[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.14.0 "металл" 30/Sep/2024)

[birdog357]

I must have missed it, but what's the story on the insulated F-1s? What purpose does it serve?

[Jall]

4 minutes ago, birdog357 said:

I must have missed it, but what's the story on the insulated F-1s? What purpose does it serve?

Realism. The actual Saturn V launched with thermal insulation on the engines.

[Pappystein]

10 minutes ago, Jall said:

Realism. The actual Saturn V launched with thermal insulation on the engines.

While it is true that the real life Saturn flew with Insulation (and many other Rockets before and since...)  Since KSP does not allow for ablative modeling.... nah, can't be for realism.     Now if someone were to make a KSP plugin that supported Ablative modeling within the B9PS arena.... THAT might be something to aspire for.

 

[Jall]

6 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

While it is true that the real life Saturn flew with Insulation (and many other Rockets before and since...)  Since KSP does not allow for ablative modeling.... nah, can't be for realism.     Now if someone were to make a KSP plugin that supported Ablative modeling within the B9PS arena.... THAT might be something to aspire for.

 

Okay, that WOULD be amazing to see. But until then my comment of realism will just have to refer to the “I want to make a Saturn that looks like the real one!” idea. Plus, it’s cool to have a thermally shielded F-1.

[Pappystein]

3 minutes ago, Jall said:

Okay, that WOULD be amazing to see. But until then my comment of realism will just have to refer to the “I want to make a Saturn that looks like the real one!” idea. Plus, it’s cool to have a thermally shielded F-1.

Totally cool with that and to each their own.   Since I recover my S-IC stages (and my LRB boosters for my Saturn MS-V rockets) I prefer the un-shielded ones.  

[birdog357]

1 hour ago, Jall said:

Realism. The actual Saturn V launched with thermal insulation on the engines.

No kidding? I have never seen any images of it. All the F-1 shots I can find are naked.

 

[Jall]

4 minutes ago, birdog357 said:

No kidding? I have never seen any images of it. All the F-1 shots I can find are naked.

I found a pretty decent image of it (easier said than done). You can see how the entire engine is covered in the insulation.

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, birdog357 said:

I must have missed it, but what's the story on the insulated F-1s? What purpose does it serve?

1 hour ago, Jall said:

Realism. The actual Saturn V launched with thermal insulation on the engines.

1 hour ago, Pappystein said:

While it is true that the real life Saturn flew with Insulation (and many other Rockets before and since...)  Since KSP does not allow for ablative modeling.... nah, can't be for realism.     Now if someone were to make a KSP plugin that supported Ablative modeling within the B9PS arena.... THAT might be something to aspire for.

52 minutes ago, Jall said:

Okay, that WOULD be amazing to see. But until then my comment of realism will just have to refer to the “I want to make a Saturn that looks like the real one!” idea. Plus, it’s cool to have a thermally shielded F-1.

46 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

Totally cool with that and to each their own.   Since I recover my S-IC stages (and my LRB boosters for my Saturn MS-V rockets) I prefer the un-shielded ones. 

8 minutes ago, birdog357 said:

No kidding? I have never seen any images of it. All the F-1 shots I can find are naked.

I feel that - all the surviving examples of F-1s don't have the insulation. The blankets were applied, I believe, on the launchpad. But they were definitely used on all the F-1s. Here's an example of one with insulation on a test stand:

 

Discussion of it surged after the CNN Apollo 11 documentary came out, showing a lot of footage of the insulation. They had a much better copy of this clip:

 

Scott Manley made a great video on the topic, which I cannot recommend enough:

 

(Btw you should totally watch Apollo 11)

Incidentally, I believe these models are Scott Manley Approved? Does @illectro agree?

EDIT: U h, upon rewatching that video

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by CobaltWolf

[birdog357]

KSP, It's not just a game...

@CobaltWolf which Apollo 11 are you recommending me to watch?

