Real ISRU Development Thread

[Guest]

I'm sure Regex wouldn't mind a little abstraction of the equipment for the sake of better performance with a simpler model. That, and you can suggest so much detail with textures and normal maps

As far as I'm concerned I just want it to look like a plausible piece of equipment, if Dr. Jet or others want to abstract or put things in enclosures I'm perfectly happy with that since most of the equipment we're talking about is either in proposal or being prototyped, at best. What I posted earlier was to show how actual ISRU units look.

[Dr. Jet]

He-he... What I'm developing appeared to be pretty similar to what NASA is planning for Marco Polo ISRU lander.

Genial thougts are identical.

Hm-m-m... according to page 11, CO2 is aquired and stored as dry ice... PSA is not used...

According to the picture, Sabatier reactor assembly should have 4-5 parts: reactor itself, condenser, hydrogen separator, methane dryer and methane buffer tank. Also IT OUTPUTS WATER! Never thought about that, but it does.

Hydrogen cycle according to picture is closed (by using hydrogen separator) but water cycle is not. As we already have electrolyser as separate unit, we have no need in adding it to assembly.

P.S. My pull request at github is hanging there for a week already.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Dr. Jet

[Guest]

He-he... What I'm developing appeared to be pretty similar to what NASA is planning for Marco Polo ISRU lander.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/earthandspacepresentation-120414152206-phpapp01/95/prototype-development-of-an-integrated-mars-atmosphere-and-soil-processing-system-8-1024.jpg

Genial thougts are identical.

Very nice! Looking real good.

P.S. My pull request at github is hanging there for a week already.

I missed that, sorry. I'm a part of the Realism Overhaul group and FAR so I get tons of notifications. I'll check more carefully next time. Thanks!

[Dr. Jet]

According to this document PSA unit is a bad idea for Mars(Duna), but will be suitable for much denser atmospheres of Earth(Kerbin), Venus(Eve) or Titan. So I think I will finish it. Dunno if we should make a separate CO2 freezer part just for Mars(Duna)... Maybe just pretend that PSA unit have a VERY powerful compressor?

About that soil processing module on the picture above...

Maybe like this? :

Soil -> {heater+condencer} -> Minerals + Water

Minerals -> {fluorine processor unit} -> O2 + Metals + Silicon

Edited June 14, 2015 by Dr. Jet

[Dr. Jet]

PSA unit finished. It has animations! Fan is spinning (times slower than reality) and valve actuators control PSA cycles (times faster than reality).

Still placeholder config and crappy textures though.

Also did a gauge needle animation for Elektron unit.

- - - Updated - - -

Damned github... What does it need??? Cannot sync new changes from GUI client.

"Failed to sync this branch" and that's all.

Hm-m-m... Shell doesn't work too.

"Fatal: Unable to access https://github.com/doktorjet/RealISRU.git"

Edited June 14, 2015 by Dr. Jet

[Dr. Jet]

fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/doktorjet/RealISRU.git/': Failed connect to github.com:443; No error

What the hell???

[Guest]

fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/doktorjet/RealISRU.git/': Failed connect to github.com:443; No error

What the hell???

That's a connection error. I've had similar happen, just run the up/push/pull/whatever you were doing again.

[Dr. Jet]

It was firewall trouble afterall... All settings were set to ALLOW git to connect everywhere, but connection was killed each time for somewhat reason. Firewall off = connection on. Extremely weird sh*t. Uploaded at last.

[Dr. Jet]

I made a non-standard-shape 840 liter tank (fitting into the same hex segment) and it gave me thoughts. Is there a mechanism to change one of textures (for flagTransform-like part of mesh) according to what content is selected in RealFuels? Firespitter texture changer is for Firespitter only IIRC.

[Guest]

I made a non-standard-shape 840 liter tank (fitting into the same hex segment) and it gave me thoughts. Is there a mechanism to change one of textures (for flagTransform-like part of mesh) according to what content is selected in RealFuels? Firespitter texture changer is for Firespitter only IIRC.

That's an interesting question, I'll ask NathanKell about that.

E: Also, just checked out the new models, they look fantastic! Great work, man!

Edited June 18, 2015 by regex

[Guest]

Updated the OP to better reflect the status of the mod.

[Dr. Jet]

RealISRU part dev album is here: http://imgur.com/a/ytBWK#0

[Dr. Jet]

Resurrection of Biomass mod give us some hope for realistic-looking BLSS. If only it will be compatible...

