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[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.13.0 "Забытый" 13/Aug/2023)


CobaltWolf

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Full album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Well, after a bit of trouble of forgetting the J-2X takes time to inflate, Skylab MOL (Requested by Cobalt) core made it into space after the J-2Xs gimballed hard to get the S-II back on track. The core module has no solar panels, but they will soon be added. 

Skylab MOL sits at a comfortable 120km x 120km 56.4 degree orbit. 

Oh, and yes, this is a Saturn V Ares I styled rocket.

Edited by GoldForest
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5 hours ago, Russos said:

Friends, do not tell me which way to look. Everything was fine, but at some point such a thing began to happen. After installing this part, it increases in size.

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That's a tweakscale issue. There's a shortcut that automatically scales the part to the diameter of the part that it has been attached to and you have accidentally hit it.

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14 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

To add on to this discussion, I once read in an official NASA document (I apologize, I don't have the link anymore) that during a congressional interview that no less than Werner Von Braun himself admitted that the cluster tank Saturn I/IB was an expedient to get a powerful multi-engine booster flying in the quickest possible time at the most reasonable budget possible. He admitted that it was NOT an optimal design, acknowledging its limitations. Once built, they were stuck with it until they flew out all the units contracted for. I was left with the distinct impression that under different circumstances Marshall would have gone with a mono-tank design of much lighter weight. It also begs the question of what NASA would have done once the IBs were all flown. This part has been discussed to death, but I believe it is likely that the cluster tank IB would have given way to an ETS style S-IC or one of the non-cluster INT designs.

I don't think "admitted" is the right word. It's not like it was a secret - it was what they were explicitly ordered to do. The S-1 stage was, from the very beginning, a crash program to develop a 1mil lb-thrust stage in a very short time period and with very low budget, which is what led WvB to reuse the hardware and tooling from the Jupiter and Redstone rockets, primarily the former. So I don't think anyone had illusions about the S-1 being an optimized stage - it simply wasn't, and everyone knew, but that's not the worst thing in the world. Mass fractions matter way less for first stages, and I believe the S-1 stage held several perceived advantages in cost and ease of manufacturing, not to mention keeping a large aerospace contractor employed. So overall, very much an example of performance not being the only important thing in the real world. There's a lot to read about it in that chapter of Stages to Saturn.

Regarding replacement, the ETS Saturn 1C is notably implausible. There was never a proposal for a single F-1 powered stage. They were much more interested in the INT rockets which promised to cut costs by minimizing the number of stages that had to be kept in production. The S-1B stage, which shared no commonality with the Saturn V, was pretty much always going to be the first to go. Out of all of them, only the INT-20 (with reduced engine count) seems to have held any real promise. The transfer of flights from the S-1B to S-1C stage would also help reduce the unit cost of the S-1C. I think the ETS style Saturn 1C only makes sense in a world where NASA is committed to abandoning the Moon and Saturn V, and of course IRL we got the Shuttle as a result.

 

10 hours ago, zakkpaz said:

Is there a reason for the J2A2  subtype being disabled? if you remove "/*" and "*/"  from the the  .cfg it works fine.

We realized the J-2A-2 performance assumed some sort of nozzle extension, which led to me creating the separate J-2A-2 part with the animated extension. The variant in the J-2S model was subsequently commented out.

 

On 8/4/2022 at 8:24 PM, zakkpaz said:

hey @CobaltWolf I’ve been working on a more comprehensive patch for CTT, to spread out the part that would be late game with the vanilla techtree and push post-Apollo stuff farther down the tech tree

I started it just for my own personal use but it’s getting to the point where I’m wondering if y’all might want it?

It's a little sloppy but it’s mostly done I just have to figure out where to put the peacekeeper & minuteman based parts.

Oh, also, since I've been meaning to respond to this for like a week - yeah, go for it! If you just make a pull request with the updated cfg we can review it and merge it in. I'm sure whatever you have is better than the current cfgs which I don't think have been touched in years.

On that note - yeah, if anyone has personal compatibility cfgs they've made? Please feel free to share them / make a pull request, we're happy to redistribute them so that other people can take advantage of them. :)

 

 

Edited by CobaltWolf
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1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

I don't think "admitted" is the right word. It's not like it was a secret .....snip....... The transfer of flights from the S-1B to S-1C stage would also help reduce the unit cost of the S-1C. I think the ETS style Saturn 1C only makes sense in a world where NASA is committed to abandoning the Moon and Saturn V, and of course IRL we got the Shuttle as a result.

