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

[Beccab]

6 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

he was the last American to go into space alone

Honestly I never understood much this quote, since while yes he was the last to do everything from liftoff to landing alone there were still Collins and the other CM commanders that had to pilot alone the capsule for whole days. But anyways:

S-1D first stage

Considered by many as one of the most promising developments of the Saturn series, the S-1D would have been a S-IC first stage  but with the engine plate modified to implement a stage and a half profile, discarding 4 of the 5 F1s mid flight and delivering 22,500 kgs into LEO: just by itself this would mean that it can nearly match the Shuttle payload for much lower a cost, and this is without taking into account the F1-A efficency increase. Add an S-IVB on the top of it and it beats SLS by over 10 tons, all of which could have been ready by 1972 and the third batch of Saturn rockets

Spoiler

[pTrevTrevs]

23 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Honestly I never understood much this quote, since while yes he was the last to do everything from liftoff to landing alone there were still Collins and the other CM commanders that had to pilot alone the capsule for whole days.

I guess if you want to get technical about it Cooper was the last American to *go* into space alone; Apollo CSMs went into space with two crewmates and were only alone for a portion of the flight.

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

I can't speak to aerodynamic problems because I am not experiencing them.  I would look at other mods being the culprit there.   However I **CAN** speak to the SRBs since this is something I brought up years ago.   It is the Decoupler that is causing them to spin out of control.   It offsets the COM by an appreciable amount when the SRM has burnt out.

 

The only other mod I can think of that might be causing this is BDB in Colors. I’ve heard about how it messes with aerodynamics of the old Apollo parachutes, and since it includes a texture variant for SEASAT maybe it’s causing Agena to have the same problems. I don’t know why I don’t seem to have the same problems when I fly Atlas-Agena though, I’m pretty sure it mostly happens on Thor.

[biohazard15]

9 hours ago, Pappystein said:

I can't speak to aerodynamic problems because I am not experiencing them.  I would look at other mods being the culprit there.   However I **CAN** speak to the SRBs since this is something I brought up years ago.   It is the Decoupler that is causing them to spin out of control.   It offsets the COM by an appreciable amount when the SRM has burnt out.

I'd like to add that such behavior is actually realistic.

 

Ground-lit boosters are jettisoned at 1:27. You can clearly see them tumbling shortly after clearing the rocket. Engineers normally don't care how expendable boosters fly after jettisoning - as long as they clear the rocket and fall in designated areas, they're fine.

[jefferyharrell]

9 hours ago, Beccab said:

How you do this? Is that one of the new Saturn parts, that engine mount with a hole in the middle?

[Beccab]

12 minutes ago, jefferyharrell said:

How you do this? Is that one of the new Saturn parts, that engine mount with a hole in the middle?

Nope, it's the separator between the S-IC and S-II stages with four nosecones on the sides (decorated with conformaldecals for colouration), the S-IC fins and the NFLV part with a hole to make the final cover. Though maybe it wouldn't be hard to do a proper S-1D engine plate in BDB now? It's just the current engine plate with a hole in the middle

[CobaltWolf]

53 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Nope, it's the separator between the S-IC and S-II stages with four nosecones on the sides (decorated with conformaldecals for colouration), the S-IC fins and the NFLV part with a hole to make the final cover. Though maybe it wouldn't be hard to do a proper S-1D engine plate in BDB now? It's just the current engine plate with a hole in the middle

Official S-1D is a high priority, don't worry.

[Zorg]

Barely functional, gonna start fixing balance and correct experiments and such tomorrow. Also the lightweight workshop has its aero shield (a wide one that can cover the solars for launch) temporarily disabled while we try to figure out the reload bug. 

The solars do not track but they have deploy limit so you can customise orientation.

For both redundancy and to increase room in the mission module, the proposal called for dual descent engines on the Apollo instead of the SPS. A dual mount is coming but for now a single DPS can be used in the normal mount. The SPS will not fit due to the height of the ESM (environmental support module).

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Zorg

[Starhelperdude]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

 

 

 

 

looks like a mini Kistler K-1 upper stage!

[Zorg]

On 9/12/2021 at 2:24 AM, MashAndBangers said:

Happens when every I reload.  Quicksave and quickload, and the station has it's shielding back.  Can't jettison them again, so had to launch a couple of skylabs to make sure.

Link to my KSP Log I just made.

