Pappystein

P&W was out of the running... but not officially at that time yes. P&W was an outsider. They had one "FAIR" engine to their Name (the RL-10.) Terrestrial engines be damned. NASA wanted a company they could "rely" on. They felt that they could only do that with Rocketdyne. Then when Rocketdyne failed to make turbopumps that would do what they said they would, NASA paid P&W for their Turbo-pump design effort... Slapped it onto the Rocketdyne combustion chamber and exhaust bell and the actual SSME was born. Had NASA bet on P&W it is likely P&W would have exited the rocket engine market with their need to "completely re-engineer" the XLR-129 to the 2100kn range. Rocketdyne learned with the E-1 and F-1 you can't just scale things up in Rocket engines... it doesn't work that way. P&W would have known this... but Congress not so much. There would have been congressional hearings as to why NASA didn't pick the company that designed the bigger engine outright... In other words.. LOTS OF POLITCS for no gain. It was best thing for P&W that Rocketdyne won the contract. And that P&W had to come in and save the Rocketdyne engine, thus still earning a tidy sum from the SSME program lifecycle. But between this and the new RL-20 we have some potential for the paper HG-3 placeholder engine to be replaced with real engines. YAY! the TEST: Saturn INT-17 My least favorite Saturn II proposal. Eh you mean a year and 2 months ago Feb 2020.... Unless there is another Github you wish to share? Zorg already answered this. The goal is YES the solution is PROBABLY the implimentation is yet to be seen.

Thanks for checking on the 405Hs. I have replaced all the mods I downloaded with CKAN... wait maybe... Re re downloading scatter... SRB + Waterfall do not look good together per the Dev (Nertea) and our own Zorg. There is a reason those stay with partical effects.

Diazo made the OG Height over ground mods... Including the one I use... Vertical Velocity Controler. FTMN is oldschool Nuclear engines by Kommitz and both of those mods are maintained by LGG.

Sadly I don't use Planetshine. This was my first attempt to use CKAN in like 3 years... Another ABJECT FAILURE. how people can like CKAN is beyond me. I am running pretty light right now on mods... less than 25000 patches (last build of KSP I was running 86,000 patches)

Zorg, also when you get a chance Latest Dev branch (downloaded last night) GE-405H engine lights up (heat effects) but nothing else. Picture in link below... and no I have not figured out how to get rid of that stupid pink square yet.... On every rocket I fly..... Yeah it was a night-side launch (but you can see the emissives working, the fuel load and thrust at 100%. As others have stated, if you are looking for Shuttle engines, there are none in BDB. There are MANY AJ10 engines, BDB has 7 of them I think (and Alternate Apollo has one as well) but none of them would work well for your OMS needs for a Shuttle or Shuttle derived launcher.

which J-2X? The REAL ones (there are 4 REAL J-2X engines after all!) or the completely un-related to the J-2 engine from the 2000s Constellation program that should never have been named J-2X! J-2X Airmat is in BDB As J-2X un-suprisingly J-2X Toroidal (also known as the J-2T) is in BDB in it's base 250klbf size (it was also designed as a 200klbf and a 400klbf engine!) (tested in 1969? I think) In BDB as the J-2T engine. in BDB Extras as J-2T-400K engine J-2X Liniar Aerospike: Also known as the J-2L and latter it's descendant was the XRS-2200... Is sort of in the Wildblue X-33 by Angel125. Initial J-2L was tested in 1972 or 1973 I think. never run up to full thrust. XRS-2200 WAS run up to full thrust in the late 1990s Oh, and here is a picture of one of the last FIRED real J-2X: (And yes, when I say real I mean it is a Saturn Era J-2 engine design and not another engine with the same name! That is an OG J-2S engine feeding a Linear aerospike instead of a bell!) J-2X Aerobell has not been made by any mod creator. (it is Just a J-2S with an extendable Bell much like the RL10B-2) Oh and sorry if this sounds Angry or confrontational. I don't have an issue with anyone in the KSP community.... I have a problem with companies creating misleading names to white-wash their own history and confusing people who don't actively study their history.

The Active and Passive is the way the Real World APAS works (does not matter what generation) One side has the soft dock features and the other side sits and passively waits. But beyond that they have always been 100% identical. I too am using Benjee's port because it looks awesome. There have been many itterations of APAS... Used mostly in the Soviet side of things. The Tree diverged at the ASTP and the US and the Soviet Governments made their own versions. And then came back together for the International standard on ISS whatever the name currently is... it is just the current incarnation of APAS.

Oh, no a Paraglider design is a workable solution. For higher tech craft. For the Gemini, given the tight constraints of storage however it isn't workable given the fabric technology at the time. What was needed to make it work. Extendable carbon fiber

good questions, I don't know what Cobaltwolf's plans are RE new things but I have sent em some engineering drawings of the Saturn 120" cluster first stage for INT-16. Had options to lay out 4, 5, 6 and 7 SRMs. It would have to be an interstage more than an adapter plate however. Re the Rogalo wing, OrdianryKerman already posted the one that sort of works. Sadly (due to complicated nature + concerns with how it would rig/fly) the Gemini capsule wasn't actually built with the landing gear wells nor a proper Rogallo wing. Then again the Rogallo wing as designed for Gemini WOULDN'T WORK. FAT leading edges with no aft surface to speak of create crazy wake vorticies that suck all the lift out of the wing in many conditions. Something the Rogallo Gemini capsule experienced several times. IF they could have arranged a metal folding structure as the basis of the Rogallo wing it would have been different. Instead, they used an Inflatable tube structure. This is Because of technology and aerodynamic understanding at the time... Lets face facts: The Bulk of the world still believed the SOUND BARRIER existed just a few short years before remember!

