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

[Entr8899]

7 hours ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

I was looking around the old BDB wiki an it used to have diamant?

Yes it did. It was retired because it didn't belong in the mod and Well had already made a far better-looking Diamant in KNES.

[GoldForest]

Full album here: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

[DasherJake640]

Does this mod work with RSS? I tried to launch a Titan III with a Gemini capsule but it could only get to about 1/4 of an orbit before all the fuel and monopropellant ran out. Same thing happened with the Mercury-Atlas and a Saturn IB with an Apollo CSM (even using the propulsion system).

[septemberWaves]

@GoldForest Very nice Saturn-derived LV. Why the wide fairing though? That payload doesn't look like it needs it.

[GoldForest]

22 minutes ago, septemberWaves said:

@GoldForest Very nice Saturn-derived LV. Why the wide fairing though? That payload doesn't look like it needs it.

It's from Eyes Turned Skyward. As for the wide fairing, I needed an SLA, but the regular SLA and the wide body SLA are both too short for the payload of Two PMAs and Unity. Hence the super large ETS SLA. Only thing that fit the payload and had a node for Apollo. Wish there was a short version. @Zorg Any chance of one? Something like a half length one?

[GoldForest]

1 hour ago, DasherJake640 said:

Does this mod work with RSS? I tried to launch a Titan III with a Gemini capsule but it could only get to about 1/4 of an orbit before all the fuel and monopropellant ran out. Same thing happened with the Mercury-Atlas and a Saturn IB with an Apollo CSM (even using the propulsion system).

The RO/RSS community deals with the patches for BDB RO/RSS.  If you're having trouble, you need to go to their threads. 

BDB is designed around a 2.5x scale system and won't ever have official support for RSS. 

[Zorg]

2 hours ago, DasherJake640 said:

Does this mod work with RSS? I tried to launch a Titan III with a Gemini capsule but it could only get to about 1/4 of an orbit before all the fuel and monopropellant ran out. Same thing happened with the Mercury-Atlas and a Saturn IB with an Apollo CSM (even using the propulsion system).

There are some configs if you use BDB with RO + RSS (not RSS alone). As mentioned above, RO support for BDB is done within the RO installation. Asking about it won't help much though, they are made by volunteers who happen to use BDB and RO together and submit patches to the RO team. There hasnt been a patch update in 2 years I think but a lot the older parts are well supported.

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

It's from Eyes Turned Skyward. As for the wide fairing, I needed an SLA, but the regular SLA and the wide body SLA are both too short for the payload of Two PMAs and Unity. Hence the super large ETS SLA. Only thing that fit the payload and had a node for Apollo. Wish there was a short version. @Zorg Any chance of one? Something like a half length one?

No such plans sorry.

[DasherJake640]

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll give it a try

[CobaltWolf]

4 hours ago, Zorg said:

There are some configs if you use BDB with RO + RSS (not RSS alone). As mentioned above, RO support for BDB is done within the RO installation. Asking about it won't help much though, they are made by volunteers who happen to use BDB and RO together and submit patches to the RO team. There hasnt been a patch update in 2 years I think but a lot the older parts are well supported.

No such plans sorry.

4 hours ago, DasherJake640 said:

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll give it a try

I believe the parts that are converted live separately, in the RO Capsules, RO Engines, etc mods.

[septemberWaves]

6 hours ago, GoldForest said:

It's from Eyes Turned Skyward. As for the wide fairing, I needed an SLA, but the regular SLA and the wide body SLA are both too short for the payload of Two PMAs and Unity. Hence the super large ETS SLA. Only thing that fit the payload and had a node for Apollo. Wish there was a short version. @Zorg Any chance of one? Something like a half length one?

It sounds like what'd be best here would be a longer wide SLA rather than a shorter super-wide one. It'd be nice to see a version of the wide one that's the same width as the S-IVB but as long as the super-wide fairing.

In the meantime, I wonder if there's enough space in the bottom half of the Voyager Mars dual payload adapter for a station module? I can't remember for sure how the nodes work with that, but it might be possible to use the bottom section of the dual payload adapter with an SLA on top instead of the top section. Though, with that said, extracting the lower payload safely could be problematic with that configuration.

[GoldForest]

Just now, septemberWaves said:

It sounds like what'd be best here would be a longer wide SLA rather than a shorter super-wide one. It'd be nice to see a version of the wide one that's the same width as the S-IVB but as long as the super-wide fairing.

