[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.13.0 "Забытый" 13/Aug/2023)

[DaveyJ576]

ALTERNATE GEMINI

Here is something to consider...

What if Jim Chamberlin's fascination with using the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Project Gemini been overridden early in the development process and he had been ordered to use NASA's in-house design Saturn I instead? What would the vehicle have looked like? See below for my interpretation.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

This was made with a combination of BDB and Alternate Apollo parts. I have always been fascinated with the decision that was made to use the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Gemini. Apparently, Chamberlin (the head of engineering at the Space Task Group) was rather enthralled with the idea of the Titan II as a launch vehicle, and no other vehicle was ever seriously considered for Gemini. However, the Titan program eventually ran into severe problems with pogo oscillations during the launch phase, so bad in fact that NASA didn't think a crew could survive it. The Air Force dug in their heels and initially refused to do anything about it as it did not adversely affect the missile's performance as an ICBM. It took some very high level "discussions" before the AF relented and solved the problem.

The vehicle I have shown here represents what I think the Project may have looked liked if NASA dictated that Gemini use Saturn I from the very beginning instead of bowing to Chamberlin's fascination with Titan II, before the retro and adaptor sections would have been designed to make the spacecraft fit the Titan II diameter. I think we may have gotten an even more capable vehicle than Gemini was IRL because of the higher lift capacity of the Saturn I. Also, they certainly would have had to use a LES in place of ejection seats due to the greater potential explosive power of a failing Saturn I. That frees up space inside the spacecraft. Fascinating to consider...

Edited February 13 by DaveyJ576
Minor edit

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

ALTERNATE GEMINI

Here is something to consider...

What if Jim Chamberlin's fascination with using the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Project Gemini been overridden early in the development process and he had been ordered to use NASA's in-house design Saturn I instead? What would the vehicle have looked like? See below for my interpretation.

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

This was made with a combination of BDB and Alternate Apollo parts. I have always been fascinated with the decision that was made to use the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Gemini. Apparently, Chamberlin (the head of engineering at the Space Task Group) was rather enthralled with the idea of the Titan II as a launch vehicle, and no other vehicle was ever seriously considered for Gemini. However, the Titan program eventually ran into severe problems with pogo oscillations during the launch phase, so bad in fact that NASA didn't think a crew could survive it. The Air Force dug in their heels and initially refused to do anything about it as it did not adversely affect the missile's performance as an ICBM. It took some very high level "discussions" before the AF relented and solved the problem.

The vehicle I have shown here represents what I think the Project may have looked liked if NASA dictated that Gemini use Saturn I from the very beginning instead of bowing to Chamberlin's fascination with Titan II, before the retro and adaptor sections would have been designed to make the spacecraft fit the Titan II diameter. I think we may have gotten an even more capable vehicle than Gemini was IRL because of the higher lift capacity of the Saturn I. Also, they certainly would have had to use a LES in place of ejection seats due to the greater potential explosive power of a failing Saturn I. That frees up space inside the spacecraft. Fascinating to consider...

During my reaserch, on Titan, when I wrote my Titan articles 3 or 4 years ago, I found some refrences to people suggesting Saturn to launch Gemini.  The reasoning that was used by Chamberlin et al. Titan is SOONER than Saturn.   The Pogo issue you mention pushed Gemini launches back to almost concurrency with Saturn.  

[DaveyJ576]

28 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

During my reaserch, on Titan, when I wrote my Titan articles 3 or 4 years ago, I found some refrences to people suggesting Saturn to launch Gemini.  The reasoning that was used by Chamberlin et al. Titan is SOONER than Saturn.   The Pogo issue you mention pushed Gemini launches back to almost concurrency with Saturn.  

Good point! I think if NASA had a definite payload for Saturn I, they would have pushed von Braun's team to get her going faster, perhaps eliminating a little bit of the overhead in time caused by not using the "all-up" testing method and by pushing Douglas a little harder on S-IV development.

