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

[Starhelperdude]

9 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

 

I am severely tempted to try my hand again at modeling in KSP and make the Grumman Phase 1 Shuttle.   As a follow on to ETS (so Shuttle only in the late 1980s)

 

 

ohhh that will be interesting!

[Beccab]

33 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

Now my first attempt ended in a survived failure.  I used the Lunar Orbiter as a chassis as you did but couldn't get the Lunar orbiter engine/fuel packs to go in 4x symmetry (they are node only apparently)  So I am curious what tank engine combo you used.   I used the engine 6x of the Lanadvermass from Probes+.   I used a bunch of spherical Mono tanks from Tantares and didn't use lander legs because the 6x engines were wide enough that I doubted it would tip.   PROBLEM:   6x engines was too high thrust!   CRASH and lost everything but one 1x6 solar panel and the core (so it could communicate but not broadcast any science back to Kerbin.

I have made three designs total with the lunar orbiter atm:

First one, the original, uses four of the Ranger landing engines and no other tank (there is a monoprop tank, but it's there mostly to balance the camera's mass and avoiding to land upside down), which was very high thrust for minmus but at minimum throttle was able to land; can get 755 m/s of deltaV mostly thanks to its low mass

Second design, the Lunokhod-like lander+rover, with the Orbiter's midcourse correction engine + four of the small monoprop engines (as you said they are node only, so I first added the DLC's servo and then to its node the engines) and 4 of the bigger monoprop tanks in the middle of the orbiter. The lander itself is pretty light but the rover brings the mass up to twice the previous lander, so it only gets 445 m/s of deltaV:

Third, I'm working on a third design based on the Orbiter for a Duna flyby, which uses the Restock+ 0.625m tanks and semisphere as well as the original 4 Ranger landing engines. Despite being heavier than the first lander can reach an almost decent 941 m/s of deltaV:

33 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

@Beccab If you would post those craft files to KerbalX many of us would be appreciative!

Never used it, sorry

Edited May 1, 2021 by Beccab

[JoeSheridan]

4 hours ago, Pappystein said:

PS, the Saturn MLV is basically the follow on to NOVA.   Except that it was hoped to actually build those (stupid Nixion for liking the stupid space shuttle above all else!)

I didn´t knew that the MLV studies were late enough to be in the timeframe were the actual shuttle decision came. Thanks
And i still like the idea of the shuttle... the one that NASA wantet and could have brought in a really working shape on the  pad, ready to be really upgraded when new technology is ready. In my opinion there are three reasons for the crap version of the shuttle idea the US got: Congress, Vietnam and.... the Airforce.  IMO the last one has done the most damage with their specs for missions that never flew  but took funding away from safer technology on other ends. I think that this really killed the idea to bring LRB´s into the design ( only one of the stupid cost based changes ).

But yes: Nixon had an idiotic manner in handling spacepolicy. Absolutely. 

They had the Saturns,expandable LV ´s, yes BUT they were flight proven, human rated and were ready for a bunch of relatively cheap upgrades, part of them even ready to be made in practicaly no time ( J-2 upgrade for example). They had a proven, reliable and expandable Launcher-family.

What did they want: A Station, somekind of a AAP, deep space probes (for which a  "traditional" launcher is the better choice in most cases anyways) , possibly precurser missions for crewed mars and Venus flybys (for which you would still need a balistic capsule. which they had... )........

But they only had the money for one thing and Nixon decided to use it in the most risky manner the proposals got..... and what did it cost: NASA is probably a slooowly dying agency and that stupid system killed 14 astronauts together with to many billions of dollars. And it nearly could have killed half of the ISS too.

Long story short: I would love to live in a dimension were Eyes turned Skywards would be the real history. That´s waaaaay more reasonable then anything NASA was forced to do in the last 45-50 Years. ( The same works for "my own"  ( I am from germany) ESA too. )

Edited May 1, 2021 by JoeSheridan

[Pappystein]

4 hours ago, JoeSheridan said:

I didn´t knew that the MLV studies were late enough to be in the timeframe were the actual shuttle decision came. Thanks
And i still like the idea of the shuttle... the one that NASA wantet and could have brought in a really working shape on the  pad, ready to be really upgraded when new technology is ready. In my opinion there are three reasons for the crap version of the shuttle idea the US got: Congress, Vietnam and.... the Airforce.  IMO the last one has done the most damage with their specs for missions that never flew  but took funding away from safer technology on other ends. I think that this really killed the idea to bring LRB´s into the design ( only one of the stupid cost based changes ).

But yes: Nixon had an idiotic manner in handling spacepolicy. Absolutely. 