In the meantime, I wonder if there's enough space in the bottom half of the Voyager Mars dual payload adapter for a station module? I can't remember for sure how the nodes work with that, but it might be possible to use the bottom section of the dual payload adapter with an SLA on top instead of the top section. Though, with that said, extracting the lower payload safely could be problematic with that configuration.

There might be room, but yeah, it would be problematic. Best just to use the super sized SLA.

[Blufor878]

Anyone here want a J2 Aerospike powered smallsat launcher named after one of Saturn's moons? Of course you do! I present, Mimas!


Coming soon...

[AlphaMensae]

On 1/27/2023 at 4:41 PM, septemberWaves said:

What are those doors on the Atlas engine shroud actually for? Are they for covering up fuel pipe connections after launch, or do they have some other purpose?

Yes, they part of the GSE connections.  Atlas, like Thor, Vanguard and Redstone/Jupiter-C/Juno I, was serviced entirely from pad connections and had no tower. Once the Agena and Centaur upper stages were added, they required a tower to service them, again like Thor-Agena and Vanguard (Able upper).  If you loom at the photos of those rockets, you'll note that all the umbilicals are on the upper stage, not on the booster.

[DeadJohn]

@CobaltWolf or any BDB science specialist: Is the "MONK-E-MGL Orbital Goo Laboratory" bugged or am I just failing to understand how to use it?

The part offers "Collect Data" from the PAW but it seems to do nothing. I've already tried attaching stock goo experiments to the outside, sending a scientist on EVA, storing goo results in a science container before clicking "Collect Data", etc. I have a scientist inside the part.

The part cfg references experimentID "bd_GooLab" but I don't see that string anywhere else on BDB github. Maybe something is missing from the BDB science defs folder. My logfile includes "[WRN 22:23:03.157] [R&D]: No Experiment definition found with id bd_GooLab"

[GoldForest]

Apollo Block V-B delivers the Z1 truss to the ISS. And for those wondering, yes, the Z1 fully fit inside, no collisions with any colliders. Though, I forgot to balance the Z1 out so Apollo had to burn a little (About 5 or so degrees) off node. Oops.

Album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by GoldForest

[CobaltWolf]

On 1/28/2023 at 11:23 PM, DeadJohn said:

@CobaltWolf or any BDB science specialist: Is the "MONK-E-MGL Orbital Goo Laboratory" bugged or am I just failing to understand how to use it?

The part offers "Collect Data" from the PAW but it seems to do nothing. I've already tried attaching stock goo experiments to the outside, sending a scientist on EVA, storing goo results in a science container before clicking "Collect Data", etc. I have a scientist inside the part.

The part cfg references experimentID "bd_GooLab" but I don't see that string anywhere else on BDB github. Maybe something is missing from the BDB science defs folder. My logfile includes "[WRN 22:23:03.157] [R&D]: No Experiment definition found with id bd_GooLab"

Uhm... y'know what? I don't think I ever actually got that part working right before moving on...

[DeadJohn]

38 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Uhm... y'know what? I don't think I ever actually got that part working right before moving on...

Ok, thanks. The part looks nice on my station even if it does nothing.

Tangent: while trying to diagnose the part I googled "bd_goolab". I found a doctor named B. D. Goolab. It's a small world with many coincidences.

[Beccab]

S-II orbital launch vehicle proposal from 1967 (NAA)

I'm not sure if this is the most detailed proposal for it, but it sure is my favourite: the central J2 removed to allow for tankers to refuel it, docking bumpers added on its front to be able to put multiple of them together and an entire secondary propulsion system made of earth-storable propellants and two LM descent stage engines alongside the J2s

Edited January 31, 2023 by Beccab

[CobaltWolf]

57 minutes ago, Beccab said:

S-II orbital launch vehicle proposal from 1967 (NAA)

I'm not sure if this is the most detailed proposal for it, but it sure is my favourite: the central J2 removed to allow for tankers to refuel it, docking bumpers added on its front to be able to put multiple of them together and an entire secondary propulsion system made of earth-storable propellants and two LM descent stage engines alongside the J2s

Seeing people make such beautiful things with our parts is part of what keeps me going, thank you!

[septemberWaves]

@Beccab Do you know anything about the intended use of this vehicle? I assume it's some sort of Earth-orbit-assembled transfer system for getting large payloads to lunar or interplanetary trajectories, but if there's any other idea behind it then I'm curious to know what that might be.

[Beccab]

7 hours ago, septemberWaves said:

@Beccab Do you know anything about the intended use of this vehicle? I assume it's some sort of Earth-orbit-assembled transfer system for getting large payloads to lunar or interplanetary trajectories, but if there's any other idea behind it then I'm curious to know what that might be.

