Pappystein

Nice Rocket. A few questions because the S-VN upper stage you have made seems interesting. 1) is that a BDB tank (asking for boil-off reasons) 2) if Boil-off was involved on it... how well did the rocket preserve it's LH2? 3) recognize a tweak-scaled LDC interstage, but what did you end up using for your S-VN engine mount. Looks like the S-IVB engine plate but not quite perfect? (the ring around the engine plate is throwing me) I am still hoping that someday we will get a good BDB grade 156" SRM... But in the interim, the 3 segment RSRB for any Space Shuttle mod is the same as the 156" SRM for Saturn MLV (yes the Space Shuttle SRB is a direct-evolution of the Thiokol proposal for the "156" SRM" for Saturn MLV!) While the 156" SRM for MLV would have actually been 4 segments, it was using the older fuel formulation which Is why I suggest 3 segment versions not 4. The Actual Thiokol 156" SRM would have had a cuffed skirt more like the existing lateral AJ-260 in BDB, than the flared skirt on either the Shuttle SRB or the inline AJ-260. Oh and in the one detailed drawing I have seen of the MLV with the 156" SRMs (it isn't all THAT detailed) a cuff would have surrounded the top of the 1st segment right below the nose cone as well. there may or may not have been a strong back in-between the two cuffs on the Saturn side. Had Lockheed won the 156" contract, the motor would have been largely the same as the Thiokol. It is only when you get to United Aircraft (USA) Chemical Systems Division's CTD-156x that any significant change occurs... That is because UA/CSD had not developed a means of physical thrust vectoring and was still relying on the less reliable (due to diameter) liquid injection like the UA-120x SRMs! The problem with removing that line from the tanks is you have now invalidated much of the performance gains those tanks are to get. What is needed is an update to the Atlas Surface Attach extra file with and addon to the needs statement that excludes the two Saturn tanks. I am willing to look at the file and see what I can do to improve it. I haven't had an issue with this engine but I have not flown a MX based rocket in weeks. So when I am testing what I hope will fix the concern that Jcking had above I will check this as well. Before I get too far can you confirm it is only the SR-119 and not any other stages of Athena/MX/Peacekeaper/Minotaur III.....? Um, wow? BDB team. You are making me run out of superlatives! I am extremely happy with all this amazing work. Each and EVERYONE of you deserve our Kudos!

Um, you missed the Left (right side in this view) solar array. What the heck! The real one at the bottom so you can see how to make it right! Sorry had to make the joke. In all seriousness aside from some minor Paralax and shadowing differences causing things to look "slightly off" This is an amazing scope of work err amount of detail Zorg! Also an amazing set of WIP pictures! * can you tell I have been preaching SOW at my work all day today!? already posted this on the Git, but a 3.75m fairing matching the early Saturns for those of us who want to fly a constant Diameter S-IV stage for "REASONS." This would match the 2.5m SAturn SA1 and SA5 textures

Glad you did, For those not in the know, those are Titan LDC tanks from BlueDog DB. Hence me calling the Rocket a Titan V.

But, But But! I just got my ISS fully complete! Awe MAN! newer better parts. Seriously these parts look pretty amazing. And I thought the Old Solar Wings looked amazing.... I am almost stupefied by the work you have done in IMPROVING them and the Z Truss.

Um, I really REALLY hope you didn't take my comment about the WIP pictures as un-textured.... as some sort of challenge to be beaten down.... Where is the delete post from two days ago button? VERY NICE Zorg! mouth-watering... edge of my seat nice.

Zorg, I know you are not really fully into the texturing of that yet but day-um it looks good as is. Can't wait for the finished product. Now that the "end" of KSP is in sight, A TU extras folder would be nice for this and a couple other parts..... Even with Shadowmage mostly gone for the last year+ I am happy most of his projects seem to have width-stood the march of time in KSP coding terms.