Yeah, it was a good enough type program with schedule and cost constraints.  It's a pretty clever design, they made something pretty capable with some tooling they already had.  That is good design, they understood not only what to design, but what they could also build.

To the point, all of the Saturn hardware had some room for both reliability and part count improvements.  They had not actually optimized them fully.

It's so hard to guess what would have happened.  There were numerous options, and a few that seemed to stand out. The INT-20/21 seemed promising.  AAP briefed Congress on updated stretches to S-1b as well.  So if they kept flying it, they might have improved the engines and added more fuel or added titian iii srbs. The big item is that Saturn 1b is probably good enough, I mean the Russians flew/fly Proton as their heavy lift for a long time and it's comparable in performance.

Then if you look at the cost numbers that were quoted to Congress in '67, if you manage to make a couple of INT-20s common enough with ~4 Saturn 5 rockets built in a year, it pushes the unit cost down considerably.  6 Saturn V in a year was sort of a knee in the curve.

Or you can cut it all and focus on the future with a flexible space shuttle after massive budget cuts and loss of interest.

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1 hour ago, debaker02 said:

Yeah, it was a good enough type program with schedule and cost constraints.  It's a pretty clever design, they made something pretty capable with some tooling they already had.  That is good design, they understood not only what to design, but what they could also build.

To the point, all of the Saturn hardware had some room for both reliability and part count improvements.  They had not actually optimized them fully.

It's so hard to guess what would have happened.  There were numerous options, and a few that seemed to stand out. The INT-20/21 seemed promising.  AAP briefed Congress on updated stretches to S-1b as well.  So if they kept flying it, they might have improved the engines and added more fuel or added titian iii srbs. The big item is that Saturn 1b is probably good enough, I mean the Russians flew/fly Proton as their heavy lift for a long time and it's comparable in performance.

Then if you look at the cost numbers that were quoted to Congress in '67, if you manage to make a couple of INT-20s common enough with ~4 Saturn 5 rockets built in a year, it pushes the unit cost down considerably.  6 Saturn V in a year was sort of a knee in the curve.

Or you can cut it all and focus on the future with a flexible space shuttle after massive budget cuts and loss of interest.

The uprated Saturn IBs were almost exclusively pushed by Chrysler in attempt to keep the S-IB stage in production (which as with INT-18/19 require structural modifications to the stages themselves and rather significant modifications to the ground support infrastructure making them less desirable). Keeping the S-IB production was not the favored option.

Edited by Jcking
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5 hours ago, Jcking said:

That's a tweakscale issue. There's a shortcut that automatically scales the part to the diameter of the part that it has been attached to and you have accidentally hit it.

Thank you! I didn't even know about this feature :)

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20 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

@CobaltWolf, @Invaderchaos, is there any chance we could see this in game? Would be very interesting.

@Pappysteinmakes some great points on how the Saturn IB is modeled in BDB. It seems as if every reasonable buff has been already completed, so then we as users just have to find a way around it. One of my favorites is a four engine E-1 model...

To add on to this discussion, I once read in an official NASA document (I apologize, I don't have the link anymore) that during a congressional interview that no less than Werner Von Braun himself admitted that the cluster tank Saturn I/IB was an expedient to get a powerful multi-engine booster flying in the quickest possible time at the most reasonable budget possible. He admitted that it was NOT an optimal design, acknowledging its limitations. Once built, they were stuck with it until they flew out all the units contracted for. I was left with the distinct impression that under different circumstances Marshall would have gone with a mono-tank design of much lighter weight. It also begs the question of what NASA would have done once the IBs were all flown. This part has been discussed to death, but I believe it is likely that the cluster tank IB would have given way to an ETS style S-IC or one of the non-cluster INT designs.

Great stuff all!

If you read my article on The Saturn C-2 I showed the actual Monohull that Von Braun et al were working on :D

There were still things up for discussion (H-1+, H-2, F-1+H1, or something new since E-1 was officially gone)  But, yes they were working on a Monohull until about early-mid 1962...  