[kerbiloid]

Sorry for interference, but I have a little doubt. Probably, my calculation is wrong somewhere.

According to

https://books.google.ru/books?id=72rRBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=hydrogen+storage+dry+mass&source=bl&ots=nYXyFjDE-i&sig=sWStqAeH8adc4ZL8yUXvWINxxwA&hl=ru&sa=X&ei=8w-EVbqLAofcywOtx4KYDA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hydrogen%20storage%20dry%20mass&f=false

and other several sources, a long-term hydrogen storage "dry tank"/"fuel" ratio is ~1..10:1.

(As the Sabatier process lasts for months, and the hydrogen leaks meanwhile, the storage would be more consistent than a Space Shuttle outer tank, so probably closer to 10 than to 1.)

Ok, suppose you deliver the hydrogen not in elementary form, but captured in some chemical compound - to avoid heavy cryo-tank usage.

Non-hydrogen:hydrogen ratio:

Methane (CH4) = 12:4 = 3:1. As CH4 tank also weights something, say, 5:1. Of course, CH4 tank is somewhat lighter - as CH4 is not so volatile as H2.

Kerosene (-CH2-) = 12:2 = 6:1, with negligeably lightweight tank.

So, seems to me that if delivering the hydrogen inside ready-to-use methane or kerosene you have to deliver more or less the same mass as in Sabatier+LH2 case and would no need to process methane, only oxygen.

Such case would make Sabatier a bit useless.

Or the hydrogen would be extracted from Polar ice (so, good bye Acidalia Planitia, only polar base and polar orbit, with additional fuel consumption to orbit/deorbit).

Btw:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121896-Real-ISRU-Development-Thread?p=2017077&viewfull=1#post2017077

According to the picture, they have forgotten to draw an arrow from CH4 dryer to the water tank.

Because if this process outputs water that means it wastes hydrogen.

[Guest]

Resurrection of Biomass mod give us some hope for realistic-looking BLSS. If only it will be compatible...

If not, there's always Module Manager.

Sorry for interference, but I have a little doubt. Probably, my calculation is wrong somewhere.

I'm not ... entirely sure what you're trying to say here, that the Sabatier is useless for hydrogen production? It may be, or you might want to use it immediately to produce something else like methane rather than risk boil-off (One of the great things about hooking into Real Fuels is that cryogenic loss actually happens) but the Sabatier is obviously useful for life support because there's one on the ISS right now. This mod isn't entirely about fuel. Also, I'm pretty sure Mars has underground ice at lower latitudes; I'd have to look further into it to see if it's easily accessible.

[kerbiloid]

I meant that Sabatier would be useless without local hydrogen producing.

In "The Martian" book and several articles which I have read before, hydrogen was delivered from the Earth, and this circumstance confused me much.

Because, as I have written before, it's easier just to deliver a barrell of kerosene from the Earth.

So, seems that the only case when CH4 producing has sense, is only when you have both CO2 and H2O in situ to avoid delivering any resource from the Earth.

If there is much water everywhere on Mars, no problem.

[AngelLestat]

I read all the new data added in the first page. I really like how you solve the problem of fractioning and gather resources from atmosphere or soil. It has a lot of sense and save you a lot of code instead representing the resources as substances. Is perfect.

If you have 2% of water vapor, 50% co2, and 44% nitrogen, and lets said you want to extract the water... I imagine it will consume more time to get 1 kg of water than 1 kg of co2? Always consuming the same amount of energy by unit of time..

I like very much the graphics from the components Dr. Jet, I am just a bit concern about the final memory and processing requirements for the whole mod.

[AngelLestat]

I meant that Sabatier would be useless without local hydrogen producing.

In "The Martian" book and several articles which I have read before, hydrogen was delivered from the Earth, and this circumstance confused me much.

Because, as I have written before, it's easier just to deliver a barrell of kerosene from the Earth.

So, seems that the only case when CH4 producing has sense, is only when you have both CO2 and H2O in situ to avoid delivering any resource from the Earth.

If there is much water everywhere on Mars, no problem.

Sabatier is important, because you can transport H2 from earth which weight almost nothing, and get the co2 from mars/venus atmosphere.

From the co2 you get also oxygen, and you need only provide h2, with a fuel mass gain of 20:1

[Guest]

I meant that Sabatier would be useless without local hydrogen producing.