I am no modeler, well no where near where Cobalt, Zorg or Invaderchaos are. But I figured I have the "practical" engineering background to explain this further. The Engineers didn't take a Titan I first stage, cut off the ends and then slap it in under a Gemini 2 capsule as all the source material seem to describes. They took the Oxidizer tank. A Pill shaped thing, from a Titan I missile, and then used it as the core structure to build a NEW PART. In this case, think of the Oxidizer tank like your spinal column, it is what supports your movement, your weight and your head upon your neck. The Oxidizer tank in question did just that for OPS-0855. The Titan Rocket family are a mix of monococue tanks (think Automotive Unibody) combined with a truss web structure with the outer skin between the tanks being made of lap-ribbed joined structures (stringer stressed skin.) The Monococue structure of the tanks is very efficient. If they were more than 90% thinner they would be balloon tanks like atlas. As it is, the Titan tanks are so thick walled that they are actually pretty heavy. Add the girder web construction and then the stringer stressed skin, and you have an unbelievably strong rocket. By comparison to other liquid fueled rockets meant to be stored in a silo. However, what that means is, in the case of OPS-0855, only a small part of the stage was actually a Titan I (by volume... by mass it was like 70%) In short, that means that the skin, the visual portion of OPS-0855 would have to be new made... a Bespoke part, Just as Zorg described above. Oh and before anyone brings up the wrench that launched a nuke. Remember, Titans were fueled by Hypergolic highly corrosive fuels. The Bird in question was being service checked to see if the Rocket was still solid enough to launch (were the tanks still in their "service life".) Yes it was more than just that as part of the maintenance and inspection.... but that was what it was all about. Were the Titan's still reliable enough to stand Nuclear alert. Having lived my entire life in the Soviet Union's #2 Nuke target from 1982 to it's dissolution.... I am glad it never came to that. Is it any wonder that the bulk of the Titan IIs were de-fueled shortly after the accident as they were really in no condition to launch? This more than anything is why so few Titan 23Gs flew. The tanks they had available had been eaten away by the fuels to the extent that it was not cost effective to make a bunch of new tanks just to have a launcher that duplicated the performance of Delta II, for about the same cost as Delta II but a much lower reliability estimation. *EDIT ADDED FROM HERE* I should add that even the current SLS core tank uses the Monococue tanks with a truss-web structure and a stringer skin. Just on a much thinner scale. the main form of corrosion caused by the fuel is COLD and rust for lack of a better term, not acidic wear and tear.

my experience, 180km circular will drop you right near KSP (often to the west of it.) And 120km circular will drop you just past (east in the water again.) But I have not tested in a while... been to busy in sandbox building ISS variants

Yep, that is because Mechjeb bases it's calculations on throttling down engines to off. Something solids just don't do. When you do a Burn for an maneuver node with MJ you will see that it throttles down for the last bit. That is to "accurately" place the vessel. Even if SafeSolids were set up to work on Throttle commands (for their shutoff) you would still have many times where you would overshoot your landing... and potentially Undershoot your approach (meaning you don't come down!) I am playing in JNSQ on 12.1. I tend to start my re-entry over the Desert airbase for Mercury and Gemini. It is "Okay-ish" for landing near the KSC. However it is load dependent (again because your solids are set for X and only X.....) Heavier loads will be long, and lighter loads will be shorter (changes in dV of the SRM due to mass change of the ship)

So 2 or 3 questions before providing my experience. Are you running Gemini (NASA) or Gemini B (USAF?) Are you doing sequential fire or are you firing all the SRMs at once? Are you attempting to "hit some target" or just generally get it... "In the ballpark?" I should add, Mechjeb is pretty good at predicting where a winged vessel will come down but I have found no mod that help predict where you are going to land given your orbit + your Deorbit potential dV.

Nice Pegasus. I assume you used all BIG fins on the S-I stage (vs the 4 Big 4 Small) due to all the fins being white on this launch? Also SAF Titan LDC fairing with the LES on top? Thanks for these amazing launches Beccab!

This is the drawing I am basing my Designs on.... I think that is from Gunter's page but I have not found it there (just parts of it like I posted above for the SPP.) I found this in a KSP forum months ago.... The only real changes I have made is I didn't launch a Centrifuge module... since, in my opinion it could cause weird issues with the rest of the station. and I used the HABtech2 extended node instead of the Node 3... giving a little space to allow for better docking. Beyond that and not having launched the DC, RM1 or RM2... Not using a Space shuttle to make any of this.... It is pretty much that design. Oh no robotic arms since I tend to break things with them. I should add, I posted more detail on the International Segment over on the Habtech2 forum chain:

First, KSP 1.12.1 broke the full up ISS I was building. The whole "can't strut across a docking port...." Ugh... I already posted this in Tantares, I am posting here and amplfiying what I did differently with the Habtech2 parts... Esp since there seems to be no Habitation module... that never launched to the ISS... As you can see, I made the missing Habitation module out of Benjee10's new Planetside base mod: My next mission is to launch a bunch of Pteron Micro shuttles as escape boats. I figured out that a SOCK + Energya would launch 2 per launch and have a safety factor on the off chance something happens... where a rocket launch would be cheaper, the pilot is strapped into the Pteron.... And Since Energya has payload capacity to spare, I could make it mostly recoverable. I recovered one of the two RD-0120s and both of the RD-0122s I flew on my test flight. Mixing the two engines gave more control-ability during post booster flight. I try to run a 100% recoverable space program. Including Deorbit function for all satellites in Kerbin orbit. I do this because years ago I lost a spacestation to orbital debris from a launch that happend 3 in game years prior.