[CobaltWolf]

2 minutes ago, birdog357 said:

KSP, It's not just a game...

@CobaltWolf which Apollo 11 are you recommending me to watch?

https://www.cnn.com/shows/apollo-11-cnn-film

I got to see it at my local County Theater, which made it that much more meaningful to be supporting a local small town classic experience

Edited August 3, 2019 by CobaltWolf

[Guest]

9 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

I feel that - all the surviving examples of F-1s don't have the insulation. The blankets were applied, I believe, on the launchpad. But they were definitely used on all the F-1s. Here's an example of one with insulation on a test stand:

Wow, that's the best "blanket F-1" picture I've ever seen.  I can also see why you couldn't get the new shader to work right with that. I can see at least two if not three different materials in there, and the surface is highly non-uniform. There's no way the Squad's shader could do that. You'd need a full set of maps to get that effect.

[CobaltWolf]

47 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Wow, that's the best "blanket F-1" picture I've ever seen.  I can also see why you couldn't get the new shader to work right with that. I can see at least two if not three different materials in there, and the surface is highly non-uniform. There's no way the Squad's shader could do that. You'd need a full set of maps to get that effect.

I should have just posted a picture. This is what the shader version looked like. Note the excessive rimlighting around the pumps/gimbals. That coupled with needing a whole extra 1k texture for basically the same effect is why I went with the old shader.

 

 

 

Dev stream starting in about 30 mins! I have a bunch of new LDC parts modeled that I'm excited to get textured!

[Guest]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

I should have just posted a picture. This is what the shader version looked like. Note the excessive rimlighting around the pumps/gimbals. That coupled with needing a whole extra 1k texture for basically the same effect is why I went with the old shader.

Yeah, I figured it'd be something like that. If you look at the real engine, large parts of the blanket (including the ones that are a problem) are actually somewhat matted. The ring around the bottom of the bell, and some parts around the turbopump, on the other hand, are more reflective. It is much more subtle than what the current stock shaders can do.

Agena-D (and Atlas) tankage should give much better results. They're just plain shiny (almost mirror-like, in fact) and are clearly separated from non-shiny parts. 

[Dutchbook]

@birdog357 I recommend you watch it in IMAX if you can, it was definitely one of the most impressive experiences i've had in my life. (And for the rest of the audience, if I had to go from the sounds they made during and after the movie)

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Dutchbook

[hieywiey]

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

[snip]

I think the old shader fits better, as the metallic cover on the IRL F-1 wasn’t smooth enough to be that reflective. It also wasn’t really that polished, it didn’t need to be. The reflectiveness was more akin to stainless steel, it reflected light, but now without distortion.

Edited August 3, 2019 by hieywiey

[PhantomC3PO]

On 8/3/2019 at 12:49 AM, CobaltWolf said:

The development branch, since there's a crap ton of new engines there and a bunch that have been removed.

EDIT: If someone else is looking for something to do, an optional patch that makes all the engines throttle realistically would be cool as well.

I’m happy to have a crack at this, is there a specific mod that this is designed to work with, or just stock @CobaltWolf?

[CobaltWolf]

4 hours ago, PhantomC3PO said:

I’m happy to have a crack at this, is there a specific mod that this is designed to work with, or just stock @CobaltWolf?

The throttling thing? No, I don't think so. I think the best thing would just be to have it be an optional patch in the extras folder that users could drop in.

[CobaltWolf]

Forgot to upload pics from yesterday's stream... 3 new LDC first stage mount options are in, and a 3.75m>3.125m adapter and 3.125m avionics truss ALSO made it in.

The textures are still a little rough, because I want to do a pass on the textures for the fuel tanks before moving forward more. Right now they're a little...

I just don't think they're up to the quality of the new Titan parts.

[Zorg]

Launching a Hughes barrel sat with deploying solar skirt. (Yes Titan 3C is not the right LV for a commercial sat but there were roleplay reasons in my current save)

Thanks to breaking ground robotics and a touch of tweakscale.