Can that not be a B9PartSwitch add-in? Model Switch: LEM Decent stage / LEM-T Command module ?

While it is true I probably missunderstood the question. The nice thing is this picture that was posted by TruthfulGnome has two gems in it. 1) it has the 5 segment Thiokol 260" SRM. This was a competitor to the AJ-260 and not as "interesting" given it is like any other segmented SRM. 2) it has the 3.5 segment Thiokol 156" (it says 155") SRM... that would latter evolve into the Shuttle SRB 146"er. Like shuttle SRB each "segment" is actually two parts joined at the factory. We have a reference No you do not have to build them But we have a reference now Also those MIGHT be Thiokol 120"ers Thiokol was pushing to get their 120" SRM into production after failing to secure Titan III IIRC.

You mean the AJ-260s with the fuel tanks on top? You can do that now. Just use the Saturn S-IVC booster tank in current release it is a good fit on top of the long Booster version of the AJ-260. Just make certain you set it to LF/O instead of LH2/O and that you have the fuel transfer set to drain those tanks first.

last I knew the Gemini Lander docking port was 180 degrees off rotation (it could have been fixed, I haven't played with the Langley lander in a while.) So make certain you are rotated the correct way when docking or weirdness can happen.

Ok going to retract all my statements about being overweight.... I manually downloaded and now Zarya is just slightly heavier than I expected... I have stayed away from CKAN for years... For just this reason. CKAN version of Zarya is 16000+kg and the direct Github download is ~9100kg. Re downloading ALL of Tantares. Thanks @Beale and forum for your help! While not quite correct (I like a longer neck and added a single docking port) The mass looks sooo much better...

Because Zarya was launched on a Proton K rocket... 4th stage is Blok D... or am I further miss-understanding the Proton Rockets. I am pretty knowledgeable about US rockets... Soviet/Ukrainian/Russian... Not so much. *** Edited*** A) I was wrong, Proton K almost exclusively flew with Blok D... Unless launching space station parts Whoops! B) downloaded Tantares manually (was using CKAN) Completely different number of MM patches applied (lower.) Will know in 4 minutes

Here are some photos of my failed Zarya attempts: If anyone sees anything wrong that I have done, please let me know! And no, please don't complain about the BDB Saturn LAunch clamps... was the first launch clamp I saw when I was lookin for em As you can see in the 2nd image the Zarya stage is almost 17,000 kg .

Sadly, I am on 1.11.2 All the did to "fix" the bug is lower how much mass it adds to the part. But it does still add mass if the part is "below minimum mass" however. I will have to use something other than Proton K (or up-rate the Proton K) to support my new ISS build.

Yeah, It appears that the KSP 1.11.x Forced mass "Bug" is adding a lot of mass to the Zarya module, as well as the other station parts. IRL Zarya is 19,000kg. In KSP (at-least my install) it is 16,800kg. If I am doing the math correct it should be about 7800kg, empty mass. Full up mass would be about 9500kg based on : 19,323+ 3800kg fuel

Huh, funny you should mention that Beale. Just tried to launch Zarya 3 times with a full up Proton K. Failed to orbit all 3 times (seeking a 500km orbit in JNSQ.) Brought me here to ask, is Tantarus LV balanced for stock KSP or 2.5/2.7x scale? With the Zarya, I am only showing 6800m/s D/V in both Kerbal Engineer and Mechjeb. This is on 1.11.2 with JNSQ. I have used Energia to launch SOCK Shuttle with minimal issues.... mostly related to the Shuttle having 3 RS25 engines on it Trying to build an Alternative ISS in my current playthrough. I haven't used the Tantares LVs in a while so I had to ask. I can post photos latter (Imgur as well as a few other file hosting sites I use are all "experiencing difficulties" ATM.)

Is it failing to transmit at all or are you running out of ECs to transmit?

Agena Chapter 2. Intermission: Agena and Vega Previous post:

Bah it is an Acclimator class Troop Transport. Look bulbous tail coming out of the Thick Wing.

Further the two part chute attachment is not for landing on water on the "back" of the capsule but rather for landing under a Rogallo wing on dry land. Since the wing is inflated and a single skin material, it proved impossible to do. See how the skin is much thinner than the leading edge and the "truss" material? That creates a lot of aerodynamic forces that were un-suspected in the days of slide-rules for calculations. and yes that is one of the Gemini test capsules landing (they made two or 3 I think for the Rogallo wing tests.) Latter (and well actually before the above photo as well) the Rogallo wing, with a metal structure, would evolve into Hang-gliding. The metal structure being thinner and less flexible reduced the weird flight characteristics to that of a more normal flexible flying wing. You can also see why the Rogallo wing isn't a parachute available for the Gemini. Again much more than one wire. To make a Rogallo wing work in KSP would require atleast two additional DLLs beyond what BDB already supports. Retractable Wings being the first (and only one currently built) and a "Maintain COP-COM Relationship" mod would have to be written. to prevent the weird asymmetric mass to COP relationship in KSP with either stock or replacement aerodynamics.

Just making sure the RL20 will be a good HG-3 replacement If it can effectively fly the Stupid Paper Saturn II INT-17 then it is goodnuf for me. Personally I am more a INT-18 kinda guy with a fallback to the INT-19... But some people gotta INT-17 it all the way. Also out of curiosity... What book? I just got a new book for Rocket engines (Liquid) and haven't even cracked it yet.

Will the Sea Level version (I assume that is the right most one) have a thrust higher than the J2S Sealevel?