So, after my Epic explosion when my ISS met KSP 1.12.1..... A new, more complete ISS with a better, read that as more accurate, placement of the un-launched modules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Power_Platform https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spp.htm Yes I built this station with Quantum Struts. Needed to after the explosion in my old station because my then TKS derived SPP literally struck the Skylab I had docked to the OTHER END of the station.... Talk about bad physics shift! Now only the Solar wings wobble a little when they move too fast (after a timewarp on the station for example. The Solar Wings are the only part not quantum strutted. As Before I built this with a ton of flights of Various BDB Transtage tugs on CH4 powered Titan LDCs. For some reason, I am guessing due to the fuel being the wrong type (Hypergolic improves performance over LFO), I can't get Proton to lift a large station component to the 500km orbit I am using for my ISS. The best I can do with proton is 130-150km depending on payload mass. One of my next projects will be to convert the Proton to either AZ50/NTO or UDMH/IRFNA-3(If I can figure out that fuel ratio... AZ50 is EASIER if not correct for anything but Titan.)

mcdouble is the creator of the GE Apollo D2 mod. Not the BDB team. It is correctly sized to fly on a Titan which IS in the BDB mod so..... If GE would have had it's way (and if Hydrolox AJ-10s were a good design choice) we would have ignored MSFC and launched to the moon on the Titan rocket. But in the end. Early Centaur launches exploded because no one realized what they were doing with Hydrolxo fuel. Glad we didn't choose it but it is an amusing and fun What IF. Personally I consider it the "not-father" of Soyuz. The Soyuz design was not solidified until after the GE proposal made its way into public record. But to be clear I don't think Soyuz is a copy of the D2... rather, the Soviet engineers were working to a similar set of goals as what the GE team was working towards. And using a Fairing instead of an extra layer of skin like the D2 does probably saved several hundred KG of mass.

Ahh the best Ford (Naval Designation F4D hence Ford) Too bad that no aerodynamics (stock or FAR) will properly replicate the manta ray shaped Delta wing's unique flying characteristics. It's nearly identical child the F5D Skylancer, could have had a really good career outside of NASA but in the end it was the early test mule aircraft for NASA, before the T-38s arrived... One resides today at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum (he flew a lot of NASA missions in it.) Suprisingly, the Test pilot who said the Navy didn't need it was Alan Sheppard. On the exact same engine as the F4D the F5D prototypes could fly well above mach 1. The main differences? Longer fuselage and the wing fitness ratio were slimmed down. + Area Rule. The main reasons for the cancellation; 1) the ACTIVE RADAR AIM-7B Sparrow II that was the reason for this aircraft's existance was too far ahead of it's time, and the Aircraft's guidance radar was too small to guide the AIM-7C/D/E Sparrow III missile effectively. 2) The F8U (you probably know it as it's post 1964 designation of F-8) Crusader was entering production. And the Crusader was equal or better in every respect except 1. 3) probably most importantly, Ed Heinemann had pretty much designed every Aircraft on the US Navy's Carrier decks at this juncture. His A1D (A-1) Skyraider (also called Able Dog due to the designation), A3D (A-3) Skywarrior (also called All 3 Dead because of no ejection seats by USN REQUIREMENTS), his A4D (A-4) Skyhawk, and his F-4D (F-6) Skyray were all on the carrier decks. Had the F5D gone into production it is likely too many congress critters would have cried fowl. The only Standouts not made by Ed Heinemann and Douglas El Segundo for the US Navy at this juncture were the helicopters (the domain of Sikorsky for the most part) and the S1F Guardian or S2F Tracer and the Tracer derived WF-1 AWACS (needless to say that was called Willie Fudd) Re the AIM-7B Sparrow II: It wasn't until the 1980s that the US perfected an Active Radar homing seeker head for an Air to Air missile of 203mm / 8" or smaller diameter. The 6" AIM-120A AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Ranged Air to Air Missile) The AIM-7B's 8" Diameter didn't have enough room for the vacuum tubes and first generation transistors, in the quantity needed to detect and guide on only ENEMY targets. The First Active radar Homing missile to enter service was the US Navy's AIM-54C (the AIM-54A did not have Active radar homing per RELIABLE public domain sources.) That was 15" or almost 5x the volume of the AIM-7B for the same length.