In "The Martian" book and several articles which I have read before, hydrogen was delivered from the Earth, and this circumstance confused me much.

Because, as I have written before, it's easier just to deliver a barrell of kerosene from the Earth.

So, seems that the only case when CH4 producing has sense, is only when you have both CO2 and H2O in situ to avoid delivering any resource from the Earth.

If there is much water everywhere on Mars, no problem.

Oh, yeah, definitely. That is a problem on Mars, but the mod isn't all about ISRU on Mars and the Sabatier reactor is useful elsewhere. If you have more infrastructure the way to do it around Mars might be to mine water ice from the poles and transport it to a fuel depot in space for conversion into usable products, or maybe mine the scarce ice around the more temperate regions, or instead mine water from Deimos, or whatever other solution you can think of. The idea here with this mod is to provide some tools so that you, the player, can explore as many ISRU solutions as we can bring you that are feasible.

I read all the new data added in the first page. I really like how you solve the problem of fractioning and gather resources from atmosphere or soil. It has a lot of sense and save you a lot of code instead representing the resources as substances. Is perfect.

If you have 2% of water vapor, 50% co2, and 44% nitrogen, and lets said you want to extract the water... I imagine it will consume more time to get 1 kg of water than 1 kg of co2? Always consuming the same amount of energy by unit of time..

That's the idea, yes. I do believe stock works that way. We may have to tweak the values and rates as we get further in, but for now I'm more interested in sketching out the mod and making sure all the pieces are there.

I like very much the graphics from the components Dr. Jet, I am just a bit concern about the final memory and processing requirements for the whole mod.

It shouldn't be too huge, I don't think. Most of the code is in the game itself, I think I literally have one plugin class to write (latitude-based resource distribution), maybe an atmospheric products scanner, haven't gotten there. All of the models I put in are pretty small and I think Dr. Jet's stuff will replace those as time goes by, if he wants to. But, at the end of the day, the mod will be what it is.

[Dr. Jet]

I like very much the graphics from the components Dr. Jet, I am just a bit concern about the final memory and processing requirements for the whole mod.

That will depend on textures alone. Models are not all that vertex-heavy as they look. Elektron for example have noticeably LESS vertices than for example Helix Antenna from one of recent mods. And textures... what I'm using now is just 3 repeating very small material textures - they cumulatively need less than 1 Mb RAM.

Colliders on the other hand are EXTREMELY low-poly and primitive - to lower the stress on Unity physics engine.

About usefulness of Sabatier reactor:

1) There IS water on Mars - polar caps are not all that "dry ice" - they contain water too. Also there are quite good chances to find congellations underground.

2) C-type asteroids are carbon rich and contain some better-than-nothuing amount of water. Giving you'll have plenty of oxygen after refining metals with fluorine, combination of CO and CH4 as chemical fuel looks quite efficient.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Dr. Jet

[Guest]

Just wanted to note that things are slow on my front right now because we're making an offer on a house and my dad is in town for a week. Hopefully I'll have some extra time sooner rather than later, and thanks for your patience.

And happy Father's Day!

[Daishi]

Just wanted to note that things are slow on my front right now because we're making an offer on a house and my dad is in town for a week. Hopefully I'll have some extra time sooner rather than later, and thanks for your patience.

And happy Father's Day!

Good luck!

[Dr. Jet]

Blender draft for fuel cell assembly.

Fuel cell itself is inside atmospheric-type radiator (will suck in space). Tanks are small non-cryogenic buffer takns for hydrogen and oxygen. Big thing underneath is battery.

I'm still not sure about Sabatier assembly. Can anyone describe parts it should consist of and what should be connected where?

(NASA Sabatier assembly on picture).

Edited June 28, 2015 by Dr. Jet

[Requia]

Suggestion: Acetylene/Carbon Monoxide mix (this is the most ridiculously toxic thing I can imagine, but hey its space if you take off your helmet you die anyway).

CH4+184,000KJ-->C2H2+3H2 (no fancy chemical process name here that I'm aware of).

This is a serious mars mission proposal, 1/8th the hydrogen mass needs to be landed on Mars (or somehow mined) as for a methane rocket, vacuum isp of 380.

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/3.26350

[Dr. Jet]

No help from anyone who can make good textures...

So I started to make my own.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Dr. Jet