DaveyJ576

Would there be a point of diminishing return here? What I mean is that as you add engines you are also adding weight. The engine thrust structure would have to be beefed up, also adding weight. As we already know, the Saturn I and IB had a marginal TWR. So, adding engines may not have given you much, if any, added performance while adding a lot of complexity and weight. Werner Von Braun himself admitted that the Saturn I was an engineering compromise, a way to get a "heavy lift" rocket in the quickest possible time within the lowest possible budget. He admitted in an interview that I read (sorry, the exact reference is escaping me) that it was not an optimal design. Because of that I believe that NASA would not have built any more of them in any version, or continued to try to tinker with them. Had NASA continued to fly the Apollo Saturn system they would have most likely flown through the existing hardware and then replaced the Saturn IB with something else for the medium lift category, most likely the Saturn II or the INT-20. I will admit that Lego-ing rockets is a lot of fun. My favorite Saturn IB variant is the four engine E-1 version.

The fall of 1963 was an important one for Gemini. The program was struggling with the paraglider, and most importantly the Titan II launch vehicle was experiencing a lot of teething problems, not the least of which was a severe longitudinal oscillation known as pogo. Test flights were experiencing a pogo rate well above what NASA felt was safe for astronauts. The Air Force's Ballistic Systems Division (BSD) didn't care much about solving the pogo issue, because as long as the pogo was not affecting the performance of the missile in its mission of delivering a nuclear warhead (it wasn't), the Air Force had little incentive to spend time and money correcting the issue. Indeed, the BSD was worried that working on the pogo issue may actually delay the introduction of the missile into active service, and they heavily resisted doing anything about it. NASA also had some valid concerns about combustion instability in the 2nd stage engine, and overall parts and manufacturing reliability. The Titan II had only a 50% end to end reliability record to that point. NASA was so worried that in October 1963 they initiated a study to look at the feasibility of shifting the launch vehicle to the already flown and tested Saturn I. Some very high level meetings and discussions took place between the BSD and NASA and the bureaucratic log jam was cleared. The Air Force intransigence melted away and thy began to incorporate the recommended pogo suppression equipment in some of the test missiles. In November 1963 they had a full up success with the test flight of missile N-25. The issues were all then quickly resolved and the Titan II turned in sterling service to both NASA and the Air Force. But let's say for the moment that NASA got spooked by the Titan problems and actually shifted Gemini to launch on the Saturn I. Here is my interpretation of how that would look: The design of the Gemini spacecraft and the adaptor section was already well along in the fall of 1963. A sudden shift to the Saturn I would have most likely resulted in something of a jury rig when it came to fitting the spacecraft to the S-IV, although this Delta adaptor works quite well in game. Changing the spacecraft adaptor section and all of its internal systems would have resulted in an unwarranted delay. Also, the much greater explosive power of the Saturn I while sitting fueled on the pad would have necessitated the switch to a LES. The ejection seats already fitted would not have gotten the crew far enough away from the fireball. The added complexity of the LES would have been offset by the removal of the ejection seats, gaining quite a bit of space inside the already crowded spacecraft interior. The book On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini by Barton C. Hacker and James Grimwood, gives a great explanation of the issues surrounding the Titan II, but unfortunately does not provide a lot of details about how the Saturn I would have been configured for Gemini. We can only wonder...

Success! Based on your posts, I went into the Clouds.cfg file in the KSRSS/KSRSSVE/EVE folder and studied it carefully. It had a lot of info concerning the other planets, but when I scrolled all the way to the bottom it had only 3 lines with 3 words about Earth. It seemed strangely formatted. I suddenly remembered that I had downloaded the KSRSS megapack to a holding folder a while back for a test install. I went to that folder and found that the Clouds.cfg file was almost totally different. It had a lot of lines concerning Earth so I copied and pasted it into my appropriate KSRSS Gamedata folder, replacing the old file. I booted up the game and for pity's sake there were the clouds! I believe the problem started with the EVE Redux update that CKAN installed a few weeks ago. I think it borked the Clouds.cfg file in some way because it worked fine prior to that. You weren't able to provide a lot of info to me, but what you did provide pointed me in the right direction. Using a little intuition I then was able to fix it. Thank you for your assistance @OrbitalManeuvers. I appreciate it!

I went back and checked those two folders. RSS-Textures contains EarthHeight.dds and UranusRing.png. RSS-Tweaks contains Uranus-Rings.cfg. I don't think either of these have anything to do with clouds on Earth, but please correct me if I am wrong.

I don’t recall which mod those two folders came with. I have never installed RSS/RO.

I am having a minor but vexing problem. No clouds. Attached are screenshots of Gamedata and EVE interface: I have a feeling I am missing something simple. I had clouds until a recent CKAN update was loaded for EVE. Then the clouds disappeared. What am I missing? I have fully loaded the game all the way to the space center. No clouds. Thank you!

Is that an ETS service module? How was the performance with the Saturn I? I jury rigged up a "Block 0" Apollo that consisted of just the CM and the SM decoupler, two batteries, some extra monoprop, and eight Gemini solids for retro. It worked pretty well and the Saturn I had no problem lifting it.

There was an earlier post on page 12 that said that BoulderCo configs would be okay. My problem was very similar. After doing the CKAN update, I lost all of my clouds. Can't seem to get them back. I have tried AVP and BoulderCo and it doesn't work. Will try your method.

I need some help please. When I first downloaded this I had clouds. After a recent update I do not. There are screenshots of my folders: What do I need to change? Thank you.

I like it! Looks very Navy. I can see a big USN emblazoned on the side!

