Pappystein

Illinois was listed at 28% complete meaning the lower hull (note not floatable at 28% ) That appears to be the steam room in the propulsive section... center aft of ship

Ooh I know I know! I can "reasonably" confirm that it will be Sounding rockets made from Talos, Terrier, Tartar, Nike Ajax, Nike Hercules, Fire Streak, Red Top and many other anti aircraft missiles. I even heard Bloodhound SAM was in the running with all its onion stages! And if you believe that, I have SIX yes SIX Iowa class battleships to sell you... The Iowa, the New Jersey, the Wisconsin, the Missouri, the Illinois and the Kentucky!... Err you may have to cut the front 90 feet off of Wisconsin to have a complete Kentucky...... Wisconsin's replacement nose is on top of Kentucky....

Given the responses to the topic on the Titan 2L I thought I would share a link to my Github Wiki (no pretty pictures like Friznit's but it has download links to all my articles) https://github.com/Pappystein/Space_History/wiki/The-Mighty-Titan-Rocket-Family This is all the articles I have written on the Titan Rocket as well as Big G. PS at some point I need to sit down and figure out "From Monpilot to Gemini, the story of the two seat Mercury capsule" **NOTE** At some point in the future I will have to go through and revise the Titan II section of the articles above, Some of what I said in the previous post about the Titan 23G family is from some newer information I have come across thanks to of all things Books on the Valkyrie and the B-36 Bomber by Dennis Jenkins (Jenkins strikes again!) I am still trying to verify/corroborate data-points to make certain I understand the relationships correctly (it isn't as simple as just I read this... it is true sadly ) ** Realized it may not be intuitive for everyone to download these files so a tiny guide is in the sekret compartment below

it is also why both IRL and in KSP there are single bell LR87s

Nice shots of one of the more interesting "Recycle" programs proposed by a military organization. Warning! satirical poke at history in the spoiler! And thus the Titan 23G was born..... OK so a lot of tongue in cheek there but it is an interesting perspective of what really happened. The Truth is more that the Titan II missile were in.... LESS than ideal shape after sitting on the launch pad for 20+ years with corrosive Hypergolic fuels stored in the tanks. These things were NOT high quality launch vehicles. First Glenn L Martin et al cut what corners they could to make a cheap product. That is not to say that the rockets were low quality, rather they could have been so much more if the government was willing to pay for it. If you think today is a disposable society you should step back into government procurement from 1936 on. NEXT, we poured highly corrosive chemicals in it that were BARELY contained by the fact that they were in a pretty sealed container. And let them sit.... And Sit And Sit Conversely the Titan II GLV and latter Titan III & IV were actually meant to be storable for a period of time and be in PERFECT Condition so things like anti-corrosives were applied inside and out. You can argue that this was done to prevent SALT WATER corrosion (and you would be a little correct in saying so) but the bulk of the reason is NASA and through NASA the end contractors were willing to pay more for the rockets. Something that Congress knew little of... (since they came up with the 23G program) By 1980 those Titan rockets were all suffering from a bad case of nausea in the fuel and oxidizer tanks. I read somewhere that when the Titans were pulled out of their silos after draining the tanks, half of the tanks were found to have been mostly eaten away by the corrosive fuels/oxidizer in the tanks and then by the untreated metal OUTSIDE the tanks. The goal (estimated service life) being to have replaced the Titan with another missile in the early 1970s... It is amazing that after reclamation from the Silos we had something 34 mostly complete First stages and 24 complete second stages. These stages were cobbled together from the many more missile that were pulled out... Each Titan 23G had parts from SEVERAL Titan II LGM-25Cs in it. the First stage could have the engine from one Titan II, the fuel tank from another Titan II the Oxidizer tank from a third, and the outer-skin (the non tank sections of the rocket) from a fourth! Incidentally it is the fact that we had more viable First stages than second stages that allowed the Titan 2L to even exist as an idea... Cost to do that was LESS than the cost to reinforce the lower skin of the first stage to attach 12x CASTOR 4/GEM40 rockets (which would have given a similar payload)

