Pappystein

Doh! I literally checked the fourm 10 minutes before you posted this... and proceeded to do something else! Swing and a miss on my part! Um, it is already in the mod? As is Pegasus (the Saturn derived impact satellite)

Boy I sometimes hate how Gramerly and Firefox interact... soo many problems with THIS and ONLY THIS Forum. Sorry, to answer your question Entr8899, do a full send. If it works great, if it doesn't then revert the launch. None of these rockets are perfectly scaled. Some are pretty close to Scale Factor X, Some are close to scale factor Y, and others use yet further scale factors to bring the parts to a lego-able playable experience. That being said there are just sometimes things be like this. Could it have been made "more playable?" MAYBE...but not certainly! But making it more "playable" will throw the scale off of other things and people would rage about that. In the end the BDB Team has to choose what they feel/hope is right and just do it. A great example of this is while it is the correct design, the Agena Interstages almost all of them clip if anything other than *edited* the SPS are attached to the Agena aft rack. And it is not like we are paying CobaltWolf, Zorg, InvaderChaos, Roger, and when they were active Jso. Each of them volunteers their work and more importantly time. Time is a thing few of us have a lot of free to do this stuff. I kind of wish Cobalt was still doing his "Dev Streams" like he used to so a lot of new players can see just how hard it is to actually make these things look as awesome as they are! A great example... The Titan IV upper stage, took 2 or 3, 3ish hour Streams for ONE color choice as I recall. The amount of effort put into these parts is amazing. I was helping (well trying to help) to find reference photos for the Atlas rebuild FOUR YEARS AGO... That is when Zorg started the Atlas refresh. Zorg can talk to how much time he spent reaserching, and how much time he spent designing and then modeling. But suffice to say it started 4 years ago It is for this reason I only asked for a node to be added to the Existing GEM-60 SRM to work with the new Atlas V SRM decouplers. Because the time it would take to rebuild the GEM-60 to match current standards would be a lot of work! And the GEM-60 is a pretty simple part.

Yes? Geeze has it been 5 years already?

There was a lot of press back in the 60s about how the B-58 was slower than the USAF said. It is like what you hear about the V-22 Osprey today... A lot of hype-over inflated statistics to make the backers of the program look bad. In this case, literally quoting the speed of the B-58 when loaded with a fuel pod and 4 MERs loaded with 24 Mk82 500lb LDGP bombs... Yes there are, I have built the X-15 several different ways for an upcoming series I plan on posting. You have to ROTATE the skids a certain way to get them to line up with the nodes. The nodes are JUST in front of the engine on the sides of the fuselage (near the wing trailing edge.)

Ok Lots to answer here... I had posted my B-58 comment then saw the rest of these 1) GoldForest, The B-1B is intentionally flown well below its maximum speed. The reason is, as part of the "Radar signature" reduction program that was hastily done to get the B-1B into production as part of the RayGun presidential promises, certain design choices were made. The main problem with the B-1As radar cross section was it's "Maximum speed of Mach 2+." You see from the front, all 4 GE F101 engines with all their spinning Gubbins were reflecting Radar signals like Crazy. Literally if you checked the RCS of a B-1A without engines in the nacelles it was (maybe much) less than 1/4th what it is WITH the engines it needs to fly. So USAF/DOD/Rockwell under orders from OoPUSA. Developed a quick and dirty way to reduce the radar cross section. The air intakes are liberally coated with RAM material, and the intake ducts are restricted with baffles to prevent radar return of of the engine faces. The B-1B **CAN** Fly Mach 2 for a time, with full load. However after the flight, all four GE F101 engines will need to be replaced. The entire air duct system in the nacelles would need to be replaced.... as you can see that is an extreme emergency use only thing. And the replacement is required because the ducts are falling appart all through that high speed flight. There is a lot more information than this I could share but this is not really the place to discuss... that would be for someone's B-1 mod for KSP. 2) biohazard. What you are actually talking about is "The B-1 is Bigger than the B-58" Which is 100% true. But between the two, as far as cleanliness of design, the B-1 is only JUST behind the B-58.... and you are right to point out that the VG wing is mostly to blame... Specifically the glove/wing intersection which has literally flexible parts. But as others have said, the VG wing is also what allows the B-1 to perform as well as it does. 3) Friznet. Of all the Swing-wing designs, the F-111 is probably the most aerodynamically "Best" for straight drag performance. However it comes at the cost of Lift. The F-14 as GoldForest pointed out is a much superior design in Lift... Yet the F-14 has much more drag than the F-111 (clean vs clean) On the same engines at the same weight the F-111 is the faster between it and the F-14 Tomcat. F-14Ds could super-cruise clean and light on their F110-GE-400s. But the F-111 could still go faster on less thrust with the TF30 (the same engine which killed so many F-14 crews) So yes, your point is simple. It isn't Swing/VG wings that did it. And 100% correct I am highlighting it here to show that design choices, more than "a generic aerodynamic feature" are what most often are the determining factor since both F-111 and F-14 which ARE analogous were mentioned in rapid succession. Now, WHY most of these aircraft are slower than X or Y it has to do most often with the type of GLASS used in the cockpit! the B-1B is an exception to this... it has Glass for Mach 2.8 speeds. It has air intakes for Mach 1.2 speeds The F-111 has glass for Mach 2.8 speeds as well. The F-14 has Glass for Mach 2.5 speed Which is why I love when people tell me the Mk3 version of the CF-105 Arrow was going to be a Mach3+ aircraft. Back on topic now. Goldforest, Interesting, I didn't realize that the B-29 parts were so small. I have not played with any of them in YEARS. Isn't that the 3rd landing you have posted with the rear wheels (skids) missing? I think you are slapping it into the ground a wee bit too hard Kidding aside, I was almost about to download SOCKs to go with ORANGES and And try to bury the X-15 in the bay but I think the Wingspan is 10% too big? I assume that is what you have found?