They had the Saturns,expandable LV ´s, yes BUT they were flight proven, human rated and were ready for a bunch of relatively cheap upgrades, part of them even ready to be made in practicaly no time ( J-2 upgrade for example). They had a proven, reliable and expandable Launcher-family.

What did they want: A Station, somekind of a AAP, deep space probes (for which a  "traditional" launcher is the better choice in most cases anyways) , possibly precurser missions for crewed mars and Venus flybys (for which you would still need a balistic capsule. which they had... )........

But they only had the money for one thing and Nixon decided to use it in the most risky manner the proposals got..... and what did it cost: NASA is probably a slooowly dying agency and that stupid system killed 14 astronauts together with to many billions of dollars. And it nearly could have killed half of the ISS too.

Long story short: I would love to live in a dimension were Eyes turned Skywards would be the real history. That´s waaaaay more reasonable then anything NASA was forced to do in the last 45-50 Years. ( The same works for "my own"  ( I am from germany) ESA too. )

The MLV studies and Shuttle Launch overlap... BARELY  They are within 9 months of each other.

I understand some of the WHY after reading Jenkins's Shuttle Anthology.   (well worth the ~$120 USD price.)   Don't mean I like it.

 

 

6 hours ago, Starhelperdude said:

ohhh that will be interesting!

And Honestly the idea of me making parts for KSP is Pie in the sky.   I would have to invest in Photoshop if nothing else.  Trying to do the level of textures that the BDB team does in PAintShopPro is... well *YEAH RIGHT!* is the phrase that comes to mind.

 

Minor correction to myself.   The Grumman Shuttle proposals were in the Phase B (not Phase 1) of the Shuttle Program.   The 518 would have 4x F401-PW-400 engines (naval version of the F100-PW-100) for flyback and self ferry.   It would have two "large high power" main engines and a single RL10 as the on orbit OMS.  100% Hydrolox excepting the PW Turbofans.  Those would be LF/A

The Booster I would build would have been off the cheaper 532 version of the Grumman shuttle program.   5x F-1 Rockets powered by LFO/Kerolox.   6 Rolls Royce RB.211 Turbofans for flyback.

The all up booster for 518 would have required ~16 of the Hydrolox SeaLevel version of the booster engine that flew on the shuttle.   Seems easier to re-use 5x F-1s...  

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Pappystein

[Starhelperdude]

8 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

 

And Honestly the idea of me making parts for KSP is Pie in the sky.   

 

hehehe pies turned skyward

[JoeSheridan]

2 hours ago, Pappystein said:

I understand some of the WHY after reading Jenkins's Shuttle Anthology.   (well worth the ~$120 USD price.)   Don't mean I like it.

Okay, you are absolutely in the better informed position   120$ is crazy but books can absolutely be worth it  
and understand the why is nice, but it doesn´t changes the history towards a better version really.... it would have made so much more sense to me to stay on the Saturn / Apollo-combination for the meantime to bring up some other programs up and running fast. When there is for example a station running in orbit THEN they could have looking into a follow on system to the way how they bring the crews to that station.... and said station could have been used to finance the new dev-project. Who says that they couldn´t have startet to partly commercialize the station? Possibly by selling station time etc. to state universitys? And that could have brought a better public opinion towards NASA and therefor a larger budget towards the agency. 

2 hours ago, Pappystein said:

And Honestly the idea of me making parts for KSP is Pie in the sky. 

It would be nice to see what you would make anyways  

[Beccab]

Alright last of the designs in which I plan to use the Lunar orbiter, a Duna relay. Overall I'm happy of the result, it does the trip to Duna on an Agena upper stage, enters orbit with aerobraking and a heat shield and does the rest with the onboard thrusters. I don't know the exact deltaV number due to weird staging, but the orbiter alone for sure has more than 1000 m/s, perhaps close to 1500.

Since the Ranger solar panels don't retract and wouldn't have survived the aerobraking, to make it a bit efficient the thing has two separate ones: the first one for the interplanetary journey is mounted on the heat shield and also jettisoned with it after the aerobraking when the normal ones can extend.

Quote

Edit: Now the tiny rover is on Duna too-and thanks to a Lunar Orbiter skycrane!

Quote

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Beccab
added rover

[usmc3891]

Before I say anything else, you did an AMAZING job with this mod. I actually got chills when I built and launched a Saturn V. I would give anything to be strapped into an Apollo capsule. I have a couple of questions. How well would this mod integrate with stock parts? There's a few things I want to do and just didn't know how well they'll work together. I'm also using just the stock solar system. What should I reduce the fuel levels to in order to compensate for that? Last thing is where I can get the craft files. They didn't install when I used ckan to download the mod.