The thing that killed the Monohull?   The switch to Lunar Orbital Rendezvous  (LOR.)    Remember please that the Saturn C-2 was to be the supply/component/crew launcher to get to the Moon.  With the Saturn C-3 being the actual "get to the moon and back" Vehicle chain with S-IVC 3rd stages!    So early on, a ton of cluster stages were planned for and long lead items ordered for...  Then LOR happened and C-2 and C-3 never existed.   Something had to happen to those long lead items....    I give you Saturn S-I and S-IB! :P

 

https://github.com/Pappystein/Space_History/blob/main/PDFs/Saturn CII and CIII archive version.pdf

 

Edited by Pappystein
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Feels like I'm overdue for my screenshot tax, so here's some more various stuff...

1978-1979: Picking Up Steam:

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May 1978: At Vandenberg AFB on the west coast, a Titan 34B launches a Quasar satellite for the US Air Force. These satellites form a communication network which is used to receive telemetry from a new series of classified reconnaissance satellites also launched from Vandenberg. This Quasar payload is being sent into a molniya-type orbit, from which it can communicate with the Air Force's sun-synchronous surveillance spacecraft. Due to the confidential nature of DOD missions, photography of this launch is limited.

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December, 1978: A Delta 3914 launches the unique Anik B1 satellite to GEO, one of several Delta launches this year. Unlike the other spin-stabilized satellites of the Canadian Anik network, Anik B1 possesses three-axis stabilization and sun-tracking solar panels. The upgrades make this spacecraft much heavier than its predecessors, necessitating the use of the uprated Delta 3000 series.

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Author's note: I couldn't find a square bus of the right size to use here, so I ended up combining the new Mariner 4 bus with the square Pioneer extension parts to make my own. It looks... alright. 

 

January, 1979: The Skylab 8 mission is four months into their half-year stay on Skylab, attempting a record which would be longer than the previous Skylab 7 flight by fifty percent. Shortly after the new year, Aardvark 5 launches from Cape Canaveral (Skylab 8 notably did not receive an AARDV freighter due to a surplus of consumables onboard the station). With supplies carried aboard the resupply mission, the Skylab 8 crew performs the mission's only EVA, dedicated to station upkeep and maintenance. Skylab 8 will be the final crew to visit the station before the new Space Shuttle begins manned flights, leading some to speculate about the future of Apollo-Saturn systems in America's space program. For the time being, at least, Skylab crews will continue to fly on Apollo Block III and Saturn IC, while any STS missions to the station will be dedicated solely to the delivery of new supplies and hardware. 

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March 1979: Voyager 1 begins its flyby of Jupiter (while carrying multiple BDB science parts, so I can still post this here). Despite being launched after its sister ship Voyager 2, Voyager 1 has arrived at Jupiter first due to its faster, more efficient trajectory. One of the primary objectives of Voyager 1's time at Jupiter is a close study of the innermost of the Galilean moons, Io. The moon was first observed in detail by Pioneer 10 in 1973, and again by Pioneer 11 in 1974. The data returned suggested that Io has the highest density of the four innermost moons, as well as a thin atmosphere and high radiation levels in its vicinity. Unfortunately, very little good data was obtained by either probe due to the intense radiation surrounding Jupiter, and the Voyager 1 team hopes to make up for this with their spacecraft's more advanced systems.

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The results are fascinating. To everyone's surprise, the surface of Io is a strange and multicolored landscape, notably lacking in impact craters. Instead, Io features mountains taller than Mount Everest, vast lava flows, and various pockmarks and depressions formed by volcanic processes. While analyzing the images returned from Io, scientists noticed the presence of several plumes erupting from Io's surface, providing the first proof that the moon is still volcanically active. Research would later reveal that these volcanic eruptions are caused by strong tidal heating effects, and have a noticeable effect on the entire Jovian system. Io's volcanic eruptions spew plasma into space, which forms into a vast plasma torus around Io's orbit which feeds the Jovian magnetosphere and contributes to the massive radiation levels of the inner system. 

