CatastrophicFailure
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Posts posted by CatastrophicFailure
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3 minutes ago, Just Jim said:
But I'm telling ya... if any mod-makers are reading this and want to do something a little different... I would LOVE another "Alien" race mod, or three, to play with! And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only writer...
Well, there is This...
Spoiler
Don’t think you could possibly get more alien than that.
Now back to reading.
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28 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:
Copious amounts of study will be going into it to learn the theories behind it. Then hopefully beyond that I can fit it in an even smaller housing.
Do you want to open a gateway into the fiery bowels of Hell? Because that’s how you open a gateway into the fiery bowels of Hell. I’ve seen Event Horizon.
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17 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:
Tested a new and classified payload.
That looks... familiar...
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Quote
Not enough ignition fluid to light the outer two engines after several three engine relights. Fix is pretty obvious.
I wonder about that a bit. Given that this is rocket science, don’t they know like down to the gram how much TEA-TEB they’re going to need for x amount of relights, or is it a dynamic number that the engine computer has to constantly adjust during startup, making it unpredictable?
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28 minutes ago, magnemoe said:
Data overload, so you could put +50 ton into LEO for $95M. How about landing the core on another drone ship?
Only if you want to recover a charcoal briquette.
The core would be going so fast at that point recovery would be extremely difficult.
1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:agree. Doug isn't quite right; specific impulse on the terminal stage is important, but other issues (like dry mass and TWR) are also important. That's why even a solid-fueled kick stage can beat hydrolox if the kick stage has a low enough dry mass (not that that's the case here; just saying). A high-thrust kerolox lifter makes mincemeat out of gravity drag on the ascent, saving lots of fuel for the orbital stage.
And yes, the proof is in the eating. If SpaceX can deliver 12 tonnes to GTO for $95M, where is ULA's 8.9 tonnes for $150M or more?
The Falcon family upper stage carries five times as much propellant as the Centaur. For anything other than very, very small payloads, it will pack more dV than the Centaur every time.
A 450-second isp stage needs to burn 46% of its gross mass in order to get from LEO to GTO. A 345-second-isp stage needs to burn 55% of its gross mass in order to get from LEO to GTO
Ironic with this line of discussion, or maybe not, ULA’s just sent out a bunch of tweets extolling the virtues of their DIVH. One might think they sounded a bit... nervous.
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7 minutes ago, sh1pman said:
I like this relaxed attitude towards rocket failures
Given the pucker factor that was floating around the place at T-0, to have everything go off so well except for one little hiccup with an easily recognizable and correctable cause, I’d expect nothing less.
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Interesting choice of name, given the totality or things. I wonder what kind of numbers they could get from a FH with dual drone ship booster recovery and expended core?
Aaaaaaand question answered just above.
Thanks for the prescience, @sevenperforce. Out of likes as usual.
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4 hours ago, Just Jim said:
Actually there's a funny story about Kokomo. Now there are half a dozen or so Kokomo's scattered around the world, including Belize... But the Kokomo in the Beach Boys song, which the chapter is named after, refers to a Kokomo in the Florida keys... which doesn't actually exist!
Allegedly, after this song came out there was a flood of calls to travel agents from people wanting to vacation in Kokomo. They were a bit surprised when the response was “Kokomo, Indiana?” which was the only Kokomo at the time. Or maybe it was Ohio. Something like that.
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4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:
Ah yes, for duck hunting. ALL the ducks. Everywhere. With one shot.
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2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:
I looked it up, and apparently that was it! And according to the star map it happened right in the middle of Orion, and I remember it being in the center of a few more bright stars. I had thought it might have been an Iridium flare, but thanks for the confirmation!
That website is tweaking out at the moment, I'll have to look later. As long as you're staring up at the sky, keep an eye out for Humanity Star from the first (sucessfull) Electron mission, tho prime viewing isn't for a few weeks yet.
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1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:
Friday night while I was camping I saw this really bright moving dot in the sky, even brighter than I'd seen the ISS. I put down the container I was carrying and looked up two seconds later to see it already extremely dim, and it completely vanished a second or two later. Curious, how something can go from that bright to nothing in four seconds...