[golkaidakhaana]

1 hour ago, usmc3891 said:

Before I say anything else, you did an AMAZING job with this mod. I actually got chills when I built and launched a Saturn V. I would give anything to be strapped into an Apollo capsule. I have a couple of questions. How well would this mod integrate with stock parts? There's a few things I want to do and just didn't know how well they'll work together. I'm also using just the stock solar system. What should I reduce the fuel levels to in order to compensate for that? Last thing is where I can get the craft files. They didn't install when I used ckan to download the mod.

I think it would be easyier to use JNSQ instead of tweaking the fuels / mass ...

[debaker02]

If you do restock, then this tantares, near future, and a bunch more mods all go together great.  They even matched off whites.....

1 hour ago, usmc3891 said:

Before I say anything else, you did an ....

 

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

5 hours ago, golkaidakhaana said:

I think it would be easyier to use JNSQ instead of tweaking the fuels / mass ...

Yeah well not everyone can. With the mods I have, my computer won’t load KSP with JNSQ or KSRSS installed. I would use rescale but I’m already months into my save so I don’t want to abandon it.

[usmc3891]

I'm installing JNSQ now. CKAN gave me fits about it though since JNSQ and it's dependencies are showing as incompatible. Hopefully it will boot without an issue.

[Cheesecake]

7 hours ago, usmc3891 said:

I'm installing JNSQ now. CKAN gave me fits about it though since JNSQ and it's dependencies are showing as incompatible. Hopefully it will boot without an issue.

If you use KSP 1.11.x you must download the dependencies manually because the included Rational Ressources is outdated. Also a newer Kopernicus is available. JNSQ itself is outdatet but works in KSP 1.11.x.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Some test shots from a mission I'm working on.

Spoiler

Images are from mission development/testing in JNSQ, but the final mission will be flown/filmed in KSRSS @ 2.5 scale. The dV for Titan vs Huygen is fairly similar.

Landscaping team has been notified about the strange microbe infesting the grass around the launchpad. Also, the nuke symbol should probably be a little bigger as that might be important for safety.

Last I heard the Atlas V 522 was the selected launch vehicle for the Dragonfly mission, so I went with it.

While the real mission will do a crazy E-V-E-E gravity assist and take approximately 2 eons to get there, I will be doing a brute force Hohmann transfer which only takes 1.5 eons to get there. Below, the Centaur starts the ejection burn...

Ejection burn completed by cruise stage...

The Dragonfly craft (Bumblebee mod) awaits within the aerosheel during its loonnnnnng trip to Titan.

More later!

 

 

[Avalon304]

Are there updated Saturn craft files? The ones in the download dont load properly (several parts on nearly all of the Saturns as far as I can tell and inside other parts partially, making it so there are gaps int he rockets). If there arent thats fine, I can rebuild them fresh. (I havent looked at any of the other rockets included so I dont know if they also exhibit the same issues). (If you need pictures of the issues, I can get some later).

[Cheesecake]

25 minutes ago, Avalon304 said:

Are there updated Saturn craft files? The ones in the download dont load properly (several parts on nearly all of the Saturns as far as I can tell and inside other parts partially, making it so there are gaps int he rockets). If there arent thats fine, I can rebuild them fresh. (I havent looked at any of the other rockets included so I dont know if they also exhibit the same issues). (If you need pictures of the issues, I can get some later).

They work but was build in another KSP-version. Go into the craftfile and change the second line to "version = 1.11.2". Also: @CobaltWolfis making an overhaul of the saturn. So it didn`t make sense to make new craftfiles.

[DaveyJ576]

So I had a strange thing happen today. I decided to build and fly the Lunar Orbiter probe. I built the standard probe using all of the BDB parts, the Codac SAF fairing, and an Atlas Agena D borrowed from my GATV (I of course removed the Gemini docking collar).  I moved it out to LC-14 and hit the go button (using MechJeb 2) and the rocket promptly heeled over to the left and crashed in a rather spectacular fashion! I was quite surprised because the same rocket with the GATV flew perfectly. I started to fiddle with MechJeb settings, fuel loads, even the colors of the fairing and nothing worked. Back in the VAB I removed the Lunar Orbiter and tried again. Perfect. Knowing the origin of the problem but not knowing why I sat there for a moment and decided to rotate the payload. I picked it up off the fairing base, rotated it 90 degrees to the right, and reattached it. Out at the pad it flew like a dream. Apparently the payload orientation was the key. I have never run across this before in nearly a year of using BDB. Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks.

