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

[Socowez]

Stopped using BDB around a month ago because of RAM issues. Got more RAM, popped the latest dev release, and holy moly you guys cant be left alone for even a second without adding the most bizarre concept vehicles

[Staticalliam7]

been messing around

On 8/12/2022 at 4:37 AM, GoldForest said:

Full album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Saturn Shuttle. 34 Ton payload to a 120 km x 120 km 90-degree orbit. 

What configs are you using for the RS-25s

[GoldForest]

23 minutes ago, Staticalliam7 said:

been messing around

What configs are you using for the RS-25s

Using ReStock KS25 Vectors with NF Realism with a manual edit to bring the weight down to 1.2 (I think) tons. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by GoldForest

[Beccab]

Since someone here recently was talking about a unified Saturn 1 first stage, here's the 1960 four stage Saturn C-2 with a single tank first stage (from here)

Spoiler

Spoiler

First stage:

Spoiler

Second stage:

Spoiler

Third stage:

Spoiler

Fourth stage:

(on the opposite end of the spectrum, here's from the same report a Saturn 1 where not only the first stage, but the second stage is also clustered in the last one)

Edited August 15, 2022 by Beccab

[Kass__XAP]

Mariner 4!

[Pappystein]

@Beccab  Thanks for building the S-1M    

two questions:

1) the S-IV stage, did you shrink it down to it's 220" 

2) Did you use the RL10B-3s?

 

If you think about it (Saturn C-2s 1st stage is 15,000lbs less fuel than C-1 IIRC)  The S-1M for C-2 looks a lot better than the tall S-1E or S-1F (it looks like less wasted space.)  Just an opinion    It would be nice if there was a two sized tank to do this (C-1, C-2 switch) and proper engine mount.   Really it, and a shortened S-I tank section, and a patch for CEntaur D to turn it into Centaur C or E are the only things preventing a historical build in BDB only parts for the C-2 1960-1962.    The Original C-2 is just plain out due to the odd-ball size for the S-III stage (220") 

 

 

 

[CobaltWolf]

For all you classic Saturn fans - a new S-IV/Centaur adapter has been added!

[donnager fan]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

For all you classic Saturn fans - a new S-IV/Centaur adapter has been added!

Well know that the centaur used to be called "S-V"

[Beccab]

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

the S-IV stage, did you shrink it down to it's 220" 

Whoops, looks like I forgot to do that. It doesn't seem to change much at least, isn't the base S-IV 216"?

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

2) Did you use the RL10B-3s?

RL10A-3 I think

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

If you think about it (Saturn C-2s 1st stage is 15,000lbs less fuel than C-1 IIRC)  The S-1M for C-2 looks a lot better than the tall S-1E or S-1F (it looks like less wasted space.)  Just an opinion    It would be nice if there was a two sized tank to do this (C-1, C-2 switch) and proper engine mount.   Really it, and a shortened S-I tank section, and a patch for CEntaur D to turn it into Centaur C or E are the only things preventing a historical build in BDB only parts for the C-2 1960-1962.    The Original C-2 is just plain out due to the odd-ball size for the S-III stage (220") 

Agreed! Such a short first stage is really odd (in a good way) even for the 60s, which I suppose shows how underpowered the S-1 and 1B ended up being. It really does seem the rocket stage that would have been easier to recover and reuse at the time, apart from maybe the Atlas Centaur booster engines

[KeaKaka]

3 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

For all you classic Saturn fans - a new S-IV/Centaur adapter has been added!

@CobaltWolf there's a tiny gap between the interstage and the centaur that's really bugging me

[GoldForest]

5 hours ago, KeaKaka said:

@CobaltWolf there's a tiny gap between the interstage and the centaur that's really bugging me

@Rodger Could also help out. The gap is a simple config edit, which is what Rodger does for the team. 

 

Also, @Pappystein Got a question for ya since you are well versed in schematics. The S-V (Saturn Centaur) stage. Do you know if it was going to be concealed inside the S-IV fairing or would it have flown like it did on Atlas with insulation and its own fairing? I can't really find any good diagrams of the original Saturn I, and I've been wondering this for a while now.

Edited August 16, 2022 by GoldForest

[Rodger]

Yep, @KeaKaka I've shifted the top node down a little to make the centaur engine mount's top flush with the top of the adapter. The top node was technically flush with the top before, but it's a centaur adapter so it's more important for it to work with centaurs, instead of general 1.875m parts.

Also in dev now is a new optional patch folder to add custom categories for part families, like the Filter Extensions one, but this one uses Community Category Kit:

It's only optional as it might make the main part category list a bit long for some people with smaller resolution screens, but you can scroll that list anyway. I find the CCK categories actually faster to load when selected than the FE ones, so I would still recommend it at any resolution. You can safely have both FE and CCK at once too.