We've identified the issue as being caused by when the lab is the root part. JSO is unsure if that can be solved as root issues can be problematic. But in any case can be avoided for now by making the IU the root instead. Which ought to be the correct build anyway. I was placing the lab first during my tests but a normal build should start with the IU.

[Pioneer_Steve]

Apollo Venus!!!!! Woohoo!

[MashAndBangers]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

We've identified the issue as being caused by when the lab is the root part. JSO is unsure if that can be solved as root issues can be problematic. But in any case can be avoided for now by making the IU the root instead. Which ought to be the correct build anyway. I was placing the lab first during my tests but a normal build should start with the IU.

Oh wow, didn't even know about root part issues like this.  Glad I could help break things!  xD

[pTrevTrevs]

12 hours ago, biohazard15 said:

I'd like to add that such behavior is actually realistic.

 

Ground-lit boosters are jettisoned at 1:27. You can clearly see them tumbling shortly after clearing the rocket. Engineers normally don't care how expendable boosters fly after jettisoning - as long as they clear the rocket and fall in designated areas, they're fine.

Kind of an unrelated comment, but my God, do those booster plumes look beautiful! Waterfall is a great addition to KSP's visuals, but now we really need something for SRB plumes and for bigger smoke clouds in the first few seconds after liftoff. Like... if I can still see the booster at T+2 seconds the smoke isn't thick enough.

[TruthfulGnome]

1 hour ago, pTrevTrevs said:

but now we really need something for SRB plumes and for bigger smoke clouds

RealPlume?

[SpaceFace545]

Just now, TruthfulGnome said:

RealPlume?

but good looking. 

[Zorg]

4 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

but good looking. 

tbf thats still by far the most impressive solution for SRB plumes in KSP. Idk who the original author of those templates are, they were made long before I took over. I tried several times to improve on them and failed miserably back when I was actively developing templates for RealPlume. Good looking smoke like irl SRBs are a difficult thing to achieve especially while keeping it performant and Im not really expecting anything new for KSP1. 

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, Zorg said:

tbf thats still by far the most impressive solution for SRB plumes in KSP. Idk who the original author of those templates are, they were made long before I took over. I tried several times to improve on them and failed miserably back when I was actively developing templates for RealPlume. Good looking smoke like irl SRBs are a difficult thing to achieve especially while keeping it performant and Im not really expecting anything new for KSP1. 

About solid rocket boosters, have you considered changing the Apollo LES flame to a waterfall one (plus maybe smoke)? Its look is arguably closer to a liquid fuel engine plume than an SRB, and Realplume doesn't work great with particularly small engines

[Zorg]

6 minutes ago, Beccab said:

About solid rocket boosters, have you considered changing the Apollo LES flame to a waterfall one (plus maybe smoke)? Its look is arguably closer to a liquid fuel engine plume than an SRB, and Realplume doesn't work great with particularly small engines
 

The flame is quite emphasized in that picture but that does turn into smoke. I would rather stick with stock smoke/realplume though perhaps another look at the realplume fx is worthwile.

[Beccab]

Project Adam: putting a man in space two years before Gagarin

By the mid-1950s the USAF had got down to business of studying the effect of extremely high altitudes on pilots. One of the programs they ran was Project Manhigh, which lifted a pilot to 30 kilometers high twice in the months immediately preceding the launch of Sputnik 1.

First named Man Very High, the initial proposal was for the Army to supply a modified Redstone based on the Jupiter-C used to launch Explorer 1 and an exterior shell using the principles of the Jupiter’s nose cone to handle the heat of flight and re-entry. The Air Force would supply a passenger cabin derived from the Manhigh capsule, and the Navy would handle recovery procedures. As part of this von Braun invited Manhigh fliers Joseph Kittinger and David Simons to Huntsville to see about adapting a Manhigh gondola for even greater altitude.

 

Much like the first two Mercury flights he wouldn’t be going too far or for too long: six minutes of burn time, ten of free-fall, and a symmetrical 150 miles downrange to a splashdown to the north of the Caribbean Sea. Total price tag was claimed to be US$4.75 million (down from about US$12 million for the earlier, USAF-using version), with the flight to take place before the end of 1959.