Edited February 13 by DaveyJ576
Minor edit

[Entr8899]

6 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

ALTERNATE GEMINI

Here is something to consider...

What if Jim Chamberlin's fascination with using the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Project Gemini been overridden early in the development process and he had been ordered to use NASA's in-house design Saturn I instead? What would the vehicle have looked like? See below for my interpretation.

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

This was made with a combination of BDB and Alternate Apollo parts. I have always been fascinated with the decision that was made to use the Titan II as a launch vehicle for Gemini. Apparently, Chamberlin (the head of engineering at the Space Task Group) was rather enthralled with the idea of the Titan II as a launch vehicle, and no other vehicle was ever seriously considered for Gemini. However, the Titan program eventually ran into severe problems with pogo oscillations during the launch phase, so bad in fact that NASA didn't think a crew could survive it. The Air Force dug in their heels and initially refused to do anything about it as it did not adversely affect the missile's performance as an ICBM. It took some very high level "discussions" before the AF relented and solved the problem.

The vehicle I have shown here represents what I think the Project may have looked liked if NASA dictated that Gemini use Saturn I from the very beginning instead of bowing to Chamberlin's fascination with Titan II, before the retro and adaptor sections would have been designed to make the spacecraft fit the Titan II diameter. I think we may have gotten an even more capable vehicle than Gemini was IRL because of the higher lift capacity of the Saturn I. Also, they certainly would have had to use a LES in place of ejection seats due to the greater potential explosive power of a failing Saturn I. That frees up space inside the spacecraft. Fascinating to consider...

Cool stuff. That mod's still being worked on? Mind if I have the link to it?

[Pappystein]

On 2/13/2024 at 3:29 PM, DaveyJ576 said:

Good point! I think if NASA had a definite payload for Saturn I, they would have pushed von Braun's team to get her going faster, perhaps eliminating a little bit of the overhead in time caused by not using the "all-up" testing method and by pushing Douglas a little harder on S-IV development.

Douglas was caught out on the S-IV program...   Firstly,, no matter what, the delays were inevitable, they very quickly had to switch gears to the S-IVB and S-IVC (not the ETS reuse of that designation.)   S-IV was entering "battleship" form when most of the engineers were switched to S-IVB.  

So no matter what, the delays were inevitable in my opinion.      It was more the fact that NASA's Execs kept trying to stick with a "pre-moon speech" development plan, when the S-IV would never have gotten us there... so if you want to blame anyone... it is the Kennedy Administration.

Given what it had to tackle and given that modern Hydrolox Stages are not as well insulated per unit pound as the S-IV and S-IVB... I think Douglas did a great job.

 

Given the constant engine swapping in the time frame we are talking about,  Saturn came when it did because of those decisions not because of something at a subcontractor (Douglas in this case.)

 

Edited February 14 by Pappystein

[DaveyJ576]

On 2/13/2024 at 6:42 PM, Entr8899 said:

Cool stuff. That mod's still being worked on? Mind if I have the link to it?

I don't think Alternate Apollo was ever really finished, as it is still listed as a WIP. But it is fully playable. It has a lot of unique parts, including the 1962 "Bug" LEM! The mod can be found here: 

 

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

I don't think Alternate Apollo was ever really finished, as it is still listed as a WIP. But it is fully playable. It has a lot of unique parts, including the 1962 "Bug" LEM! The mod can be found here: 

 

Mcdouble has gone on to other things...it seems.   My last DM was 3-4 years ago trying to get CRK patch going for Alternate Apollo.    The Models are not at the high fidelity level as BDB but they work well in spite of this.   GE's D2 program is an efficient take on the Apollo Needs as laid out in 1960-1961 time frame.  Before LOR, Before LANDING on the moon etc...   A great method of getting

[DaveyJ576]

THE MIDAS PROGRAM

I am one of those guys who has a hard time stopping the tinkering process with the stuff I build in KSP. I try to make them as accurate as possible within the limits of KSP. Every so often I come across new information that gives me inspiration to make an update to something I have built. Last week I came across this article: Missile Defense Alarm: The Genesis of Space-based Infrared Early Warning. I found some stuff I honestly didn't know. The first was that the infrared seeker head on the Midas vehicles rotated along its axis with the vehicle pointed down at Earth. This allowed a large cone of area below the vehicle to be scanned for missile launches. It also allowed multiple looks at the target missile which gave the system the ability to determine the target's course. Made a lot of sense!