[SpaceFace545]

37 minutes ago, Rodger said:

Yep, @KeaKaka I've shifted the top node down a little to make the centaur engine mount's top flush with the top of the adapter. The top node was technically flush with the top before, but it's a centaur adapter so it's more important for it to work with centaurs, instead of general 1.875m parts.

Also in dev now is a new optional patch folder to add custom categories for part families, like the Filter Extensions one, but this one uses Community Category Kit:

It's only optional as it might make the main part category list a bit long for some people with smaller resolution screens, but you can scroll that list anyway. I find the CCK categories actually faster to load when selected than the FE ones, so I would still recommend it at any resolution. You can safely have both FE and CCK at once too.

I finally can find all of the Gemini parts.

 

but someone with modding experience explain why Gemini and Leo really jacks up the search bar

[Rodger]

Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

I finally can find all of the Gemini parts.

 

but someone with modding experience explain why Gemini and Leo really jacks up the search bar

Right? I don't know why that happens. I used to use "gemina" in the search bar, which was a custom tag for Gemini parts (presumably to get around the "gemini" search term weirdness lol)

I definitely like not having the search bar lag with these custom categories now though!

[Hay]

11 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I finally can find all of the Gemini parts.

 

but someone with modding experience explain why Gemini and Leo really jacks up the search bar

From my experience using "gemin" as search term works best

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Just now, Rodger said:

I definitely like not having the search bar lag with these custom categories now though!

Naturally this is a somewhat subjective experience/preference, but for me, category buttons will never work as well as filter text. I know the filter terms that get me the parts I want to see. The icons for the categories are just extremely similar to one another - there are several tubes pointing up and to the right. Prometheus and Fenris are almost identical. Belle and Inon and Solids, ditto. They are different without a distinction, basically.

Filter text is not without its issues, too. The worst is that as soon as you click in the box they execute some filtering - which is pointless and gives you your first wait for no purpose. Then if you type-ahead typo, you're doomed to wait for that to play out, etc. It's horrible, but still better than icons, for me. 

[Rodger]

6 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Naturally this is a somewhat subjective experience/preference, but for me, category buttons will never work as well as filter text. I know the filter terms that get me the parts I want to see. The icons for the categories are just extremely similar to one another - there are several tubes pointing up and to the right. Prometheus and Fenris are almost identical. Belle and Inon and Solids, ditto. They are different without a distinction, basically.

Filter text is not without its issues, too. The worst is that as soon as you click in the box they execute some filtering - which is pointless and gives you your first wait for no purpose. Then if you type-ahead typo, you're doomed to wait for that to play out, etc. It's horrible, but still better than icons, for me. 

Yeah subjective for sure, and searching is still going to be useful when you need one specific part too. But you can easily have both options available at once for the best of both worlds!

And yeah it was fairly hard to get the icons to look both like the desired stage, and unique enough (a lot of rockets look pretty similar in profile lol), at the tiny size, and with a consistent style. But I found the icons aren't the only distinction between categories - there's the tool-tip that you get on mouse over which helps quite a lot, and you get used to the positions and the subtle differences over time. It's really quite a lot faster too, especially with multiple other part mods (as well as BDB itself) making the search bar extra slow. And another bonus to the categories system is not having to actually type anything lol

 

[Zorg]

48 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I finally can find all of the Gemini parts.

 

but someone with modding experience explain why Gemini and Leo really jacks up the search bar

Gemini mostly due to various stock and other mod parts with the tag "mini". All new BDB Gemini parts should have the odd but easily searchable tag "gemina" in there as well. idk what the cause of Leo is but it must be something similar.

[Jcking]

9 hours ago, donnager fan said:

Well know that the centaur used to be called "S-V"

S-V is a centaur, but not the centaur D that would evolve to be what we know and love. The stage is powered by the RL10B-3 engines (20,000lbf 420 seconds) and the tank is not a true pressure stabilized tank, done so to increase insulation and dramatically increase tank pressure for boil-off reasons.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Jcking

[Pappystein]

10 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Also, @Pappystein Got a question for ya since you are well versed in schematics. The S-V (Saturn Centaur) stage. Do you know if it was going to be concealed inside the S-IV fairing or would it have flown like it did on Atlas with insulation and its own fairing? I can't really find any good diagrams of the original Saturn I, and I've been wondering this for a while now.

I am going to give a little background on some contentious fun between Convair(GD) and MSFC(ABMA.)  

Von Braun knew the Juno V stage was going to be a dog.  It would do what they (ARPA/USAF) wanted, and be quick to design.  But it was not going to be efficient.   This, Von Braun knew, would require Hydrolox Upper stages to be effective.   Von Braun did not trust Hydrolox from pre War experiences as I recall.  