Sounds like an Iridium flare, they can get crazy bright but only last a second or two. For reference, Venus and the ISS reach about a -4 magnitude at their brightest, the full moon is around -12. The older Iridium satellites, due to their huge, flat, shiny antennas, can (briefly) reach around -8.
@cubinator Speaking of such, you sure it was a satellite and not just a meteor?
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16 hours ago, KSK said:
I'm hoping to get a good chunk written this weekend. Would have made a start on it already but a certain wee man from a page or so back decided to take an extended nap on his new godfather. So yeah, what can you do.
Priorities.
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51 minutes ago, Ace in Space said:
It tumbled wildly in the most chaotic spin imaginable, which managed to keep any one part of the craft from taking the brunt of the reentry heat.
Now that right there is how you use entropy against itself.
Me, after entirely too much Kerballing this week, what with taking two days off for Falcon Heavy and incredibly only needing one, I just posted a mission report.
In other Kerbalish things, I got a rusted stuck wheel off my truck in an amusingly Kerbal way, by just unbolting the whole dang thing from the spindle. Extensive percussive maintenance to follow.
Then sat thru a movie for two hours trying desperately hard not to spend the whole time yelling at the screen “space doesn’t work that way! And like... neither does weather...”
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That does seem to make a bit more sense. Probably had all sorts of holes from tipping over, sounds like it just sank while they were scrambling to figure something out. Of course, anything that references “categorically false” is automatic Grade-A conspiracy fodder, too...
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Year 8, Day 126...
The time has come, the walrus said...
Why the walrus is talking in the first place and how he can even tell time I'm still not sure, but as I've said, this place is very strange. In other news, the time has finally come to retire the ailing UpLab before it retires itself. To that end, we've built... this...
Spoiler
Only trouble is, with all the shenanigans on Rald it's been sitting in storage in the back of the VAB for a long time, and no one's quite sure how it works anymore. Oh well, nothing to do but perform the Holy Mouse Click, count to three (absolutely not two or four, and five is right out!), and hope nothing explodes.
Oddly enough, that worked.
So here's the payload. Looks like it was designed to bring something back, too. Hmm...
Without too much fuss, it meets up with the drifting space station, which seems to have alot more randomly venting and glowy red bits than last time we paid attention to it...
So, once we managed to remotely wrest control of the station back from the space-roaches that had apparently done one donut too many with it, the payload sidles up next to it.
Let's see what's inside...
Hmm. Not empty. Looks like some sort of camera. And I think we were going to bring back the LDEF and its cargo of expensive, still-not-completed experiments.
First things first, we cut loose the LDEF module.
Fortunately it wasn't the one with the welded docking port. It's got plenty of batteries and a working probe core, so it should be fine on its own for a little while.
Next, the camera... thing... is released from the return module. The Mission Control team has affectionately dubbed it WALL-EYE.
They may regret that attachment when it comes time for its fiery demise.
WALL-EYE slides on over...
And docks for a good view of the festivities.
Upon closer examination, it seems we've got a docking port mismatch. The crew docking adapter is jettisoned. I'm sure it'll be fine, what's one more piece of debris in this orbit, right?
Now the retro-package separates. Surprisingly enough, it was not a box filled with big-haired synth-pop has-beens on grainy cassette tapes.
What it was... was a blatant violation of the very laws of physics. Somehow, the center of mass is behind the engine at the back there. As in, floating a couple of meters out in empty space. This puts the RCS ports at the front of the thing, and, well...
We may have had to invent several new swear words to deal with this one. In the end, it was just easier to dock the space station to the retro-pack.
The 53-tonne space station with half he RCS thrusters broken and officially no translation capability at all. Let that sink in for a minute. ><shudders><
The details, well... this, we do not speak of, right?
Now, about that wandering LDEF...
Um...
Guys... I think you're gonna need a bigger ship...
Well, it... sort of fits...
I wonder what'll happen if we just close the cargo bay doors like that...
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Oh. That. Ok.
So now we have a rather impressive debris field...
...and the return ship has been ripped apart and is completely dead. Or probably wishes it were.