But the BUFF IS Moms Minivan... which is why it is still arround as well as getting UPGRADED! Convair's Hotrod is long consigned to the boneyard and beyond because it was a cool concept that didn't do anything really more than it Did... Sure they thought about using it Vietnam (I have seen the photos with 4x MERs loaded with MK82s under the fuselage/wing joint. ) But it gave up most of its performance to carry stuff like that. What the USAF needs next is a NEW Minivan to replace the BUFF. Because sadly those birds are getting long in the tooth. It turned out that putting those 24 Mk82s on the Hustler slowed it down to just above Mach1 max speed. With 4 B-43 bombs on the same hardpoints (with or without the big boi pod) it could do Mach 1.7 Yes, having that many small bombs close together acted like a GIANT speed break. But, even with it's spindly legs, I don't think the B-58 could actually haul an X-15 underneath it (Both aerodynamically as well as in just plain ground clearance.)

How to build the Atlas F ICBM into a space launcher!: ps this is the ORIGIONAL proposed Atlas F... not what was actually built! Step 1) Realize this thing's Fuel tanks are TALLER than Atlas III. Step 1a) wait, Centaur Jr comes from here?! Step 2)

Funny enough. Centaur D.1AR is not a Centaur D.1A with new insulation like Wikipeda would suggest. Rather it is the Shuttle Centaur D.1R brought to life. D.1R was "stepped over" for what became Centaur G/G'. But during the process to "man rate" and "Shuttlefy" the Centaur, they had already made the changes to eliminate the highly reactive H2O2 from the stage. Hydrazine, while a reactive chemical, is much easier to control than Hydrogen Peroxide at the percentages we are talking about. Since all future RL10s would be Hydrogen Peroxide free, A new Centaur Stage had to be made. NASA dusted off the now almost 10 year old plans for D.1R and designed a new insulation shell, since the D.1A's shell was not comparable and was in fact out of production with no tooling remaining. Why NASA couldn't contract for the D.1A's insulation to be made? Simple this was post Challenger failure.... Prior to Challenger, the manufactures were ordered to destroy any tooling for out of production stages. Atlas Centaur was considered out of production. The tooling had yet to be destroyed for Atlas or centaur tank-age, but the subcontractor for the insulation panels did destroy their molds. This is also why the RS27 power block replaces the LR89 powerblock on Atlas I Because the LR89 powerblock tooling no longer existed. RS27 is a derivative of LR79... so is LR89 so it fits! (And yes it is MUCH more nuanced than I am saying here... this is a sorta TL:DR version of what actually happened.

Yep, the ONLY advantage to the Ejection seats was this view here!

Thanks, yes the old Castor/GEM Rockets are probably now the least "BDB" parts in the BDB Catalogue. In fact, Cobaltwolf will have to correct me, I think they are about the oldest parts in BDB? With the Castor I/II combined model being the newest of them.

No major issues that I have seen on my end. However, a Small favor. Could the older GEM-60 get a node to work with the new atlas V GEM-63/AJ60 decoupler?

So the PDF seems to be a joke By RS-X I assume you mean the LR89 Derived engine with a new combustion chamber? I have literally zero info on it beyond what Mark Wade has on the less-than-accurate http://www.astronautix.com/r/rs-x.html

EstreetRockets does have some good rocket engine models! I firmly believe everyone should have his Rocket Motor Menagarie. I utilize several engines from it in my Station building rockets.

