pTrevTrevs

Yep! It's supposed be the largest space museum in the world!

8/10, hyperlinks and quotes are always nice.

Ah. Well, I guess being a tourist astronaut is better than not being any kind of astronaut at all.

This weekend I visited Huntsville, Alabama, home to Redstone Arsenal, the Marshall Space Flight Center, and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Although I was in town for unrelated business, I decided to to visit the Space Center, since I was too close to not stop by when I had the chance. This time, I remembered to take a few pictures, and thought I would share them here. The Space Shuttle Pathfinder was a mock up built out of steel and wood for ground testing, and was not meant for flight. I believe this is the only full assembly (orbiter, SRBs, external tank) of the space shuttle in the entire world. It was so big I couldn't even fit the entire thing in frame. An Apollo era White Room with two astronaut mannequins and a technician. I don't know for certain, but I believe this is a real one actually used for Apollo. Models of the Soyuz and Conestoga rockets, located outside the entrance to the IMAX theater. The Apollo 16 Command Module, Casper. A moon rock brought back by Apollo 12. The writing below is Alan Bean's thoughts on the rock. It reads "I remember this rock... it was my favorite one." Interior of a Lunar Module. I can't remember if this was a simulator or simply a replica, but in any case I wasn't allowed inside. There was barely any room to move around anyway, it was much smaller than I had expected. Panoramic of the interior of the Skylab workshop's first floor. This too, seemed very small in comparison to photographs, I guess in weightlessness you can make better use of the room available, and thus don't need as much. Owen Garriott's space suit, used for several EVAs on his Skylab mission. Although I neglected to photograph it, a Sokol space suit used by his son (apparently he was an astronaut too!) sits beside it. A fragment from Skylab that survived reentry and landed more or less intact. As the plaque says, this was one of the largest fragments recovered from Skylab. A Saturn I with an Apollo boilerplate on top. This rocket has been at the museum since it opened in 1969, and was delivered the same day as the Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle, which now lies horizontal inside the museum. Also, they had one of those centifuge rides you can usually find at carnivals, but I decided not to ride it. This is not the Saturn V I mentioned in the last caption, but rather a replica built for the museum in the 1990s. It stands in such a way that you can walk under the first stage and peer up into the engine nozzles. Again, the size of these things in pictures can be very deceptive. I still can't fathom how big the rocket is. I believe I made a remark about how the F-1 engine was big enough for me to make a small house out of it. This is a mock-up of the entirety of Skylab (solar panels sold separately), as opposed to just the workshop as shown in an earlier photo. It looks like this thing has been there for some time, and I doubt it's going to be moved any time soon. If you look closely underneath the telescope you might see a person (he just happened to be there, I don't know him) which should give you an idea of how big the station is. Those are all the pictures I have, and they don't come close to encompassing how awesome this museum is. In addition to these exhibits, they had the Apollo 12 Mobile Quarantine Trailer, a Mercury simulator, several Gemini trainers, a V-2, the cabin for the Apollo Command Module simulator (which you could climb in), a replica of Wernher von Braun's office with his original desk, chair, and rocket models, and so much more. If you happen to be travelling through or near Huntsville, make sure to swing by (and allow at least five hours), it's definitely worth it.

No.... please, no.... Squad, it doesn't have to be this way, please!

First things first. Siege on, young Trebber. I have actually recieved those images from nearly every friend I have, including some real life ones.

It may be possible to change the time back by tampering with the persistent file, but I've never tried it, nor have I ever heard of anyone who has. *[citation needed] intensifies*

Alright, I managed to wrestle a Saturn IB into orbit (sort of), although the S-IVB is still notoriously unruly and threatened to fly off course several times. Two major problems still remain. First, the rocket doesn't have quite enough Delta V to reach a stable 80 x 80 km orbit with the Apollo CSM. I've already removed some fuel to represent that the S-IB could only launch a partially fueled Command Module, but it looks like I'll have to take some more out. The second problem is with the adapter petals. for some reason they don't seem to want to separate like they should. In fact, they don't separate at all. I have yet to find a problem with the Command Module, but I'm sure there's something out there...

From launch, the rocket behaves fine. The S-IVB begins to spin a few seconds after separation of the S-IB. Nope, I have been able to stop the spin for a few seconds one time, but it resumed very shortly after Nope. I copied the CM from the Saturn I boilerplate, which definitely didn't have this problem It had better be, with all the struts I applied I'm going to take another look at it later today, and if I still can't find a solution I may have to hand it off to you.