Yes there WERE plans for a "Recoverable" Shuttle Centaur. I do not have much if any documentation but it would have been based on the Centaur then standard D.1x tankage but slightly shortened. Insulation was no discussed in what I have read but I am going to assume SOFI like the only slightly latter D.2. the Avionics section would be all new and there would be manipulator arm attachments so the stage could be grabbed and brought back into the cargo bay. I believe lockdown was by two clevis type "hitches" for and aft. Incidentally, IIRC this was the Centaur R.1S proposal. That is Recoverable, version 1, by Space Shuttle (R.1S) But I could be wrong. I keep having AR.1 pop in my head as I type this (don't have my docs handy to look this up ATM)

Mmm, I do love to fly my USS Enterprise-Moonraker Refit Shuttle on Energia I found it works best if you add the extra tank that is from the Energia M (I think.) That provides enough fuel for a full load shuttle to get into orbit and the Energia, with a small GCU can self de-orbit. I do this to boost Orbital altitude with either Kerbolrise or SOCKS. Now if someone would come out with a Mod that makes Using the Canadarm easy. I gave up on BG and IR. Then I would use the Shuttle to build my ISS... not just retreive space junk. FWIW, I used the above mentioned stretched Energia + Enterprise to launch Zarya and Zvezda to build my last ISS. 500km orbit JNSQ

If you updated BDB, did you include the BDB Extras folder for REALNAMES. Without that folder, which is under BDB extras, you won't have real names. You do not need ALL the extras in the extras folder (you can pick and choose which ones to install.) I strongly suggest adding Sandstone and MLV in however But that is self serving since I made both of those This is in my GameData folder. Two BDB folders, BDB and BDB_Extras And here are the only sub-folders I run (I took the Titan AJ9 folder and made my own file to add some other Titan engine variants or that would be here too!)

Pyewacket (it is a singular name that was accidentally separated to create the code name as an after effect,) was conceived at Convair Pomona (a division of Convair Missiles not represented in BDB!) They are known for the 5T missiles. Terrier Talos and Tarter all entered services and are sometimes called the 3T missiles. Typhoon and Triton never entered service, with Triton being too advanced 20 years after it was conceived and replaced by SLBMs. Typhoon being replaced by Standard and AEGIS as vacuum tube computers couldn't keep up with a saturation attack and advances in Solid rockets, in no small part due to efforts on the Titan Space launcher, Polaris and even Tiny Tim allowed for a smaller sized rocket to have the same performance. And yes, any of you Naval weapons geeks out there... I did lump Bendix in with Convair Pomona That is because, Convair Pomona and Bendix made the missiles, All 5 of those T Series of missiles evolved out of Project Bumblebee and were designed by many of the same engineers, from one missile to the next, and Convair Pomona was a subcontractor for some of the Talos parts and Vis-a-versa Ok Snippet in history aside, Where did you get the parts to make that beautiful rocket? And can I have some? ALSO isn't that supposed to be a modified Centaur, What caused you to use LR81s (8048?) on the upper stage? I should mention, Pyewacket was also supposed to be the AAM for defending my Avatar. I have never delved far into the program other than the AAM portion prior to today but it appears that all the interest in "Flying Saucers" in the 1950s corresponds with the Pye Wacket program.

That would explain ALL the problems (the LES is ON the Docking port for Saturn, My ISS is turning into a Spaghetti - athon in space.... Damn, I may need to download whatever the current KJR is called...again... It has always caused issues in my playthroughs in the past (I am very VERY good at finding edge cases that programmers fail to take into account!)

So fun question given I just started playing in 1.12.x Are you running 1.12? Autostruts do not seem to work in old saves updated to 1.12 it seems. IDK, I haven't reaserched this but my ISS is flopping arround in space since I upgraded to 1.12.... The SSP's solar wing was rotating along the axis of the bulk of the station and that induced some HUGE bending movements about the Harmony Node (does not help that it is part heavy and that there is a Skylab at the other end from the SPP.

A couple of things, You are missing a Great shuttle mod... in Kerbolrise. But Beyond that, where is ALL the Shuttle mods button? There are things in each Shuttle mod I use (I have SOCKS, CA and Kerbolrise) that I use on each shuttle I launch. Picking one is.... Umm slightly painful? Then again I find the Shuttle nearly useless given the poor controls for robotics in either KSP BG or IR. So While fun to fly... not a really useful part set. Heck I would still fly Kerbal Shuttle Orbiter (KSO) if it was fixed. Pteron is my "emergency escape" shuttle for any serious stations I am building in LKO.

Did you Autostrut to HEAVIEST (not root)? Alternatively , are you using a non standard docking port? Anything NOT the BDB Drogue port is non standard and issues CAN happen with them (I sometimes have issues with the APAS and the LES for example.) In my case I find the issues involved I am clipping something that the LES shield is touching.... OR I somehow have it attached at the wrong place. *GOES TO DEV THREAD* Hmm No new Apollo CSM... Nope, no launching rockets here then decides to fly a Titan V-CH4 to the ISS to place another solar wing on board.

It has already been mentioned Auto-strut is your friend with the LES especially but 100% of a Saturn V needs Auto-strut. If you don't normally use Auto Strut, I have had the best luck by alternating (Heaviest, and Root) working from the Bottom of the rocket. LES always gets strutted to Heaviest!