Secondly I originally thought that the Midas program ended with the Series 3 (Agena B based) launch of Midas 9. There was actually a follow up Midas series called the Research Test Series (RTS) that used the Agena D as the base vehicle. Intrigued, I set to work to incorporate these changes in my Midas kitbashes. Below are the results.

Spoiler

This is the recreation of Midas 2 on May 24, 1960. This mission was Agena A based and not entirely successful IRL. The major revision to my earlier builds was the seeker head. I used a BG rotator to make the head and electronics section spin slowly. The Coatl IR head is mounted to a fairing base. The motor imparts a little torque to the Agena body, but the SAS adequately controls it. The nosecone is a Keyhole adaptor with a Tweakscaled Soltan nosecone on top. IRL it would have been a two piece vertically split fairing, but we don't have one of that shape in BDB or any other mod that I use. One lesson... I would suggest adding some jettisonable struts to help hold the seeker head still during staging and nosecone jettison. The Agena A was a good looking but stubby rocket stage. Too bad it had some frustrating reliability problems. I would have liked to see more of them fly.

Spoiler

This is the Midas 3 mission of July 12, 1961. This was the first of the Series 2 Agena B based birds. Sources indicated that it had deployable solar panels, so I included them here. The seeker head is the same as the Series 1.

Spoiler

 

The follow-on RTS series was Agena D based. This is Midas RTS 2 (aka Midas 11) mission of August 19, 1966. The linked article did not have pictures of these birds, but there were several key references that helped me determine how to build it. The article referred to the vehicle having both an aft and forward equipment rack with fixed solar panels on each rack arranged to ensure sunlight exposure at all times. So, I took the Agena engine mount, flipped it upside down and attached an Agena D aft rack to it. This formed the basis of the forward rack. I used a longer Agena SAF fairing and put two antennas near the forward rack, under the fairing. Once again, the seeker head rotates on a BG rotator. I am quite sure that the real vehicle was built very differently, but I think this one is a reasonable reproduction of it, given the parts limitations that we have with KSP.

Getting a full BDB version of the Midas and Samos vehicles would be awesome, but I understand that it will probably not happen in KSP 1. That's okay. They are rather niche I will admit, but still fun to fly.

Edited February 20 by DaveyJ576
Minor typo

[CobaltWolf]

Long time no see, team! Trying to get out of my unintentional hiatus. Nothing new that you haven't seen before, but I have sat down and mostly finished the Mariner 8/9 part set. The biggest thing left is the scan platform, which is nominally still Invader's problem and not mine.

[Blufor878]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

Long time no see, team! Trying to get out of my unintentional hiatus. Nothing new that you haven't seen before, but I have sat down and mostly finished the Mariner 8/9 part set. The biggest thing left is the scan platform, which is nominally still Invader's problem and not mine.

Neat! Is the insulation a separate part or a parts toggle?

[kspbutitscursed]

4 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Long time no see, team! Trying to get out of my unintentional hiatus. Nothing new that you haven't seen before, but I have sat down and mostly finished the Mariner 8/9 part set. The biggest thing left is the scan platform, which is nominally still Invader's problem and not mine.

Hes BACK

still hoping for viking someday

2 hours ago, Blufor878 said:

Neat! Is the insulation a separate part or a parts toggle?

i would expect its an part toggle like all of the other engine parts

[CobaltWolf]

19 hours ago, Blufor878 said:

Neat! Is the insulation a separate part or a parts toggle?