Add to this already "I hate you but I need you" mentality....   Von Braun did not trust Balloon structures...   They were to "edge case engineered" as is the modern parlance.  IE they had very little room for error.     Von Braun was known to publicly feud with members of the Convair Design team including Bossart.

So Convair is working on Centaur for NASA... and to be clear here MSFC was really NOT NASA until after Centaur first flew.      Von Braun needs something like Centaur... but he doesn't want balloon tank structure as he does not think it is viable.   So Centaur C (S-V) was pinned up.   

Now to your question, Centaur C was in fact to fly with the two layers of insulation, a jettison-able to orbit layer and a thin "parking insulation" layer underneath (my name for that, I never found any names for the two layers in the documents.)

To compensate for the moncoque but not balloon tank wall thickness and the extra insulation the S-V was to be powered by the RL10B-3 as Jcking has already mentioned.

Now like Jcking has already mentioned the thicker walls increases the pressure that the vessel can withstand and thus helps with boil-off... But this was not really understood well or a design feature.  Rather a happy luck happenstance.

Of course XLR-119/RL10B-3 runs into problems and is invariably canceled.   USAF has decided it was happy with Agena and decided it did not need a Centaur stage for itself.

Then the Centaur Test flight exploded.  

Centaur C is canceled, and the designation is re-assigned by the new controlling agency (Glenn) for the test articles prior to re-launching Centaur on Atlas (now called Centaur D)

So Centaur C (S-V) was to fly exposed.    Latter in 1964-7 time frame, a new S-V stage is proposed.   This one is Centaur E or Centaur F (I have seen both letters used I typically call it Centaur E)

Centaur E is an all new Monocoque non Balloon design.  It is to be powered by the newer higher thrust variant of the RL10A that never entered production again and instead would likely have flown on the standard RL10A-3C.      This stage is drawn most often in a fully enclosed PLF the diameter of the S-IVB stage.   Thus would only have the small layer of insulation that I have already called the "Parking insulation" above.   However I have seen at-least one drawing with it exposed and the extra insulation girdle.

 

TLDR version:

BOTH

 

[JoeSheridan]

Thank you for that little story, personally i didn´t even knew that the S-V wouldn´t have been using the balloon-tank technology of the rest of the Centaur-family, i really thought: Okay... this thing seems to be a little bit larger and has it´s own control system to be compatible with the Saturns Control Systems and it has it´s own RL-10 version.

On 8/17/2022 at 12:03 AM, Pappystein said:

This, Von Braun knew, would require Hydrolox Upper stages to be effective.   Von Braun did not trust Hydrolox from pre War experiences as I recall.  

Add to this already "I hate you but I need you" mentality....   Von Braun did not trust Balloon structures...   They were to "edge case engineered" as is the modern parlance.  IE they had very little room for error.     Von Braun was known to publicly feud with members of the Convair Design team including Bossart.

Oh..... yeah, i think the "he did not trust hydrolox"-thing seems to be understandable from his point of view, but still: I think he forgot the little fact that there were close to 20 years of highly successfull technological evolution in close to every field of technology between his experiences and the then "present" day.

As much as i am critizising Von Braun: In this Case i think he was right: Despite the fact that Balloon Tank Structures had shown that they are a working concept for first stages, it wasn´t clear that they would work in space too. And there was already a high number of completely new systems and technology´s to be designed for Saturn.... bringing in another unproven technology in there to do a job for which you could use a proven one seems unreasonable to me.

And his tendency to go on a collision course with people who like to do things differently, often in the most public way he could do, was (in my eyes) not only absolutely unfair to all the other hard and often successfully working engineers and managers who just wanted to bring the US into Space, but it was straight dump too. Going public as often as he did to confront engineers with powerfull and important defense contractors behind them doesn´t seem to be a good idea to me if you are an ex-SS-Officer who used forced labour in his factory. I am german myself and i am extremely interested in spaceflight and into history and i am holding a deep grudge against mister Von Braun and against the fact that nobody held him accountable for what he did... not even after his time at NASA.

Sorry, for the last part, i know: Politics aren´t a thing here and i will keep it quiet again.

Edited August 17, 2022 by JoeSheridan

[GoldForest]

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

I am going to give a little background on some contentious fun between Convair(GD) and MSFC(ABMA.)  

Von Braun knew the Juno V stage was going to be a dog.  It would do what they (ARPA/USAF) wanted, and be quick to design.  But it was not going to be efficient.   This, Von Braun knew, would require Hydrolox Upper stages to be effective.   Von Braun did not trust Hydrolox from pre War experiences as I recall.  

Add to this already "I hate you but I need you" mentality....   Von Braun did not trust Balloon structures...   They were to "edge case engineered" as is the modern parlance.  IE they had very little room for error.     Von Braun was known to publicly feud with members of the Convair Design team including Bossart.