Who needs Atlas? Behold... the Saturn 1 as it was meant to fly. This Saturn 1A booster is headed uphill with the Surveyor 5 moon lander. The Centaur IU controls the whole stack. I thought it looked better that way and was more in keeping with the lines of the original Saturn 1 Block 1. I added some extra battery capacity to the Centaur IU and a little more monoprop so I could use the Centaur as a cruise stage, and for early landing site adjustment. It flew well on Mechjeb PVG to a 150 km parking orbit.

Extremely well done! Bravo Zulu!

Hello! This got buried a few pages back so I would like to ask again. @CobaltWolf@Zorg@Invaderchaos, I have a few questions concerning the Saturn I and IB. I found a passage in chapter three of Roger Bilstein's Stages to Saturn in which he describes the process of modifying the S-I stage during the leadup to building the new S-IB. He stated that an aggressive program of weight reduction succeeded in reducing the overall weight of the stage by an astounding 9000 kg, or in U.S. terms nearly 10 tons! A portion of that came from the lighter fins, but the rest came from "modifications to the propellent tanks, spider beam and other components, and removal of various tubes and brackets no longer required." When combined with the uprating of the H-1 engines to first 200,00 and then to 205,000 lbs of thrust the new Saturn IB gained a substantial performance upgrade from its predecessor. I took a look at the BDB S-I stage and found that a fully outfitted S-IB version comes out to be only 80 lbs lighter than the S-I, and that is entirely due to changing the fins. Was this the intended situation by the dev team? Was this the result of the balancing that needed to take place to give the models semi-realistic performance? If not, is it possible to get a B9 switch for the lighter S-IB version, or perhaps a whole new version? Also, is there a config somewhere that will give us an all white S-IB stage similar to what was flown on the Skylab and ASTP missions? Even if you change nothing it is still a fantastic rendering. Thank you.

@CobaltWolf, @Invaderchaos, @Zorg, So, I have a few questions concerning the Saturn I and IB. I found a passage in chapter three of Roger Bilstein's Stages to Saturn in which he describes the process of modifying the S-I stage during the leadup to building the new S-IB. He stated that an aggressive program of weight reduction succeeded in reducing the overall weight of the stage by an astounding 9000 kg, or in U.S. terms nearly 10 tons! A portion of that came from the lighter fins, but the rest came from "modifications to the propellent tanks, spider beam and other components, and removal of various tubes and brackets no longer required." When combined with the uprating of the H-1 engines to first 200,00 and then to 205,000 lbs of thrust the new Saturn IB gained a substantial performance upgrade from its predecessor. I took a look at the BDB S-I stage and found that a fully outfitted S-IB version comes out to be only 80 lbs lighter than the S-I, and that is entirely due to changing the fins. Was this the intended situation by the dev team? Was this the result of the balancing that needed to take place to give the models semi-realistic performance? If not, is it possible to get a B9 switch for the lighter S-IB version, or perhaps a whole new version? Also, is there a config somewhere that will give us an all white S-IB stage similar to what was flown on the Skylab and ASTP missions? Even if you change nothing it is still a fantastic rendering. Thank you.

This photo highlights one of the major considerations of landing the Apollo Direct lander on the moon. How does the pilot see down while laying on his back? The solution(?) was to provide him with two periscope-like devices sticking out to either side. Think of backing up your car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Yikes! With the primitive avionics of the day that gave everyone cause for concern while landing this multi-ton, multi-story machine.

Do you use all BDB components, or do you include other mods to get your configs?

Yeah, I messed around with these a little in the pre-revamp versions and was not impressed. It seems as if the S-II added so much weight that the first stage couldn’t handle it. I’ve wondered if it was an issue of using the scaled down BDB S-II. I would have to believe that Von Braun and his team wouldn’t have designed a rocket with such anemic performance. Most likely the IRL S-II of these rockets would have been much lighter.

How was their performance?

So I have been playing around with the new Saturn parts and the new details are amazing. In particular, the S-II engine mount is a tremendous improvement over the previous version. However, a question came up. Was the engine heat shield flown on every flight, or was it removed from later vehicles? Curiously, it seems that the S-II stages that are on display do not have the heatshield installed. The photographic record seems to be a bit spotty in this regard. Not even the experts on Nasaspaceflight.com can seem to come to a consensus. Can someone point to an official source that will answer the question? Thanks!

F-1V I believe to mean F-1 Vacuum with an optimized nozzle. Akin to Raptor Vac or Merlin Vac.

I would like to enthusiastically second this motion. It has always amazed me the amount of work, the astounding attention to detail, and the level of passion that the whole dev team puts into this project. And for something that you don’t get paid for! BDB and mods like it greatly ramps up the “immersion factor” of KSP and makes the sim much more enjoyable to play. I actually watched Neil and Buzz walk on the moon in 1969 and I have been fascinated with space travel ever since. BDB allows me to play out that boyhood desire to fly to the moon with them. Thank you all for everything that you do. People like me appreciate it more than you know.

So I think I am gooning something up. I downloaded AVP via CKAN, but I still don't have any clouds. Do I need to move a config file from AVP over to EVE?

Very well done and believable alt-history. The U.S. had all the hardware and talent in place to do some pretty imaginative stuff in the 60’s and 70’s. We were lacking only in the will to do so. Sigh…

Nice! Are all the Samos parts BDB? Probes Plus?

Is it possible write a config to add a third kerbalnaut position to the LM, possibly via a B9 part switch? If you used an ETS CM to fly to the moon you could have extra kerbals to send to the surface. You could maximize the surface engineering tasks and the science return while still having a pilot to fly it downhill. Some advanced LM versions should be able to support three ‘nauts. Just a thought.