16 hours ago, kspbutitscursed said:

Hes BACK

still hoping for viking someday

i would expect its an part toggle like all of the other engine parts

Yep, just a toggle on the part. The blanketed version (similar to Viking) doesn't really work outside of historical builds, so the blanket-less version will have to serve in that capacity.

I have not forgotten about Viking, but no news to report still.

[Zorg]

Oh forgot to post this, still a lot of work left on Atlas but some of the texturing work has started (other stuff remains to be modelled).

 

 

 

Fun little effect on the normals

Edited February 26 by Zorg

[kspbutitscursed]

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Yep, just a toggle on the part. The blanketed version (similar to Viking) doesn't really work outside of historical builds, so the blanket-less version will have to serve in that capacity.

I have not forgotten about Viking, but no news to report still.

hoping for news soon 

thanks for all you do

[GoldForest]

18 hours ago, Zorg said:

Oh forgot to post this, still a lot of work left on Atlas but some of the texturing work has started (other stuff remains to be modelled).

Fun little effect on the normals

Will there be a TU patch to allow for shininess and/or reflectiveness? 

Edited February 23 by GoldForest

[Zorg]

7 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Will there be a TU patch to allow for shininess and/or reflectiveness? 

The plan is to make a separate dedicated texture set for TU. Like we did for CM and Skylab. It may have to be in extras since it means doubling the texture size of Atlas otherwise.

[Spike88]

I went to play KSP the other day after a hiatus and had to update a couple mods.  After updating them I started getting these B9Parts errors on Gemini parts. I tried pruning some mods that I thought could be culprits to no avail and ended up creating a fresh install of KSP with even less mods and I'm still getting them.

 

Here is my Log: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/85iohocduoazx7n9bn7ov/KSP.log?rlkey=cparn7b99m5pm3o5jv5s0vz9r&dl=0

And my MM Log: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k6wp963oci4v0rcho3p44/ModuleManager.log?rlkey=ryvniubez2cex7r84044zizl3&dl=0

[zw_45]

52 minutes ago, Spike88 said:

I went to play KSP the other day after a hiatus and had to update a couple mods.  After updating them I started getting these B9Parts errors on Gemini parts. I tried pruning some mods that I thought could be culprits to no avail and ended up creating a fresh install of KSP with even less mods and I'm still getting them.

 

Here is my Log: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/85iohocduoazx7n9bn7ov/KSP.log?rlkey=cparn7b99m5pm3o5jv5s0vz9r&dl=0

And my MM Log: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k6wp963oci4v0rcho3p44/ModuleManager.log?rlkey=ryvniubez2cex7r84044zizl3&dl=0

Not sure about the Gemini part, but it seems that the model of space shuttle rudder is missing. Go to Gamedata/Benjee10_shuttleOrbiter/Parts/ folder, see if there is a file called “OV_rudder.mu”.

[Spike88]

1 hour ago, zw_45 said:

Not sure about the Gemini part, but it seems that the model of space shuttle rudder is missing. Go to Gamedata/Benjee10_shuttleOrbiter/Parts/ folder, see if there is a file called “OV_rudder.mu”.

There is and the part also shows up in the VAB.

[zw_45]

5 hours ago, Spike88 said:

There is and the part also shows up in the VAB.

Try to delete and reinstall the latest version of BDB, SOCK and all dependencies.

[Spike88]

45 minutes ago, zw_45 said:

Try to delete and reinstall the latest version of BDB, SOCK and all dependencies.

This was already a brand new install after this error started happening on the old one. 

[KeaKaka]

[forge__gamer]

Are there any RO/RSS configs for bdb?

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, forge__gamer said:

Are there any RO/RSS configs for bdb?

They are maintained on the RO side. I don't know what the status is re: configs for all of BDB. I know that the models are used in ROEngines, ROCapsules, etc.

[kspbutitscursed]

3 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

They are maintained on the RO side. I don't know what the status is re: configs for all of BDB. I know that the models are used in ROEngines, ROCapsules, etc.

actually @Emperor of Ilve has made some very nice RO configs for BDB i use them i my RO install and they work admirably 

Link here