[PhantomC3PO]

4 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

The throttling thing? No, I don't think so. I think the best thing would just be to have it be an optional patch in the extras folder that users could drop in.

No worries. I’ll have a look into it and see what I can do

[MOARdV]

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Forgot to upload pics from yesterday's stream... 3 new LDC first stage mount options are in, and a 3.75m>3.125m adapter and 3.125m avionics truss ALSO made it in.

 

I will definitely appreciate the avionics truss.  Sorry if this has been answered somewhere (or I just haven't found the right part) - but is there a 3.125m > 2.5m adapter planned?  I'm using a Sarnus SIV tapered fuel tank currently (so, I guess the adapter isn't strictly needed).

[FreeThinker]

I'm playing a 2.5x scale campaign and noticed the solid rocket boosters are amazingly effective as a first stage. Why aren't they used more in real life?

Edited August 5, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Dutchbook]

Here is a good read on how propulsion choices are made.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110003599.pdf
 

Quote

Solid propellant is very expensive to produce. If the solid motor is made up of segments , it requires considerable labor and time to assemble (Shuttle SRM' s) and results in a high cost operation. These solid motors are considered very hazardous to handle and require the area to be cleared to both handle them and to arm them with the ignition systems. The facilities also cannot be shared with other functions because of the safety hazard. Safety of flight is also compromised, as the solid motor is not fault tolerant by design. Operationally the solid motor operates very fuel rich; therefore, the ignition overpressure from re-ignition of exhaust or afterbuming requires careful consideration to avoid flight vehicle damage during liftoff (Shuttle ignition overpressure suppression system required) . Again this drives the operation time and cost to accommodate. Solid propulsion systems Isp is limited.

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Dutchbook

[CobaltWolf]

17 hours ago, MOARdV said:

I will definitely appreciate the avionics truss.  Sorry if this has been answered somewhere (or I just haven't found the right part) - but is there a 3.125m > 2.5m adapter planned?  I'm using a Sarnus SIV tapered fuel tank currently (so, I guess the adapter isn't strictly needed).

Yes, there is. I didn't get a pic of it because the textures still had a lot of work left to be done. There's also a nose cone, fairing base, decoupler, short fuel tank, and a couple more engine mounts (mostly for the second stage) left to do. I'm also going to redo the tank textures, maybe even from scratch, to try and add more detail to match the new Titan parts.

 

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I'm playing a 2.5x scale campaign and noticed the solid rocket boosters are amazingly effective as a first stage. What aren't they used more in real life?

3 hours ago, Dutchbook said:

Here is a good read on how propulsion choices are made.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110003599.pdf

Yeah. I think, more than anything, there's an institutional culture in the US regarding solids. Liquid rockets were considered overly complex, and the advantages solids have over liquids for missiles cannot be overlooked. The US invested heavily in solid rocket technology early on in the space race - to the point that many rocket scientists were making plans to get to the moon using launch vehicles - and even service modules - entirely out of solids!

I'd also add, something that I think a lot of people have learned playing BDB is exactly how effective solids are as a final stage. The rocket equation really favors them. Even if the ISP isn't that great, the fact that it's little more than a giant wad of propellant directly behind your payload means that the delta V can get very very high. BDB of course encourages this by making all the vacuum solids able to be shut down, but not restarted.

Edited August 5, 2019 by CobaltWolf

[FreeThinker]

4 hours ago, Dutchbook said:

Here is a good read on how propulsion choices are made.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110003599.pdf
 

So it basicly comes down to high risk, if anything goes wrong, it might blow up the whole assembly line, killing all nearby engeneers.

Since acccidents are unavoidable, production of large solid rockets unavoidable will lead to dead engeneers and therefore result in the public opinion penalty over time

Perhaps its an idea to add a small reputation penalty whenever a big Solid fuel rocket is build?

Edited August 5, 2019 by FreeThinker