Voyager 2 (seen below) would pass by Jupiter in July of the same year and would confirm Voyager 1's findings. Additionally, as the two probes passed into darkness behind the planet, their cameras were directed to point behind them and make several long-exposure photographs. The pictures returned revealed yet  another interesting discovery, a faint network of rings surrounding Jupiter. The two probes would then pass on to Saturn, arriving in 1980 and 1981. By then, however, another veteran probe would have beaten them there, receiving the long-awaited fruits of its labor...

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September, 1979: After five years of travel, Pioneer 11 has at last completed its journey toward Saturn. Due to the planet's position at the time of Pioneer's 1974 encounter with Jupiter, the spacecraft was forced to take a very indirect path to the sixth planet, doubling back on itself for awhile and dipping inside the orbit of Jupiter to gain speed for a long drift to catch up with Saturn. By this point, both Voyager probes have been launched, passed Jupiter, and are themselves hot on the heels of Pioneer 11, with the first one set to arrive at Saturn only fourteen months later. After six years in space, Pioneer 11 is an aging, decrepit hulk of a spacecraft, easily surpassed by the state-of-the-art Voyagers, and this fact prompts NASA to make a decision which the Pioneer team at Ames Research Center protested against in vain. In order to pass on to Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 2 would need to pass through Saturn's rings, and it was agreed to use the more primitive Pioneer spacecraft as a scout to test the trajectory before this happened. If there were any faint particles in the way which could damage or destroy Voyager 2, Pioneer 11 would discover them, probably at the cost of its own life...

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Saturn's rings look quite dense, but in reality they are outrageously thin. Some estimates place their thickness as low as one hundred yards. As Pioneer 11 approaches, it positions its main antenna dish forward to shield against any incoming debris. It takes the spacecraft less than a single second to pass through the rings, emerging on the other side virtually unscathed. 

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With the Voyager's route now verified, Pioneer turns its attention back to the Saturnian system itself. On approach, Pioneer had discovered (and very nearly collided with) Epimetheus, one of Saturn's smaller moons, and now on the way out the spacecraft imaged Mimas, charted the planet's magnetosphere, and discovered an additional ring, and recorded the atmospheric temperature of Titan. This final moon is to receive a much closer study when Voyager 1 arrives in 1980.

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Finally, in June 1979 the Space Shuttle Columbia undergoes final checks before its maiden voyage. Since it's not related to BDB I will be posting my shuttle missions in @Kuiper_Belt's Shuttle Adventures thread, but here's a teaser:

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5 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Finally, in June 1979 the Space Shuttle Columbia undergoes final checks before its maiden voyage. Since it's not related to BDB I will be posting my shuttle missions in @Kuiper_Belt's Shuttle Adventures thread, but here's a teaser:

This is one of the reasons I feel BDB needs its own shuttle. So we can have beautiful screenshots without it being off topic. I mean, sure we can do Saturn Shuttle or some Saturn inspired stuff like my S-IVB side mounted to a EFT SRB stack, but that's not the same. 

Hmmm, maybe Cobalt could pry request taking over SOCK and REDIRECT from Benjee. :P 

I kid of course, but a BDB style Space Shuttle, along with Jupiter (SDLV), Ares or any other SDLV would be nice. 

Edited by GoldForest
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7 hours ago, GoldForest said:

This is one of the reasons I feel BDB needs its own shuttle. So we can have beautiful screenshots without it being off topic. I mean, sure we can do Saturn Shuttle or some Saturn inspired stuff like my S-IVB side mounted to a EFT SRB stack, but that's not the same. 

Hmmm, maybe Cobalt could pry request taking over SOCK and REDIRECT from Benjee. :P 

I kid of course, but a BDB style Space Shuttle, along with Jupiter (SDLV), Ares or any other SDLV would be nice. 

Saturn shuttle you say? unknown.png  I exclusivly use this to launch the shuttle, it lets me send it out furthur out and you can take the entire external tank to orbit using it.

Edited by TheLoneOne
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44 minutes ago, TheLoneOne said:

Saturn shuttle you say? unknown.png  I exclusivly use this to launch the shuttle, it lets me send it out furthur out and you can take the entire external tank to orbit using it.

Is that screen shot cropped or do you play at a 720P resolution? 

Edited by GoldForest
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8 hours ago, GoldForest said:

This is one of the reasons I feel BDB needs its own shuttle. So we can have beautiful screenshots without it being off topic. I mean, sure we can do Saturn Shuttle or some Saturn inspired stuff like my S-IVB side mounted to a EFT SRB stack, but that's not the same. 