Quote

 

[Zorg]

On 9/12/2021 at 2:21 AM, Adam-Kerman said:

Wanting to Conformal Decals over the current letters on fins for Regular Letters, so what's attachment rules for the fins to allow Conformal Decals?

 attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision

where enabled is 1 and disabled is 0. But I have just pushed an update which enables allowSrfAttach

[Zorg]

On 9/10/2021 at 11:17 AM, pTrevTrevs said:

Has anyone else experienced severe aerodynamic problems when flying Thor derivatives? With a lot of them I can’t even exceed a two or three degree angle of attack without the entire rocket flipping over and trying to stabilize itself on the retrograde vector, and neither stock SAS nor MechJeb SmartASS can keep the vehicle under control. The effect is worse on Thrust-Augmented Thor/Delta and Thor-Agena, and virtually unmanageable when the two are combined on Thorad or TAT-Agena. Honestly, trying to keep the vehicles on the right heading during the early stages of flight feels like trying to press two magnets with the same polarization together, or trying to balance a yardstick on the palm of your hand.
 

I’m guessing one of the parts (maybe in the Agena) at the top of the rocket is causing way more drag than it should be, causing the booster to be unstable in prograde and stable in retrograde, but I don’t know for sure. Also FWIW I’m playing in KSRSS but I don’t have any mods that would (to my knowledge) affect aerodynamics, and I also experienced the same problem to a lesser extent in JNSQ earlier this year.

are you sure your profile is just not too aggressive? I tested in JNSQ with the aero overlay and did not see excessive drag on anything. The only time I flipped out was when I pitched over too quickly and found myself at 45 degrees pitch angle well before 15km. Any differences in KSRSS could be due to different atmo density curves or something idk. Will try at KSRSS at some point. (I tested a Thorad Agena).

MJ PVG was also fine, I had a pitch rate of 0.5 set.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Zorg

[septemberWaves]

Red Spirit 5. A mostly-BDB Duna lander.

[Adam-Kerman]

[birdog357]

45 minutes ago, Adam-Kerman said:

Soon^TM. I've been waiting a long time to actually be able to fly that mission. I can't stand the kerbalized Saturns, so I've always used the rescale, which breaks the Venus stuff and the detachable SLA petals. Since the rescale will become official and we have proper Venus parts, this will be awesome.

[DeadJohn]

On 9/11/2021 at 8:14 PM, pTrevTrevs said:

aerodynamic problems on Thor

Some early tall and thin BDB rockets, Thor included, benefit from small stabilizing fins around the engine or bottom tank. That's based on my experience with production ckan BDB, KSP 1.11.2, and 2.5x scale KSRSS.

Without the fins, I had frequent 180 degree flips during gravity turns. It's possible to avoid the flips with careful throttle management, but fins make ascent safer and easier.

[Invaderchaos]

9 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

Some early tall and thin BDB rockets, Thor included, benefit from small stabilizing fins around the engine or bottom tank. That's based on my experience with production ckan BDB, KSP 1.11.2, and 2.5x scale KSRSS.

Without the fins, I had frequent 180 degree flips during gravity turns. It's possible to avoid the flips with careful throttle management, but fins make ascent safer and easier.

Yea, Thor’s ascent (for particular the stretched versions) can be pretty easy to mess up. While fins help, they are not necessarily needed. Generally the culprit for the Thor flipping is starting the gravity turn too early. I end up doing this a lot with Thor lol

5 hours ago, Beccab said:

Project Adam: putting a man in space two years before Gagarin

By the mid-1950s the USAF had got down to business of studying the effect of extremely high altitudes on pilots. One of the programs they ran was Project Manhigh, which lifted a pilot to 30 kilometers high twice in the months immediately preceding the launch of Sputnik 1.

First named Man Very High, the initial proposal was for the Army to supply a modified Redstone based on the Jupiter-C used to launch Explorer 1 and an exterior shell using the principles of the Jupiter’s nose cone to handle the heat of flight and re-entry. The Air Force would supply a passenger cabin derived from the Manhigh capsule, and the Navy would handle recovery procedures. As part of this von Braun invited Manhigh fliers Joseph Kittinger and David Simons to Huntsville to see about adapting a Manhigh gondola for even greater altitude.

 

Much like the first two Mercury flights he wouldn’t be going too far or for too long: six minutes of burn time, ten of free-fall, and a symmetrical 150 miles downrange to a splashdown to the north of the Caribbean Sea. Total price tag was claimed to be US$4.75 million (down from about US$12 million for the earlier, USAF-using version), with the flight to take place before the end of 1959.

 

I watched a video on this proposal, and I wanted to make it in KSP but forget what the project was called. Great to see you bring an awesome proposal to life once again!