So Convair is working on Centaur for NASA... and to be clear here MSFC was really NOT NASA until after Centaur first flew.      Von Braun needs something like Centaur... but he doesn't want balloon tank structure as he does not think it is viable.   So Centaur C (S-V) was pinned up.   

Now to your question, Centaur C was in fact to fly with the two layers of insulation, a jettison-able to orbit layer and a thin "parking insulation" layer underneath (my name for that, I never found any names for the two layers in the documents.)

To compensate for the moncoque but not balloon tank wall thickness and the extra insulation the S-V was to be powered by the RL10B-3 as Jcking has already mentioned.

Now like Jcking has already mentioned the thicker walls increases the pressure that the vessel can withstand and thus helps with boil-off... But this was not really understood well or a design feature.  Rather a happy luck happenstance.

Of course XLR-119/RL10B-3 runs into problems and is invariably canceled.   USAF has decided it was happy with Agena and decided it did not need a Centaur stage for itself.

Then the Centaur Test flight exploded.  

Centaur C is canceled, and the designation is re-assigned by the new controlling agency (Glenn) for the test articles prior to re-launching Centaur on Atlas (now called Centaur D)

So Centaur C (S-V) was to fly exposed.    Latter in 1964-7 time frame, a new S-V stage is proposed.   This one is Centaur E or Centaur F (I have seen both letters used I typically call it Centaur E)

Centaur E is an all new Monocoque non Balloon design.  It is to be powered by the newer higher thrust variant of the RL10A that never entered production again and instead would likely have flown on the standard RL10A-3C.      This stage is drawn most often in a fully enclosed PLF the diameter of the S-IVB stage.   Thus would only have the small layer of insulation that I have already called the "Parking insulation" above.   However I have seen at-least one drawing with it exposed and the extra insulation girdle.

 

TLDR version:

BOTH

 

You seem to love turning everything into a story.  Not that that's a bad thing. But thanks for the answer. So,

S-IV - Exposed with its own fairing atop

S-IVB - Both exposed and not exposed. 

[Heliotrope]

Find it ironic that NASA ended up infatuated with hydro-lox technology, going so far to use them almost primarily alongside SRB's, and the fact that the DOD came to heavily rely on Centaur. But I suppose once it is realized how useful it is, why not switch!

Also, unrelated, I absolutely love the S-IV stage with the S-V on top. Looks great! I am just sad I can't find a use for it in my sandbox game rp'ing as the USA, the S-IVB is just... TOO good lol

[Pappystein]

3 hours ago, Heliotrope said:

Find it ironic that NASA ended up infatuated with hydro-lox technology, going so far to use them almost primarily alongside SRB's, and the fact that the DOD came to heavily rely on Centaur. But I suppose once it is realized how useful it is, why not switch!

Also, unrelated, I absolutely love the S-IV stage with the S-V on top. Looks great! I am just sad I can't find a use for it in my sandbox game rp'ing as the USA, the S-IVB is just... TOO good lol

Yes it is true, the S-IV as flown was almost as much of a Dog as S-I/S-IB.   But if you remember that it was designed for a 220" interface initially and latter "blown up" in size and mass to 240"... and they had to add 2 additional engines just to get the thrust close to what it was originally going to fly on (the canceled XLR-119 RL10B-3 was 20,000lbf vs 15,000lbf for LR-115 RL10A-3S)

All that extra mass had to do something... make the stage less good is the biggest result.   

[JoeSheridan]

14 hours ago, Pappystein said:

All that extra mass had to do something... make the stage less good is the biggest result.

Yes and it made the launcher as a whole less efficient. And my personal opinion is, that if they would have known how different the second stages the actually used for the Saturn I-family would be like, that they would likely have finished the E-1 project. It would have taken more effort, but they wouldn´t have had any problems to use a longer tank for the first stage.... even if they would have had to include a fifth E-1 in the first stage: They would have had to space to do it. And i really think this would have been an engine with a lot of potential for the future. I feel sorry about the fact that there were no new really large Kerolox-Engines designed and used after Apollo was gone.... If they liked to launch big things they either went to Hydrolox and SRB´s, or they kept with Hypergolics and SRB´s..... why not use the good old Kerolox? It´s relatively easy to handly, it´s much safer then hypergolics, You can shut down the engines at any time, you don´t have to think to much about boiloff and you get a lot of thrust out of it. It´s just perfect to launch big vehicles into space... but they just stopped with going big incase of Kerolox. And then they basically lost their minds when they found out how efficient Kerolox-Engines can be made when you keep working on them like the Sowjets did. Hydrogen is nice, i really love that stuff, but from my perspective it looks like it´s only viable as a single first stage powersource when you go REALLY big... but in most cases it should stay at what it was used for in the first place: On the upper stages for Orbital insertion and Transfer Orbit Injection.