S-IVB is completely uncontrollable. Even with no input it always spins off in a random direction and it takes a huge amount of effort to fix it, almost as if a phantom force were being applied to it. At first I thought it might have been the engine, since it has such a high gimbal limit, but after restricting it to 10% it still has the same problem. Vernor engines make no difference. Less thrust on ullage motors makes no difference. I'm at a loss.

Dear god, that was the hardest part of the design. To be honest I had to pull up some images of your Saturn V to see how you did them. I still have no idea if they're going to work the way I want, I haven't been able to get the Saturn IB into orbit to test it yet.

Since I've begun to clog up the WIP thread with all my Saturn posts, and because the Saturn I is nearing completion, I would like to move my progress updates for this project to their own thread. There have been loads of Saturn replicas here, so you may well ask "Why another one?" Well, I felt like it. That's why. The Saturn rocket family is one of the most important in history, and I would like to try my hand at recreating these massive rockets that eventually propelled America to the Moon. Planned Variants* Saturn I Block I: First stage test flight, dummy S-IV: Planned Block II: First live S-IV stage: Released DOWNLOAD AS-101/SA-6 Apollo CM boilerplate test: Released DOWNLOAD AS-103/SA-9 Boilerplate, with Pegasus micrometeorite satellite. Released DOWNLOAD Saturn IB Apollo CSM AS-201, AS-202 Apollo 1 (Planned), Apollo 7, Skylab 2, Skylab 3, Skylab 4: Released DOWNLOAD AS-203 No spacecraft, test of S-IVB restart capability: Released DOWNLOAD Apollo 5 Lunar Module test flight in Low Earth Orbit: In development Apollo-Soyuz Test Project CSM and docking adapter (Soyuz rocket sold separately): Planned Saturn V CSM Only Apollo 4, Apollo 6, Apollo 8: Planned CSM + LEM Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 13, Apollo 14: Planned CSM+LEM+LRV Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17: Planned (Seriosuly, this one is gonna take some time) Skylab I: Planned *Subject to change Work-in-Progress Photos Saturn I Block II AS-101 Boilerplate Test AS-103 with Pegasus satellite Saturn IB with Apollo CSM AS-203

First Saturn IB test flight, with uncrewed Block I Apollo spacecraft. First Saturn IB launch failure, and first emergency abort for an Apollo spacecraft Can someone tell me whether or not the S-IVB had any form of RCS on it? It was very diffuclt to control and began spinning out of control as soon as it ignited. Of course, that may have been because one of the SLA fairings was flopping all around the place because I neglected to apply struts, but still...

Hype-man calls for aid!

Hell yeah, @teo's back! Those Mir components are looking better than ever!

I think I finally worked out the kinks with the Saturn I and Apollo boilerplate. I do have one question regarding it though; if I turn on advanced tweakables in settings and then use it to apply autostruts to a craft, will the autostruts still be in place if the craft is downloaded by someone else? Anyway, here's the third and final variant of Saturn I. Apollo CM boilerplate with a Pegasus micrometeorite satellite. This is the first time I haven't executed a high altitude abort with the escape tower. It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure the Pegasus launches carried the CM all the way into orbit. Boilerplate separation. The S-IV has two sepratrons with a small amount of fuel in them to push the stage away from the boilerplate. Pegasus deployed. Too bad the game doesn't have a real micrometeorite detector, I had to settle for solar panels instead. Meanwhile the boilerplate slowly drifts away as it transmits telemetry back to the ground. This particular model has no parachutes, and is not meant to survive reentry. A few more checks and tests to make sure everything is good here and then it's on to the Saturn IB!

More Saturn I and Apollo Boilerplate tests I'm still dealing with the sturdiness of the rocket, especially on the fairing connecting the S-IV to the boilerplate. Since it looks like parachutes don't clip through each other anymore, I replaced the radial mount ones with these, to better represent Apollo parachutes. Blooper of the Day "Escape" Tower

Hype?

Oh wow, that image is larger than I expected.

Known for never being seen by certain people.

Saturn I with Apollo Command Module boilerplate. Still have some kinks to work out, namely the connection between the CM and the S-IV stage. The S-I stage has so far performed without any problems on both variants I've tested. Also, it looks like parachutes collide with each other now!

Restored WIP section and added Saturn I.

Kicking off 1.2 with something I've wanted to do for years. Until the Vector was added, I had to hold off because there were no engines that powerful enough to lift a Saturn I and small enough to fit on the first stage. With a string of projects that had nothing to do with space (some of which didn't even get finished), I figured it's time to get back to the game's intended purpose. I also found an opportunity to check out the new communications system in 1.2, even though it wasn't historically accurate to launch a payload on this configuration of the Saturn I.

Known for having a concerning obsession with memes