sadly the one thing I do not think anyone has figured out is how to have appropriate water puddles and watermarks show up in KSP static fixtures... Or randomly leave an area of grass that hasn't been trimmed,... or perspective of the horizon. Those and many more clues tell us this is an IRL picture. Mostly though, it is the Number of "Greebles " aka little details up close that give it away. the 3 RS-68 engine boots are each wrinkled differently, the aforementioned grass to the right of the road. all the beams and the tiny spots of rust visible... the DETAIL of said rust spots. I have a pretty dang powerful computer... and it couldn't keep up rendering all of that in real time

GoldForest Demands thousands of new Parts Cobalt Wolf Thumbs up... GoldForest lists 10 Rockets to build....... Cobalt Wolf was never heard from again... I mean I am joking here but WOW that is a list. Everything except F-1 engines would need to be new to make most all of those. Personally I would pick the DAC Helios because it is smaller and looks to comprise fewer parts. But that in itself is an issues because of not being really usable as anything else. Personally I think 1 or two sounding rockets would be Ideal more than NOVA (don't get me wrong here I like quite a few of the Nova concepts presented GoldForest.) But Reference drawings, something the BDB team tends to try to rely on to make their amazing work are few and far FAR between for any of the Nova Concepts. Most of the drawings on them are from Astronautix which in itself makes them questionable for accuracy. If Sounding rockets are something that the team takes on I know a REAL good set of reference drawings/photos for the Talos Booster in use from the early 1970s to the 2000s+. https://www.okieboat.com/Booster History.html

No, the Parachute module is... in a word *threadbare.* (you could also use jank or stupid to describe it in my opinion and I am **NOT** a 3d modeler) It only works ala Mercury capsule with a direct vertical decent from the center of the Parachute to the center of mass of the entire assembly. Fine for 2014 when we were first starting the journey of KSP but not fine for historical anything (what KSP has become to most of us still here after all this time) People have been 'Gimmicking' their multi shroud chutes to LOOK like they are multi shroud but all parachutes currently in KSP are of a single canopy with exception of anyone who has made their own add-ons like ModuleCenterfollowsTransform *source: watched enough BDB streams where parachutes were the subject* However the opinions on the viability of vanilla KSP modules for these purposes is 100% my own. When you remember your history of KSP you realize we have come so far with so little that we purchased.... It is amazing that people were forward thinking enough to develop add-ons that have mostly stood the test of time. ***EDITED try mid (July-ish as I remember) 2013***

So Rogalo Wings for Gemini when? (100% said in Jest but it was the first thing I thought of on reading this comment.) Note I do realize that this would still not allow you to CONTROL a Rogalo wing Gemini... Just that it would "fly straightish" with this feature.

When asked what Rockets adaptor-interstages should be made for... answer: **ALL THE ROCKETS** Nice work everyone!

While I haven't experienced this yet with the BCS, I have Apollo/Kane I jettison it as soon as I am still mostly horizontal but not in the super hot zone, typically 25-35km altitude. Then I wait until I am below 15km to pop my drogues. The differences in drag/dragcubes of the two items forces separation. The end result is you are forcing the cover onto a different ballistic trajectory that is flatter than yours (it should overshoot your landing zone by a couple klicks.) ***HOWEVER*** Your mileage may vary as it is 100% dependent on how steep you are coming into land. I tend to do a shallow approach with a PE at 25-30km at atmospheric interface (JNSQ or KSRSS 2.7) Be warned with that high of a PE you may bounce back out if your AP is beyond the moon's orbit! (always great to pop your SM with all it's monoprop and lifesupport and then fly back out into space....)

