[0.25] Lionhead Aerospace Inc. - Icarus v0.4 updated

[Free Trader Beowulf]

Hey - great news. I'm really interested in seeing an MTV. And getting my hands on a saddle truss :-)

Any thoughts on what size you'll be making it? Or is it too soon to ask?

Either way - thanks for taking this on.

[WCOLE360]

Fitted to an Ares V, and the saddle truss won't be separate.

[aquilux]

Hey guys, I really love your work and this new project looks awesome, though I am concerned about the "feel" of it all. I know, I know, "If you don't like it, don't download it." and all that, I'm not going to stop you, that's not why I'm here. It does seem to me as though squad has pointed the general feel of KSP more towards the general style of the apollo era missions though.

In that spirit, I will point your eyes (and those of the people looking at this thread) at the 1969 mars mission proposal. There's just something about this project that makes it fit perfectly with the feel of the game, and I'm shocked no one has shown any interest in adding it in.

Obviously, this is something that would need 10m parts to go with it, but that's a trivial matter of upscaling existing parts, even stock items. In the original plan there were 5 modules all based off of the same design:

1. The lander pictured above.
   
2. A more permanent base designed for repeated use.
   
3. A cargo module to support longer-term missions.
   
4. A rover lander to... land rovers, either one large one or many smaller ones.
   
5. A mini nuclear power plant to generate power and oxygen from the environment, as well as possibly generating fuels from CO2 and H2.
   

As were many mission designs of the time this plan relied heavily on the NERVA engine, and the shelving of that project was one of the factors to it's death. Obviously, we don't have that problem.

The entire mission fit quite nicely together, including even probes for venus as many plans involved a venus flyby to boost their orbital velocity.

This entire thing would enter orbit over mars, with some plans involving an aerocapture. The MEM would detach and descend, leaving it's base on mars after it finished the mission.

The full mission vehicle would be brought together in orbit in six major, easy to assemble sections, five of which are identical.

Unmanned missions would also be launched, containing multiple MEM modules of other designs to deliver the previously mentioned reactor, base, rover,and cargo modules.

I'm not asking anyone to stop what they're doing to work on this, but I want to get this idea out there and in the minds of the great modders here in the hopes that someone will be inspired to bring at least some parts of this project to KSP, some time in the future.

[WCOLE360]

Well, we'll need to find a 10m launcher. Plus at priority is the ESA Pack and the MTV.

[Kerbolman]

Maybe work with BobCat who already is working on the launchers, save some time?

[WCOLE360]

No we're not working with him. We're also not planning on making launchers, I mentioned we were using his, I'm pretty sure he'll let us, plus it takes stress away from him as people want him doing it. We've actually been working on this for a while, if we're lucky a dev pic tomorrow.

[Tommygun]

No we're not working with him. We're also not planning on making launchers, I mentioned we were using his, I'm pretty sure he'll let us, plus it takes stress away from him as people want him doing it. We've actually been working on this for a while, if we're lucky a dev pic tomorrow.

You mentioned that you might do the HAB and cargo landers as well if things go right.

NASA has had so many proposed Mars vehicles that I'm not sure how they look on the ground and my Google searches show a lot of different possibilities.

Do you have any links or pictures to what you are basing them off of?

[WCOLE360]

I have a 1.2gb folder on my desktop with resources, mostly that constellation animation we've seen around. We're also basing off these:

http://constellationprogram.com/startpage/

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373665main_NASA-SP-2009-566.pdf

[Anthony Frushour]

Specialized Inflatable Habitat, eventually if I can talk to my contact in NASA, possibly an interior!

Does he work at NASA Johnson? I'm working in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Office (ARES) at JSC.

Also, the idea of the MTV along with Bobcat's Ares 5 in KSP is just amazing.

[Tommygun]

I have a 1.2gb folder on my desktop with resources, mostly that constellation animation we've seen around. We're also basing off these:

http://constellationprogram.com/startpage/

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373665main_NASA-SP-2009-566.pdf

OK thanks, so it is the sideways landing one.

I wish they would have given them less generic names. "Habitat Vehicle" in Google just gets you massive unusable results.

[Good_Apollo]

-Yogui

2 things that have always bothered me:

1. Do you ever plan on making a cruise stage for your Thor/Phoenix Lander?

2. Will you ever add a Heat Shield/Backshell compatible with your MER/Tetrahedron shell?

Not a huge deal but with the addition of the ULA systems I'd love for these two details to complete the package!

That's doable but I'll do it with the next cycle update of all mods.

Excellent, guess I'll add that to my list of things I'm eagerly awaiting, though I'm curious as to what you mean by 'next cycle'. You mean like when you update the rovers or what? Just curious.

Speaking of those things though, and I hate to sound like a nag, but any progress on getting them to work? I'm guessing you're at the point where you're dropping cleverbobcat and you're just going to make individual parts for the rover wheels? Wish I could help figure out what is broken about them...reminds me of Devo's PMA mysteriously being borked.