There were various kinds of S-II orbital launch vehicles proposed during the early Apollo program; the most advanced of them was for crewed mars landings, as a replacement for the many proposed NERVA-based architectures, while others were for Venus/Mars/both flybys that were under consideration before Apollo 1. This one belongs to the latter; the whole document here, paywalled for god knows what reason considering that AIAA had no part in its realization or peer-reviewing (the closest relation I can find is that it references another paper presented at AIAA, but like, this is still a contractor report for NASA's AAP), but this being a reasearch paper there's debatably ethical ways to still get it as you probably know.

The summary is this: the study considered 2 main options for a either a 1973 Venus flyby or a 1975 mars twilight flyby, using either a nuclear stage on a modified saturn V or launching two saturn Vs (one with the flyby spacecraft, another with the S-II orbital launch spacecraft refueled in orbit of its missing LOX), and favouring the development of the later option. The one below is the Venus flyby spacecraft, spinning for artificial gravity:

While this is the hardware for the proposed Mars flyby:


Finally, the main goal of the flyby would be to validate the hardware for a mars landing; thus, the study also describes the spacecraft that would be used for such a mission, a transfer vehicle capable of aerocapture into mars orbit, releasing an excursion module (though it appears to be the pre-mariner 4 NAA mars lander, which is useless) and returning to earth:

The transfer vehicle above is studied in a ton more detail and variations on different, NTRS studies, but I've already gone far enough from your original question I think 

8 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Seeing people make such beautiful things with our parts is part of what keeps me going, thank you!

The new parts y'all made are so good! During the last month or so of exams over exams over more exams I've mainly been basically making just kitbashes I'm going to need on future IPP missions, but a couple days ago I've found a way to use the fantastic expanded LM shelter habitat for a crewed outer planets flyby kitbash, which is awesome

[GoldForest]

700 Day mission module? Dang. 

That's a long time to be so far away with such a, and I hate to say it, rudimentary spacecraft. 

And I know half of that is spent during the transition period during Earth and Mars, but still. 

Also, that thing does not look like it can carry 700 days worth of supplies. Unless... the MEM could be used as a storage module for most of the supplies. 

[Beccab]

Just now, GoldForest said:

700 Day mission module? Dang. 

That's a long time to be so far away with such a, and I hate to say it, rudimentary spacecraft. 

And I know half of that is spent during the transition period during Earth and Mars, but still. 

Also, that thing does not look like it can carry 700 days worth of supplies. Unless... the MEM could be used as a storage module for most of the supplies. 

Not a storage module, but in the Venus flyby spacecraft, the Apollo CM (yes, CM, not SM) is used to carry an RTG to power the whole spacecraft, which is kept inside all the way to the return to Earth. I guess reentry from interplanetary velocity wasn't dangerous enough already

[GoldForest]

7 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Not a storage module, but in the Venus flyby spacecraft, the Apollo CM (yes, CM, not SM) is used to carry an RTG to power the whole spacecraft, which is kept inside all the way to the return to Earth. I guess reentry from interplanetary velocity wasn't dangerous enough already

Well, the MEM wouldn't be used for anything during the 6 months Earth to Mars transition period. That's 6 months of it just sitting there. It can be used as a storage module. And the reentry module could also be used as storage module. It won't be doing anything for 2 years. Well, actually... hmmm. Either of these could be used as a lifeboat in case of an emergency, but they don't really have the space for the supplies... Yeah, I think the MEM and Reentry module would be used for storage for the 6 months to mars and the 2-year mission as a whole respectively. 

[septemberWaves]

3 hours ago, Beccab said:

Not a storage module, but in the Venus flyby spacecraft, the Apollo CM (yes, CM, not SM) is used to carry an RTG to power the whole spacecraft, which is kept inside all the way to the return to Earth. I guess reentry from interplanetary velocity wasn't dangerous enough already

An adequately-shielded RTG wouldn't present any radiation risk to the crew, unless I have been severely misled about the properties of types of radiation. The elements used for RTGs are typically alpha emitters, and alpha radiation is fairly trivial to shield against. By far the bigger threat would be interplanetary radiation from the sun - methods like lead shielding or keeping fuel tanks between the crew and the sun are all about gamma radiation (or otherwise high energy photons).

Keeping such an RTG adequately cooled is a different challenge entirely, and an overheating RTG is much more dangerous than the alpha radiation kept safely inside a container.

Edited February 1, 2023 by septemberWaves