Hmmm, maybe Cobalt could pry request taking over SOCK and REDIRECT from Benjee. :P 

I kid of course, but a BDB style Space Shuttle, along with Jupiter (SDLV), Ares or any other SDLV would be nice. 

I know you're semi-joking, but I'll leave a serious reply.

Personally, I don't want to be responsible for the whole Kerbal part modding scene. Part of our refusal to handle shuttle stuff is to leave it open for other people to do (and of course, Benjee's SOCK is absolutely sublime). I think most of us would rather focus on our niche we've carved out and keep adding+expanding on it. Of course, I'd love to see others take on different areas of spaceflight with the same amount of care and attention. But setting hard limits for BDB's scope (stop laughing, I'm serious) keeps it much more manageable.

The other reason is I've never managed to fly a Shuttle in KSP so idk how to make one from scratch lol

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36 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I know you're semi-joking, but I'll leave a serious reply.

Personally, I don't want to be responsible for the whole Kerbal part modding scene. Part of our refusal to handle shuttle stuff is to leave it open for other people to do (and of course, Benjee's SOCK is absolutely sublime). I think most of us would rather focus on our niche we've carved out and keep adding+expanding on it. Of course, I'd love to see others take on different areas of spaceflight with the same amount of care and attention. But setting hard limits for BDB's scope (stop laughing, I'm serious) keeps it much more manageable.

The other reason is I've never managed to fly a Shuttle in KSP so idk how to make one from scratch lol

I'm not asking you to take over all the mods lol. But BDB feels like it should have its own shuttle. It feels like it's missing the sts imo. 

I agree SOCK is a great mod, but having a in mod shuttle would be good. Especially for those that like to keep their mod list lite.

I understand and respect your position on it though. 

Instead of adopting it, maybe you could make addon parts for SOCK? Like perhaps a special one piece tank for the shuttle and S-IC so it blends better with the S-IC to 5m adapter? Just an idea/suggestion, not a request.  

8 minutes ago, darthvader15001 said:

https://imgur.io/781S7q

looks like a ares 1:)

That's what it's supposed to be. An Ares I styled Saturn. Also, holy hell. How the hell does that image have 500 views? CobaltWolf, is that your doing? You stealing my pics and sharing them in a super secret discord with 100s of people? :P

Edited by GoldForest
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6 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I agree SOCK is a great mod, but having a in mod shuttle would be good. Especially for those that like to keep their mod list lite.

Instead of adopting it, maybe you could make addon parts for SOCK? Like perhaps a special one piece tank for the shuttle and S-IC so it blends better with the S-IC to 5m adapter? Just an idea/suggestion, not a request. 

"lite". Lol.

Yeah, an adapter part from the S-1C to the SOCK ET is probably doable at some point.

 

6 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

That's what it's supposed to be. An Ares I styled Saturn. Also, holy hell. How the hell does that image have 500 views? CobaltWolf, is that your doing? You stealing my pics and sharing them in a super secret discord with 100s of people? :P

*shrug* Wasn't me?

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1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

Is that screen shot cropped or do you play at a 720P resolution? 

cropped

54 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I know you're semi-joking, but I'll leave a serious reply.

Personally, I don't want to be responsible for the whole Kerbal part modding scene. Part of our refusal to handle shuttle stuff is to leave it open for other people to do (and of course, Benjee's SOCK is absolutely sublime). I think most of us would rather focus on our niche we've carved out and keep adding+expanding on it. Of course, I'd love to see others take on different areas of spaceflight with the same amount of care and attention. But setting hard limits for BDB's scope (stop laughing, I'm serious) keeps it much more manageable.

The other reason is I've never managed to fly a Shuttle in KSP so idk how to make one from scratch lol

flying the shuttle is not (too) hard it just takes some tries to figure out, I tend to renter at a 15 degree angle (that's the control mod you can switch the benjee shuttle cockpit control direction too so its angled 15 degrees above prograde on rentry. as for launching it takes a bit of getting used to, the asymmetry means you don't wanna go crazy with turn rates, do a gradual one. hope this might help! also the shuttle behaves bad on non 2.5-2.7 scale systems in my experience.