[Yogui87]

Ah, I guess I misspoke. What I want to remove is the engine shroud. I tried deleting that section from the .cfg but that just made the shroud permanently visible.

Her to link to EPS with no shroud: http://www./?7vout5tmjuq5je2

[WCOLE360]

From yogui himself! The NTR Stage!

Edit:

I'm thinking, if this is assembled by orion on orbit, I think the NTR stage is what they assemble it onto, because it only has 1 port, meanwhile every other module has at least 2 ports so orion can be on one side, yes..

EDIT 2:

Yoguiiii it's waaaaay off centered.

Edited June 10, 2013 by WCOLE360

[spawnofbill]

Her to link to EPS with no shroud: http://www./?7vout5tmjuq5je2

Yay! Thank you!

[MDBenson]

From yogui himself! The NTR Stage!

I'm thinking, if this is assembled by orion on orbit, I think the NTR stage is what they assemble it onto, because it only has 1 port, meanwhile every other module has at least 2 ports so orion can be on one side, yes..

Yes, NTR booster goes up first and is 'parked' in orbit by the Ares 5 'EDS' stage, which then de-orbits. The Mid section (extra fuel) and the hab module/utility section parts are then docked to it by the 2nd and 3rd launch Ares V launch EDSs by reversing them onto the main craft. Orion then docks after that and the crew activate the ship's life support systems, inflate the hab module etc. Having said that, though, the hab section would not connect well to the EDS so maybe that parks itself as it has the computers on board and some RCS.

For the Landers, they are slightly different I think. The first Ares V launches an NTR stage and the EDS stage parks it, leaving it there like before. The next Ares V launch EDS stage reaches rendezvous with the NTR booster and then detaches and the lander docks itself to the NTR I think as both the NTR and Lander have only 1 docking port where they clamp together, but the lander has computers, fuel and RCS built into it fore and aft so can steer and make docking movements on it's own.

Edited June 10, 2013 by MDBenson

[Nibb31]

Yoguiiii it's waaaaay off centered.

Wouldn't it be better, for the sake of flexibility, to make the engines separate parts from the tank? That way we could build 2, 3, or 4 engine variants.

[astroadrian99]

The landers and hab that go to mars before the crew is explained in this video how it is done

[astroadrian99]

Forget about my last post this video has the entire mission. The landers and hab that go first and the MTV as well.

[MDBenson]

astroadrian: That's the same video just not in HD

[WCOLE360]

astroadrian

Alright, we know, we just don't want to make the landers first, there shouldn't be a problem with it either as it'd be pointless to have you guys with the landers, but no ship to transport the crew to them. See my point?

Nibb31

As of right now the engines are together with the fuel tank just for the lessening of part count. If you want a copy of the engines to use elsewhere, I'll ask yogui to split off a copy for separate release when we're done. But they haven't even specified much that I could find about the engines, except for that they are Nuclear Thermal Rockets, no stats in the videos.

EDIT:

Also on the drop tank, look at the thumbnail on the second video Astro posted, the drop tank was dropped during the orbit in mars! Thats one feature we'll have!

Edited June 10, 2013 by WCOLE360

[astroadrian99]

Sorry is that I couldn't sleep well and for some resome they looked different to me Sorry

[astroadrian99]

astroadrian

Alright, we know, we just don't want to make the landers first, there shouldn't be a problem with it either as it'd be pointless to have you guys with the landers, but no ship to transport the crew to them. See my point?

Nibb31

As of right now the engines are together with the fuel tank just for the lessening of part count. If you want a copy of the engines to use elsewhere, I'll ask yogui to split off a copy for separate release when we're done. But they haven't even specified much that I could find about the engines, except for that they are Nuclear Thermal Rockets, no stats in the videos.

I know, it makes sense its just that a few post before MDBenson tried to explain back how the MTV and landers docket to each other so I tried to help by using the vids. And I accidentally forgot to quote his post.

[Nibb31]

Nibb31

As of right now the engines are together with the fuel tank just for the lessening of part count. If you want a copy of the engines to use elsewhere, I'll ask yogui to split off a copy for separate release when we're done.

Thanks, but don't bother making a separate engine part just for me

I'm not really convinced that part count is much of a factor in fps lag compared to the actual polygon count and texture size. The only significant contribution to lag in having the engines as separate parts is 3 more Unity joints, which is probably minor compared to the total number of joints on some people's rockets, or the number of struts. polygon count and textures should be pretty much the same.

On the other hand, separating the engines from the tanks allows for more combinations and "lego" rockets, which is what makes KSP so much fun compared to Orbiter, where mods/addons are pretty much all prebuilt and "take it or leave it".

Anyway, it's your choice, and I respect that

[WCOLE360]

No man it's fine, yogui has a separated version as well, but we might already end up separating it in the end. Right now they're together for proper rescaling, and centering.

[WCOLE360]

NEW FROM YOGUI!

Drop Tank Trusses, WITH SADDLE TRUSSES!