pTrevTrevs

Can't really put my finger on why, but the Titan III and IV always felt to me like the rocket equivalent of a homemade motorcycle that somebody put together in their garage. There's just this inelegant, brute-force aura to the whole family. And that's why it's such a cool vehicle.

Absolutely disgusting. Legitimately an affront to God.

Hehe big rocket go brrr

You think so? I mean, I'm super glad to hear it but at the end of the day this is just a normal Apollo-Saturn mission profile. But if you think this is great, wait til I visit Hadley on '15...

Apollo 12: Sailors on the Ocean of Storms: Uhh, credit to Andrew Chaikin for the title of this one, read his book if you haven't already... Some years prior to the first manned flights to the Moon, the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft bounced to a stop just inside the rim of a shallow crater in the eastern region of Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms. Although it has long since gona defunct, it still has one final role to play in lunar exploration; that of a target for the first pinpoint landing of the Apollo program. Apollo 11's landing site was charted as a broad ellipse, with no particular landmark or surface feature being targeted for Eagle's touchdown. While such an approach was fine for early exploration and test missions, later lunar landings required the ability to accurately target a specific point on the surface to make the most of their more capable equipment. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a mission Apollo 12 will attempt to set down within walking distance of the Surveyor's aging hulk. Additionally, it will double the duration of time on the surface and deploy the first ALSEP to begin the collection of long-term experimental data from the Moon. Coming up next, Apollo 13 and the Big Goof.

What is it they say about sledgehammers and killing ants?

A fellow Saturn-Centaur enjoyer, I see.

Apollo 11: The Big One Sit down and grab a drink, and make sure you're connected to WiFi, lots of images and lots of text here, as you might expect for this mission.

A suggestion for when you guys get the time to further flesh out the Apollo revamp, the J-class ELMs all had a redesigned, bigger MESA on the front-right quadrant of the Descent Stage. From the look of it, the new MESA extended all the way across the face of the quadrant, protruded from the descent stage's actual skin, and unfolded to reveal a much larger equipment deck. I've tried to put together a series of in-flight photos, but many of them are from the same angle, as it seems like footage of the J-class JMs before touchdown is rare. Anyway, I understand that something like this would be a lower priority, since it wouldn't really add much functionally to the mod and would only really be a cosmetic addition.

Actually I was talking about the ET/Orbiter stack on top of an S-II, just like a Saturn-Shuttle with an extra stage in the middle. The idea being that I speculate this is one of the ways they could have made the lunar shuttles work in For All Mankind. Anyway here's Apollo 10: Again, I never realized the pre-Apollo 11 LMs didn't have plume deflectors, and I have no idea why. Still, the little differences that popped up from lunar module to lunar module really fascinate me; maybe it's because I don't always know why the designers chose to add them...

I’ve made a couple from before the new LM was available, and I’m working on another one to bring on my upcoming J-class landings, but haven’t tested the latter in flight yet. It’s not that hard to make if you can use robotics for the front and rear hinges, although I used the SOCK Canadarm elbow joints in my latest iteration because they were smaller than the stock hinges. I’ll be sure to post some pictures when I finally land one on the Moon.

Uhh, yes?

Personally, I was thinking something like a Saturn V but with the S-IVB replaced with a Shuttle ET and Orbiter. If that kind of setup could be made to work maybe it would let us get FAM-style lunar shuttles. Might try it myself, once I get to the shuttle era.

Taking a break from Apollo stuff for tonight's AAR to show what else has been going on: Another save, another Mariner 9 kitbash: This time it's made from a mix of BDB Mariner 10 parts and Coatl Aerospace Mariner 6/7 parts. Also a Great Value brand ITOS satellite on Delta N6:

Or they could have gone balls to the wall and used a Saturn-Shuttle with an S-II stage. Would have loved to see that kind of insanity.

While it’s on my mind, I’ve got a quick question about the later Deltas. I know on Delta II flights with nine boosters, only six were lit on the ground the other three were air-started. I’m wondering when this profile started to see use. Was it a standard procedure as early as the Super Six and the Delta 900 or was it only introduced later once more powerful Castors and GEMs entered service? Kind of racking my brain over this, since I’m starting to fly Delta 0100s and I’m too much of a pedant for authenticity to let this slide.

Apollo 9: Out On a Limb So I can't believe I never noticed this before, but apparently LM-3 Spider did not actually have the RCS plume deflectors installed. As a matter of fact none of the LMs before LM-5 Eagle featured them. I have no idea why, but maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can explain more. Anyway, here's the rest of the gallery:

NIMBUS GANG NIMBUS GANG Seriously though Nimbus is hella useful; I like to use its frame to build a lunar communications relay for far-side landings, or to carry high-powered scanning equipment that can’t fit on a standard Lunar Orbiter bus. Will elaborate more once I get to Apollo 17/18 in my career.

Apollo 8's Lunar Voyage:

One of the biggest things that sticks out to me regarding the BDB/Kerbalism interface is that Kerbalism breaks some of the animations on BDB experiment; specifically the materials bay experiments for the GATV and LEM, the spectrometer for the Gemini adapter section, as well as the gravity scanner and mass spectrometer for OGO. I run Kerbalism in my current KSRSS game, so I'll keep an eye out for any other issues.

Not sure if this is a joke or a genuine request at this point.

Ideal timeline, right here.

Double post but whatever. Intelsat III F-1: Apollo 7:

I was going to school in Huntsville when they were refurbishing the vertical Saturn V. For months it looked like somebody had dumped pancake batter or something all over it, because of the primer they used before the paint. Saturn I had a similar situation but it didn't last as long.

Based Huntsville inhabitant. Have they finished restoring all the vehicles in the rocket garden? I drove past USSRC about three weeks ago and saw that Pathfinder was still missing from its stack, but couldn’t tell if anything else was gone.