Edited May 4, 2021 by DaveyJ576
typo

[biohazard15]

24 minutes ago, DaveyJ576 said:

So I had a strange thing happen today. I decided to build and fly the Lunar Orbiter probe. I built the standard probe using all of the BDB parts, the Codac SAF fairing, and an Atlas Agena D borrowed from my GATV (I of course removed the Gemini docking collar).  I moved it out to LC-14 and hit the go button (using MechJeb 2) and the rocket promptly heeled over to the left and crashed in a rather spectacular fashion! I was quite surprised because the same rocket with the GATV flew perfectly. I started to fiddle with MechJeb settings, fuel loads, even the colors of the fairing and nothing worked. Back in the VAB I removed the Lunar Orbiter and tried again. Perfect. Knowing the origin of the problem but not knowing why I sat there for a moment and decided to rotate the payload. I picked it up off the fairing base, rotated it 90 degrees to the right, and reattached it. Out at the pad it flew like a dream. Apparently the payload orientation was the key. I have never run across this before in nearly a year of using BDB. Has anyone else seen this?

Here's a thing about Lunar Orbiter - it flew upside down. If you built it with Orbiter being core part, your default control point is Orbiter's probe core - which is, as you may have guessed, is upside down. MJ thought that the rocket was facing in the wrong direction, tried to compensate, bam, fireball. The Russians actually did that back in 2013, when they tried to launch Proton with one of its control sensors accidentally installed upside down, and it did EXACTLY the same maneuver (with exactly the same result).

Use Agena's probe core as control point until Orbiter separation.

[DaveyJ576]

12 minutes ago, biohazard15 said:

Here's a thing about Lunar Orbiter - it flew upside down. If you built it with Orbiter being core part, your default control point is Orbiter's probe core - which is, as you may have guessed, is upside down. MJ thought that the rocket was facing in the wrong direction, tried to compensate, bam, fireball. The Russians actually did that back in 2013, when they tried to launch Proton with one of its control sensors accidentally installed upside down, and it did EXACTLY the same maneuver (with exactly the same result).

Use Agena's probe core as control point until Orbiter separation.

Roger. Good point and I hadn’t thought of that. But I rotated it 90 degrees along it’s axis. Why would that make a difference if your scenario is the root cause? Trying to understand. 

[biohazard15]

9 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

Roger. Good point and I hadn’t thought of that. But I rotated it 90 degrees along it’s axis. Why would that make a difference if your scenario is the root cause? Trying to understand.

Honestly, I have no idea  Are you totally sure the Orbiter was the root part, and not the Agena? Because if you were able to launch the rocket by simply removing the Orbiter without selecting another root part, it means the root part was somewhere below. Maybe the game somehow decided that the Orbiter should be the default control point, and not the actual Agena root part? Or maybe removing and reattaching it reset the control points and moved the default one back to Agena? Again, I have no idea. Control point stuff in KSP can be quite peculiar - personally I tend to check every rocket on the pad, and click "Control from here" on the part that is meant to be (initial) control center, just to be sure.

[DaveyJ576]

@biohazard15I finally figured it out, and you were completely correct. It literally came to me at 5:30 this morning as I woke up. Before picking up the spacecraft to rotate it, I had to re-root the whole stack through the Agena. I didn't realize that this also changed the "Control From Here" point. I do now! This is actually a very accurate historical point and a great lesson in rocket/spacecraft design. If actually done my way in real life, it would indeed result in a Proton-style accident exactly like I initially experienced.

My thought process defaulted to a potential software fault when it was actually an old-fashioned brain fart. I hope I am not the only one who gooned this up! LOL

Thank you for your help. I appreciate it!

[Friznit]

Always check the Nav Ball and remember Brown is Down.  If you see a brown nav ball on the launch pad, bad fun things are going to happen 

[Cdodders]

 

2 minutes ago, Friznit said:

Always check the Nav Ball and remember Brown is Down.  If you see a brown nav ball on the launch pad, bad fun things are going to happen 

Pointy end up, Flamey end down. If other way around you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today.

[alberro+]

1 hour ago, Friznit said:

Always check the Nav Ball and remember Brown is Down.  If you see a brown nav ball on the launch pad, bad fun things are going to happen 

I think any Nav Ball orientation has a chance of horrible comedic things happening.

[Zorg]

On 5/4/2021 at 4:34 PM, Avalon304 said:

Are there updated Saturn craft files? The ones in the download dont load properly (several parts on nearly all of the Saturns as far as I can tell and inside other parts partially, making it so there are gaps int he rockets). If there arent thats fine, I can rebuild them fresh. (I havent looked at any of the other rockets included so I dont know if they also exhibit the same issues). (If you need pictures of the issues, I can get some later).

Did you install the saturn rescale patch in BDB_Extras  by any chance? stuff in extras is not supposed to be installed unless you know what you want and know what you're doing. If you didnt install that the included saturn craft files are perfectly fine.