While I haven't experienced this yet with the BCS, I have Apollo/Kane I jettison it as soon as I am still mostly horizontal but not in the super hot zone, typically 25-35km altitude. Then I wait until I am below 15km to pop my drogues. The differences in drag/dragcubes of the two items forces separation. The end result is you are forcing the cover onto a different ballistic trajectory that is flatter than yours (it should overshoot your landing zone by a couple klicks.) ***HOWEVER*** Your mileage may vary as it is 100% dependent on how steep you are coming into land. I tend to do a shallow approach with a PE at 25-30km at atmospheric interface (JNSQ or KSRSS 2.7) Be warned with that high of a PE you may bounce back out if your AP is beyond the moon's orbit! (always great to pop your SM with all it's monoprop and lifesupport and then fly back out into space....)

You have just described every suicide burn to impact mission I have ever attempted in KSP! I don't even bother with them anymore because of this (or I build in redundancies)

for BDB parts only, In the Bluedog_DB EXTRAS folder is a sub-folder called Pafftek. It has Hypergolic fuel mixtures (specifically Aerozine 50/NTO and Hydrazine/LF2) And patches the appropriate parts to have those fuels. **NOTE*** this limits some "Lego-ability" because Hypergolic fuels are heavier per unit than LF/O or LH/2! Sorry would be important to tell you what to do with that folder. Copy it into your Gamedata folder (you can create a new BDB_EXtras folder if you want but the Pafftek folder can exist fine in your Gamedata folder on its own

if it fits it ships?

Um, I might be crazy (and it is entirely possible this is wrong) but I thought Atlas V was updated 2 BDB updates ago... (I just checked it was earlier than I thought late 2019) Atlas V is essentially "MODERN" Art form factor from BDB. it is just Atlas V isn't all that interesting visually like the older Atlas rockets.

Direct Ascent was always what C-8 was about. In fact, before someone put the C-8 tag on it, the rocket was nebulously named "Direct Ascent alternative Rocket." And it was meant to prove to the nay-sayers that Direct ascent was in a word, stupid. It was QUICKER & Cheaper to make 33 launches of C-1 and C-2 and use the S-IVC-train to get to the moon. Those 33 launches would put NASA and the USA on the moon by 1970, whereas Direct Ascent (nee C-8,) would cost 2x as much and not get to the moon before 1974. But the main reason that C-8 is bad is the image below... Left is C-8 Right is what began the Lunar Module (LM) we landed on the moon with. And to be clear before anyone thinks "But I can retrofit C-8 with a LM and do it like Apollo Saturn V did," You can but you will have a rocket that costs 3x as much to launch and 10x the cost to build, and also you are no longer Direct Ascent, you are Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. I think it is fair to say that the technology to get to Mars is "still" out of reach. I say that not as a person who doesn't believe we will get there, but as a person who has heard a lot of talk over a lot of years and no one has FLIGHT proven their "Technology" to do so, other than micro-scale experiments. And yes, how you build your C-8 Analog in KSP is pretty good looking GoldForest, But a historical one (be it the original Direct Ascent alternative Rocket, or the "Nova" C-8....) are ALL UGLY ALT-F12 Infinite Propulsion? I have always had issues with suicide burn landers that utilize SRMs, going back to Coatl Probes Plus and Tantares. So I don't use them anymore without doing the above or making them so alt history they really shouldn't count for the probe they are now a stand in for

Also there is no such thing... almost-mostly. What C-8 is, was the PROOF that EARTH Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) would work, not a REAL concept. With the switch to Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, the entire case of the C-8 became a house of cards that fell flatter than the Flat Earther's think the Earth actually is. C-8 was never intended to be Part of NOVA. Again it was used as a comparison of performance. Pretty much after Von Braun withdrew from MSFC prime design (he met his goal of landing on the moon) a few low level NASA engineers who were tasked with developing this "Never going to fly" rocket Pushed to get it built in the post Saturn Moon program. Remember, Saturn C-5 (later Saturn V) was actually much more efficient than EITHER the C-8 proposal OR EOR proposal in terms of cost, development cycle and end results (C-8 would have generated LESS science per launch than the Saturn V.) The *ONLY* advantage C-8 brings is a quicker transit time between Earth and the Moon with a lower safety margin since the Apollo capsule would land on the Moon. While those engineers were pushing to get the C-8 considered for ANYTHING, Saturn MLV launched. And provided better performing rockets that were smaller, cheaper and had a greater potential for payload to orbit. IE something better than C-8. Currently, the only part really not in BDB to make all the MLV variants are the 156" SRMs (which are 2.5m in KSP scale) The closest approximation is probably Photon INC's Shuttle SRBs (they are not exactly correct but they are close if you ignore the thrust chamber.) And Lets face it, C-8's stage sizes are not conducive to any other rocket before or since and it's basic design is uglier than the Russian N-1 rockets. <-- (ok that last is 100% my opinion)