I did a bunch of research on Big G for my article a couple years ago (titled Twins no More, it is on the github link below if you want to download it.) Much of my source material was thanks to Dewayne Day the author of the article you linked. As I recall, there was never a decision to go with a retractable or fixed Docking Port. Both were discussed. The old FASA mod by Friznit did do a retractable one and as I remember he had nothing but problems with it for the longest time. It was made long before B9Part switch was a thing after all, and even predated almost all other inflatables in KSP. The Drawaings Cobalt was using (As I remember from one of his dev/modeling streams) was of the fixed docking port.) So BOTH are correct as far as I am concerned.

Wait! Do you have documentation for the RS-83/RS-84? Please share with the class, the only F-1 scale engines I have documentation on are the Pintle TR-106/TR-107, which I would love to see made BDB quality (because they would be a drop in F-1 replacement and smaller) PS my TR-106/TR-107 documentation is SCANT! Technically that was a Saturn part, but It was grouped with Atlas. It was made for Roll control on the Saturn 1C rocket from ETS. Also Thor-Delta also uses LR101 but that is its own mount with a sheild Thank you for all the work you have done on these parts Zorg! I didn't think they needed much but they are so improved I am very happy with them!

IRL Blue Steel is about 1/3rd the diameter of X-15 Blue Steel is like 18" 48" in diameter (looking up sources and will edit in a few minutes) I looked it up see next: Excluding a lot of factors, the X-15 is bigger but not as big as I originally thought The core diameter is "about" the same (I am coming up with 56" for the core diameter of the X-15 based on 2 small scale drawings) Cobalt may have much more accurate numbers since he scaled it from drawings. BUT I will caution you, IIRC the Blue-Steel in game is 0.9375m diameter and the X-15 at it's core is 1.25m Diameter What does that mean for using it... You might have issues with the Blue Steel Fins clipping in on it... But do the Kerbal thing. MOAR STRUTS!

Remember, non Common bulkhead tanks are going to be in the region of 65-70% utilized (meaning only 65-70% the volume is Fuel, the rest is OPEN SPACE or utilized for things like Avionics) EG Titan is I think 63%? Conversely Agena is about 95% utilized as it is both a Monocoque structure AND a common bulkhead. Only the back half of the forward rack, which is included in the BDB tank, isn't utilized. Ballpark figures here, not exact cubic unit of measure by cubic unit of measure (or liters/gallons if you prefer)

Ahh, so that is how you are controling the off center thrust of the RCS... I end up putting a "guidance Mono tank" with RCS on the other side and have it scoot out of the way just before docking ( generally the Aardvark GCU + a Stock 2.5m Mono tank and 4 R4D Quad thrusters, an antenna and 4 small Explorer/pioneer tracking solar wings.

Been meaning to ask since I do not recognize the parts, What are the black domes on your Aardvark?

Bah! S-IB-C2 with 5 E-1s for the win! The ONE part I wish we had for Saturn is the C-2 lenght S-IB tankage (it is something like 6--12feet shorter than S-IB as flown with 1/5th less fuel.

ACtually FAS.org has several pictures of it (or did 3 years ago.) I have a Tiny bit of info. it is an Aerojet AJ23 engine (meaning it is the same basic design as a LR87 or LR91 (they are also AJ23 engines) with I think a 6000lb/f thrust (Deep memory here so I could be really wrong on the performance of the engine.) I know it is an AJ23 because I discovered the stage while doing my research on the Titan engine program. The payload adapter which sit ABOVE the tank and structure you see there is missing in this photo. Also note their is another one you see the back side of in the bottom corner not outfitted with all the tanks or the engine yet. I don't frequent the FAS.org website but it appears they they have buried all the goodies behind some sort of pay-wall. Only the barest refrences to "Titan" remain public. You used to be able to pull up hundreds of article on Titan there (and any other Strategic weapon system. While I have never completely agreed with some of the political stance, EG a Titan IV satellite launcher is a strategic weapon still.... They were a good source for "goodies" like TLD. I will see what I have in my archives and post it later EDIT Found one of my sources still up.. Lots of photos: https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sbwass_n.htm Edit2: AJ23 engine (I still haven't sourced WHICH ONE) is 900lb/f thrust. with a maximum of 11,500lb total Propellant MMH/NTO Edit 3: AJ-23-153 engine (151,152,154 were also valid engines of various different fuel feeds for this platform.) Thrust was actually 3750lb/f at 328 Vac ISP on 128lbs empty mass with a 136:1 Expansion ratio -23-151 is pump vs pressure fed, increasing mass, and power consumption but generating 6000lbf thrust with VAC ISP of 334 on a larger expansion ratio of: 154:1, 322lbs empty weight -23-152 I have no data on but potentially kerolox. No long term use (so canceled) No data on actual engine -23-154 is Hydrolox engine, meaning no long term use (so canceled) No data on actual engine this would stretch the stage significantly as well. -23-155 No data -23-156 is -23-153 with 400:1 expansion ratio same thrust but ISP is now 343 and empty mass is 104lbs without the bell extension (no mass with bell extension is listed but I would imagine it puts the engine in the 135-145lb range. The Above information is from the speculative report OTV for NASA. OTV was the cover name for civilian use of the SLD/TLD. The drawings are similar in basic arrangement but not the same (RCS booms are mounted next to engine instead of next to payload and the tanks are significantly larger in diameter than 52") The now mostly Defunct BBOW website, used to have a lot of info on these engines https://web.archive.org/web/20180816051522/http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space_Engines/Aerojet_Engines.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20181015000000*/www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space_Engines/1984_Martin_Marietta_OTV_Excerpt.pdf @benjee10 If you wanted to include the Interim control module for the ISS this is the satellite dispenser it was based on.