Meanwhile, the LDEF, while un damaged, is now tumbling helplessly out of control. Apparently, while it did have a good probe core, no one bothered to add any reaction wheels.
Well, we'll have to figure that part out later.
Meanwhile, the time has come, the walrus said...
Will someone please get that walrus out of here?! It smells like rotting fish...
We have cameras up the proverbial yin-yang for this one.
What exactly a yin-yang is, and why someone bothered to write a proverb about it, I'm not going to pursue.
Here's the view from WALL-EYE. Should be pretty spectacular.
ЦDДҀЋЇ , ҀФӍЯДDЄ...
Oddly enough, the end was... surprisingly calm. The nuclear reactor at the front went quickly, as expected, at around 85 kilometers altitude...
I'm sure there's no danger seeding the upper atmosphere with a third of a tonne of highly radioactive spent fuel...
Various support structures and equipment soon followed...
After that, the end came... surprisingly quickly.
At around 79 kilometers the station pivoted sideways to the airstream...
...and the breakup was nearly instantaneous, then.
Things happened very quickly....
There goes WALL-EYE... told you guys not to get too close...
[sad beep]
Several large pieces were left to go streaking across the sky...
...creating quite the fireworks display...
Which just happen to pass nearly right over the space center.
Guys, maybe next time we deorbit something this size, we should endeavor to not do it right over our own heads...
Some bits actually survived enough to reach the lower atmosphere...
The survivors of which were promptly resigned to Davey Jones' locker-- [crickets]
And that was... all she wrote. The UpLab is now a footnote in our history, leaving the page open for bigger and better things.
Oh, and will someone please go find that walrus and apologize? I didn't realize Vlad hadn't showered all month again...
SpoilerSpecial thanks to @Vaporo for the return of
fauxrillicKerillic! -
1 hour ago, Just Jim said:
Rats... I'm not gonna be able to finish this tonight... real life just isn't giving me a break. I'm guessing it's about 2/3rds done... Hopefully I'll get it wrapped up tomorrow... if reality leaves me alone.
I, too, know this pain.
Oh, and belated congrats on crossing the 10k mark.
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@tater whoah... I had no idea they’d gotten that far along in the testing regime. That thing had so much promise, thrown under the bus. Now I’m sad.
@sevenperforce and yet we sort of just saw it in the video linked
(Relevant to this thread bit): how did they make the flip? Engine gimbal alone or were there flight surfaces?
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3 hours ago, tater said:
They even did the horizontal to vertical transitions for BFS.
2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:I'm still skeptical about this, by the way.
Quite so.
I thought the DCX never got fully horizontal? It translated, sure, but pointing... up-ish. Source?
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23 minutes ago, llanthas said:
Kinda surprised that nobody's talking about the fact that those boosters reversed from 1,000 mph, back towards Canaveral. And THEN had power left to land. How can they possibly be so much more efficient than anything flown before?
That's basically 2.5 full launches worth of fuel for each of them..
Like the other guys said.
Grab MechJeb, KER or some other delta-v readout, and try it yourself in KSP. A nearly empty booster with no payload has a surprising amount left.
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Such a pity.
An air strike did seem a bit much, What with all the navy/coast guard ships around who could do the same thing with a dozen rounds from Ma Deuce.
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Click.
I said a click, clop
Clicky to the cloppy
The click, click a clop, and you don't stop, a rock it out
Bubba to the bang bang boogie, clicky to the cookie
To the rhythm of the boogie the click. -
9 minutes ago, sh1pman said:
Why is the nose cone charred though?
From the exhaust plume of the core as it went by.
You can see the charsoot is a bit off Center.Man, kerolox is some dirty stuff....
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4 hours ago, XB-70A said:
I just had 30 minutes of freedom to play a bit, so...
I’m out of likes for the day and time for the moment so I’m flagging this post so I can come back and dissect the design tonight.
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5 hours ago, Just Jim said:
Just because...
Thanks for the prescience, 
I thought the DCX never got fully horizontal? It translated, sure, but pointing... up-ish. Source?
The Saga of Emiko Station - Complete
in KSP1 Mission Reports
Posted · Edited by CatastrophicFailure
Ack. Ninja’d.