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Wiseman

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Posts posted by Wiseman

  1. One of my favorite things about doing this series is getting feedback from people who know more than I do, and sharing it with everybody! Always glad to pass on good info. :)

    We're headed towards Lunette Station! I decided to make my life harder than it would otherwise be, with an attempt to knock out the first 30-day-in-space milestone... around the Moon! This time, the parameters should make this an easier mission... If I packed enough snacks?

     

  2. On 2/16/2021 at 1:53 PM, jimmymcgoochie said:

    edit2: That inclination change though... Why change inclination AWAY from the station? Just dock with the station, do that contract, then go off and change inclination for the other contract, instead of moving to a retrograde orbit at a high fuel cost then trying to change back to where you were before for even more fuel?

    Why mess it up instead of do the (now obvious) smart thing? Because to paraphrase Elon Musk, I was too dumb to think of it. :cool: Speaking of which, here's the arrival of the Mars Exploration System!

     

  3. On 2/9/2021 at 11:50 AM, Spaceman.Spiff said:

    Nice!

    I wonder if you could gain some dV on the CSM by using the new solar panels instead of  fuel cells. It would save mass and reduce the complexity a bit. 
    You would still have to bring a bit of LOX and extra water, but it would save you the trouble of LH2 boil off.

     

    I actually tried that for my custom Apollo Block III service module. I'd need ISS-sized panels to keep up with the monster avionics on that thing!
     

     

    9 hours ago, Such said:

    Loving the series, though trying to avoid spoilers as I'm not caught up - please could you post an updated mod list for any extras you're using? Particularly grateful for the confirmations of what's working for you in 1.8. (Or point me to one I've missed, in which case apologies.)

    At this point, you're better off looking to the RP-0 install guide on the wiki. There's a link in the description. I'm not really doing much different than what's on that page, but there's a list I keep up-to-date on the YouTube playlist description.

    Also, I forgot to post the last ep, so here's a double feature!

     

     

  4. Yeah, I love using the Apollo stuff. Apparently it's going to get cheaper pretty soon with the Block III unlock! Martian Moonhopper 2 is launching in the video below.

    Absolutely yes on NTRs, but I'm waiting for the tech to mature a bit before playing with them. I also want to unlock radiators before really digging into sending LH2 on very long journeys. 
     

     

  5. No, that's a good point - I should have a few hundred extra m/s of dV on the return trip, if I've calculated everything else properly. But maybe it's not enough, who knows! That's a problem for future me. :cool:

    The way this craft is set up, I've actually got a sample device on the rocket skirt of the lander stage, so I'll be grabbing a single sample and returning with it. My priority is the contract, not the science, for now.

    Hope you all had a lovely holiday! I'm back with the launch of the Hermes 1 spacecraft, heading to Mercury by way of Venus. Also, our first crewed Apollo mission!

     

  6. It's finally time to bring our Orblab 1 astronauts home! I've been excited to get moving on space station contracts, so we talk through that, and start looking into the future of space stations in LEO. Then, we take a design/research interlude, where I walk through the next steps in our tech tree. Finally, a daring rescue of a wildly spinning Moonhopper!

     

     

  7. A busy episode this time! We bring down Gemini 6 to complete the buggy contract, adjust the orbit of a Martian probe to nail a contract I forgot about, and finally return to Johnny Flores' lunar orbital flight. Phew! As if that wasn't enough, I decide we're ready to say that before this decade is out, we will put kerbals on the surface of the Moon! (The decade being 1970, but close enough, really.)

     

     

  8. First, I provide an update on the state of the space program. It's 1974 and we're still chugging away with mid-60's tech, but we're getting closer and closer to Apollo! We also haven't quite decided on our final moon-mission architecture, but I've got some ideas. Then, it's time to finally fly the mission to orbit the moon with a crewed vessel!

     

     

  9. The Martian Moonhopper arrives and inserts into a highly elliptical orbit. Rather than spend a bunch of deltaV going for a fast orbit, we take our time with this spacecraft - the combination of solar panels and an RTG help take the edge off the power consumption. Meanwhile, we launch our new Gemini service module, with one teeny tiny checklist item missing.

     

    The Moonhopper has arrived at Deimos! It's a very silly place. The orbital velocity near the surface is 4 m/s! Four! I didn't quite comprehend just how small Deimos is, but it's still a super interesting moon. There's a big funky spire at the north pole that's probably a texture/model artifact, so let's go check it out!

     

     

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