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1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

Instead of adopting it, maybe you could make addon parts for SOCK? Like perhaps a special one piece tank for the shuttle and S-IC so it blends better with the S-IC to 5m adapter? Just an idea/suggestion, not a request.

I know it is possible to use the SRB's from SOCK and Redirect on BDB parts like what I did with the Saturn Launch System.

20220616112604_1_by_pudgemountain_df7g4go-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzA0IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNWNlZDA4NmItYTUwYy00YjFkLWJmZmItYmRhOWYxOTgyNzVmXC9kZjdnNGdvLWJlMWQ0ZmM5LWVhNGQtNGRlZi1hYjI0LTY4OWM2ZjJhNTQwNy5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.TVSQvkc0S9SakSZCvMk8M5xAjB06dhB4yZANyEmnryw

20220714125213_1_by_pudgemountain_df98l1n-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzIwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNWNlZDA4NmItYTUwYy00YjFkLWJmZmItYmRhOWYxOTgyNzVmXC9kZjk4bDFuLTNmZDc1YjcyLTFjZDktNDUzYi05ZDRiLTlkMjJkMmZmMTBiOC5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.ObKcWN1ZFBag2KXAfqxv0UPGSLVZ11K6X2P0a8KchdU

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1 hour ago, darthvader15001 said:

https://imgur.io/781S7q

looks like a ares 1:)

Sadly that is loosely based on a real rocket proposal.  There was an active proposal to launch a S-II on top of an AJ-260-2H (Full length in BDB)  It would have been the early style high thrust AJ-260 to lift the stack but the single AJ-260 could ALMOST replace a S-IC stage in such a configuration.   However if you were to JUST launch the S-IVB + Apollo stack THAT AJ-260 would kill the crew and destroy all the electronics (WAY to much thrust! and WAY to easy to loose control!)

Note!  I came up with the -2H designation.   While AJ-260 SRMs are monolithic, meaning there are no segments there were three lengths origionally proposed for the AJ-260,  Each length bringing the addition of one more section of cylinder the same length as the base (Short) AJ-260's Cylindrical section.

Initially, utilizing the Talos booster grain, the AJ-260 (full length) would have so much thrust as to incapacitate crew people (that was what was proposed for the initial Saturn INT-05   The full lenght AJ-260-2H as I call it would burn out in about 84 seconds and with the S-IVB+Apollo stack top out at 6 or 7Gs of acceleration over most of it's flight.

Switching to the more cylindrical grain + Star cavity at the top like the UA-120x SRMs, doubled the burn time and halved the peak thrust.   The Impulse being about the same.   On the short lenght AJ-260s (the lenght actually tested in Florida) the change in grain (how the solid fuel was shaped) added about 14 pounds of fuel.   So for an ignorable difference in fuel mass you gained a much more controlable and use-able rocket

So AJ-260s as I think of them.

 

Short Length AJ-260  is AJ-260-1 and with the Talos Grain it is the AJ-260-1H

Medium (Full length in BDB) is the AJ-260-2 and the AJ-260-2H is the Talos Grained version

Long length AJ-260 which is NOT in BDB is the AJ-260-3H.   I have found zero documentation where this longer length would get the UA-120x style grain it was removed from consideration before the change in grain was accomplished.

 

Like I said, this is just something I came up with for a way to differentiate all 5 AJ-260s I am aware of.  

 

 

FWIW, Talos is the RIM-8 Talos Ramjet powered Surface to Air (and Surface to Surface and Anti-Radar... oh and Nuclear) missile used by the US Navy from about 1958 to 1979 actively and as a Supersonic anti ship missile simulator until stocks ran out in the mid to late 1990s.   The Solid rocket booster to get it off the rail and allow the ramjet to work was actually produced much longer for Sounding rockets.  I became an expert on Project Bumblebee (which is what lead to the current USN Standard Missile, as well as the "3T" Terrier, Talos and Tartar) in the late 1990s early oughts... and while my article was never published.   Much was made about the Terrier boosters and Talos boosters being used for sounding rockets and the Talos Booster design being scaled up to things like the Early design for the AJ-260.    

FWIW the AJ-100 (that is the SOLTAN SRM in BDB)  should also be Talos Grained....   Need better documentation before suggesting any changes to the AJ-100 however!

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