There is the Equally Fun TSD (Titan Satellite Dispenser)... which is a giant Hexagon with holes in it and they hold the various satellites that were dispensed from it (Navy Ocean Recon Sats if my memory serves) That was interesting because the satellite was in one of 8 "rectangular Cells" surrounding the central engine. Imagine if you had 8 Cube Sats arranged around an engine and fuel tank for an idea of how it would look (it is neat but not real Lego-able)

I forgot to mention, I did not know how great the Dennis Jenkins books were until the Valk book was well out of print. I am hoping it gets reprinted at some point! It is the only "Big name" Valkyrie book I do not own. Also RE the previous post. in the B-60 photo, if you look just inboard of the inner Pylon you can clearly see the seam between the old B-36 wing and the new center-section! According to one of the engineers, you could tell the wing was actually made for a B-36 because it had spots where the piston engine nacelles would tuck up under the leading edge clearly marked out. Literally the wings were started for A B-36 and converted to the B-60 wing!

Yes and the M-21/D-21 incident did lead to the cancellation of these concepts. But there was a group of aerodynamicsts and Physicists who pointed out that the B-70 and the A-12/SR-70 are aerodynamically VERY different aircraft. Also the X-15 would be mounted 3x higher off the wing than the M-21/D-21 combo with Vertical fins instead of inward canted fins (which is what the D-21 actually struck first.) And lastly, The D-21 had a rudimentary Autopilot that couldn't compensate for anything (exactly how many D-21 pods were recovered.... 1!) So on the scale of tolerances; we are talking about is almost an order of a magnitude greater than the very tightly fit M-21/D-21. All that being said. Yes I agree this was risky. (Note the D-21 wingtips are almost the same width as the rudders!) Re the B-52/X-15 issue. It couldn't at all have to do with the fact they had to cut a huge NOTCH out of the B-52s wing and the eddy and vortice generated were striking the rudder directly on the X-15. B-52 was not an ideal launch platform for something the Size of the X-15. If the B-36 would have been able to fly Faster/Higher it Might have been ok. There was even talk about re-tasking one of the two YB-60s (B-36 with 8 J57s and swept wings) to carry the X-15 in the bomb bay like the B-36 did with its FICON aircraft (Which dropped away, flew their mission and then RETURNED and landed in the B-36 Bomb bay! (In theory) Note the B-60 would not actually do well because the wing was so thick (it was just a B-36 wing with a new center section that gave it a 35 degree sweep) that the B-60 could barely fly once it actually flew and it's handling was... in a word... atrocious. Look how thick the wing is! It is still the worlds largest (in size) all jet bomber aircraft in the world. The Bomb-bay, when equipped with cutouts for the wings, could hold an X-15 similar to how Maestro carried the X-1 and X-2s. I actually know one of the Engineers who flew on Maestro for some of those fascinating X-plane flights. BTW Said engineer was scheduled to fly on the X-1-3 flight under the B-50 mother-ship (I don't remember that one's name now) At the end of the flight (they did not drop the X-1) they were de-fuling the X-1 when the plane exploded. The F-84 there is roughly 4/5ths the size fuselage to fuselage of an X-15. In the Case of the FICON the tail goes into the bomb-bay.

Hmm, I use MOL Ferry tanks and RCS for my tugs... utilizing an Apollo SM with Aardvark GCU is a good idea....