConfigNode)
PartLoader:ParsePart(UrlConfig, ConfigNode)
:MoveNext()

 

 

 

And when in flight with the engine, I get a ton of "NaN" log spam:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Packing Untitled Space Craft for orbit
HyperEdit: Orbit "Active vessel" changed to: inc=0 ecc=0 sma=10601000 lan=0 argpe=0 mep=0 epoch=0 refbody=Kerbin
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
dT is NaN! tA: NaN, E: NaN, M: NaN, T: NaN
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: NaN
nearestTT is NaN! t1: NaN, t2: NaN, FEVp: NaN, SEVp: NaN

etc............

 

 

 

My theory is that everything in the config is working fine, but the plugin isn't executing properly. Or something.

I can post a full log if you'd like.

Linux, 64 bits. Lots of mods.

Cheers.

I play KSP v1.1.2 and have exactly the same problem.

[MisterFister]

On ‎2016‎-‎03‎-‎30 at 9:25 PM, RoverDude said:

1.1 Pre-Release is up!

 

0.2.0 - 2016.03.29
-----------
Compatibility with KSP 1.1

 

Download from GitHub:   https://github.com/BobPalmer/NuclearRockets/releases

Good sir!  Would it be possible to update the download link in the OP to reflect the new download link?  The one you have still indicates Kerbalstuff.  And thanks for this, I look forward to testing this mod out!

[RoverDude]

Yep, I'll be doing a lot of OP updating through attrition

[Shantaboy]

Can MKS/OKS or ISRU be used to make more pulse units?

[ChainiaC]

I would suspect you could build spare pulse unit magazines from rocket parts using EPL at least. EPL integrates nicely with MKS. But otherwise... it's not simply a monomolecular fuel. It's entire complex self contained nuclear bombs. I doubt you could build those in an ISRU refinery

 

[p3asant]

Can there be anything done about giving the orion drive somewhat realistic specific impulse? The part just shows 15000s isp constantly when I examine it. It really should be around 3500 s, which would give some challenge and realism to this mod. For reference (Fig. 3) :

  

From the projectrho site.

 

Also it'd be cool to have more realistic animations as seen in this animation: 

 

There shouldn't be any strange plasma released when using the drive. In stead, like in the video, it should be just extremely bright flashes on the pusher plate from the propellant plasma hitting it and on the nuke detonation location. I'm not sure that this could be accomplished, but it'd be cool if when starting the drive from ground, the first animation would be normal atmospheric nuclear detonation like the one used in this mod: 

 

Then immediately after the first start, the animation should switch to the bright flashes.

 

 

 

I've tried to make a  10m diameter config for this mod by changing the rescaleFactor to 2 and changing the pusher plate dry mass to 80 and tank to 20, while increasing it's capacity to 40000,20000,10000,4000. Though I think this mod would be ideal for tweakscale integration, seeing as there'd no need to tweak the drive thrust because it's determined by the explosion yield, not the pusher plate. What size nukes are the different fuels supposed to represent? Is the NPU-250 0.25kt or 2.5kt? 

All in all this is an amazing mod which makes me sad that external pulsed plasma propulsion was never implemented aside from couple chemical demonstrators. And it was so damned close too.  What would the world have looked like if the USAF had had an enormous space battleship filled with 20mt nukes in orbit by 1980? http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2714/1 

edit: Btw more specific info on the isp calculation from T.W Reynolds paper : http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720025114.pdf  also handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA212935  appendix D-Fig 2 shows pretty much the same graph, but clearer.

Fig 12. is the isp graph showing 0.1 kt as the optimum for 10m diameter pusher plate and 0.01 kt as the optimum for about 5m diameter. Should this be taken into account? Perhaps thrust should be determined by thrust frequency and not by pulse unit yield.

Here's also some nice parameters and artwork about 10m Saturn-V based mars mission : http://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3218&context=space-congress-proceedings

 

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by p3asant

[p3asant]

So, I've tried making some makeshift tweakscale (just size) config for the orion and tank part. But I'm having trouble getting the pulse unit count right.

This is the config I've tried using. The pulse unit count increases linearly to 10m, like I've wanted, but after that it starts multiplying by four. Any idea why?

 

@PART[USI_ORIONTank]:Final // Orion tank
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = stacksky
//		massFactors = 1.0, 0.0, 0.0
		TWEAKSCALEEXPONENTS { 
		mass = 2.0
		name = Part
		Resources
		{
        amount = 1.0
        maxAmount = 1.0
		}
		}
    }
}


@PART[USI_ORION]:Final // Orion engine
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = stacksky
//		massFactors = 1.0, 0.0, 0.0
		TWEAKSCALEEXPONENTS { 
		mass = 0.95
		Resources
		{
        amount = 1.0
        maxAmount = 1.0
		}
		}
    }
}


SCALETYPE
{
    name = stacksky
    freeScale = true
    defaultScale = 5.0
    suffix = m
    scaleFactors   = 5.0,  10,  20,  30,  40
    incrementSlide = 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01
}

 

[panarchist]

Very close to completing my interstellar stack using the 5m standard Orion.  Tried Medusa, but kept running into issues with a mysterious rotation that wouldn't go away.  So I rebuilt with the "regular" Orion drive.  I present the DSE-01 William Klark. (Deep Space Explorer)

Other than the Orion and the fuel magazine, I'm using some Starlifter parts from FTT, a .625m fission reactor, lots of Kontainers with everything I need to build new parts when I get there, and a bunch of OKS components.  I'm not a fan of the OKS greenhouses, so I replaced them with the "classic" ZZZ greenhouse, modded with the config file from the OKS greenhouse.  The command module is one of the Planetary Base components, with 4 DeepFreeze units so that 16 of my Kerbals can sleep away the year+ trip to Cercani. (OtherWorlds mod)

Habs are from DarkSideTechnology - I still need to create some MM patches for MKS and CLS so that they integrate cleanly with my mods.  The nose is an OKS orbital shipyard - intended to build the landers and other exploration items while en route.  The whole stack masses about 735 tons fully loaded, but it's about 675 tons right now until I complete outfitting it. After putting the Klark in orbit, I realized I have no refinery, and no conventional fuels onboard, and that's kind of an issue, so there will probably be a few changes before the Klark leaves orbit.  I'm using RemoteTech also, and considering having the ship on "automatic" with everyone in freeze, but communication delay at Cercani is more than one Kerbal day, and honestly I don't know how well RemoteTech handles that scenario, so there will likely be at least 2 Kerbals awake during the mission.

Also, I might need to either upgrade the fission reactor, or carefully manage power consumption - it's currently ok with the onboard solar panels, but once the Klark is far enough away from Kerbol, that's going to drop off significantly.

I'd love to say this is a career save, but it's not - it's sandbox.  Maybe in about 2 more years of playing KSP, I can have a fully-fleshed out game save with a ship like this built in career mode.  This mission is going to be hard enough in sandbox.

RoverDude, I'm really looking forward to the "official" release of this mod, and being able to use the Mini-mag Orion.  This is one of my favorite mods.  The Klark was launched basically in one piece, but it massed enough that I had to use the NPU-500s to get it off the pad - the 250s provided a comical sidewise crawl towards the VAB and one of the best disintegrations/explosions I've ever had in KSP.