When these come up it points out a problem many engineers have grappled with since the Wright brothers, Blériot etc have all grappled with, Oh I can't forget all the naval architects and engineers fighting this problem as well. Fineness Ratio. The thinner an object is on its line of flight, the more apt it is to loose control. Every Atlas Able was a failure, and those that cleared the tower succumbed to the super narrowness of the 2nd stage compared to the Atlas First stages. This is also one of the driving reasons for Able and Delta to transition into Ablestar(Epsilon) and Delta-E with their shorter fatter tanks that doubled or more the fuel capacity while lowering the fineness ratio to a more acceptable number, and reducing the strengthening needed to withstand aerodynamic forces at the junction between the first stage and the Able/Ablestar/Delta stage. Daveyj576, Nice shots. I agree with you on the built in reflective features working really well

sorry the forum interruption kind of made me not see this, or remember seeing it and forgetting to answer.. Short version, Since my patches are included with BDB, the BDB team want them to ONLY affect their parts, to prevent any errors in other mods or even stock. Longer version... The Patches I wrote are pretty " simple" to expand. The problem becomes mostly the ENGINES.... The tanks are mostly just change the variable in the tank patches and any tank can grant you say AZ50/NTO. The problem really becomes ENGINES... Each engine is addressed individually. For example, a rather small but awesome mod (EstreetRocket's Rocket Motor Menagerie) which has like 16 engines requires 16 new entries if they were to be all Hypergolic engines. And you can't engine switch with how my patches are made. Yes a "Global" patch could be created to all rocket engines to be "Modal" with primary mode being default and Nu Mode being Hypergolic or Hydrazine/Flouride fueled. But in the end that isn't all that "viable" Hope that explains why my patches won't stretch that far. ***note I have submitted this reply 3 times in 2 days... finally it is posted***

My thoughts on this. Again Using the Saturn V if the Saturn V's first stage Rocketdyne F1 engines were scaled to the extra mass of all tanks being LF/O, then they would be unusable due to being Dramatically overpowered. If this game was 100% set in a vacuum with zero gravity that wouldn't matter but the fact that you do have gravity and atmosphere almost REQUIRE multiple fuel types... if you want to have historically performing rockets that can be built "Lego style" you need the multiple fuel types. I understand it can be daunting but it is essential to make cooler things.

My question is, at Monopropellant burnout were you in orbit Nearly in orbit or had Mono left over (the last is what SHOULD happen)

Interesting this was controllable with just 2 fins on the SRMs... When I have flown LDC Titans with the X-20 I end up with 3 fins on the SRMs to maintain stability.

Are you utilizing my Hypergolic Patch? If so did you alter the fuel in the tanks? The Titan II should be at 80% fuel not 100% fuel with Hypergolic fuel patch. And yes, you can easily orbit the Gemini capsule and SM with a Titan II and the hypergolic patch at 80% fuel. You MAY need to use the SM's aft thrusters for a bit to do final circulation. I end up with somewhere between 50% and 75% Mono-propellant for the RCS remaining while the Gemini capsule is in orbit at about 130km. This is mostly in-line with IRL performance of the Titan II Gemini... Also don't know why this didn't post last night when I submitted it....

Yay the forums appear to be back up!