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

[CAPFlyer]

5 hours ago, septemberWaves said:

It turned out to not be BDB.

What did it turn out to be?  It's useful for anyone coming in here later that may see a similar issue to know what the reason was so they might be able to find the solution as well.

[septemberWaves]

2 minutes ago, CAPFlyer said:

What did it turn out to be?  It's useful for anyone coming in here later that may see a similar issue to know what the reason was so they might be able to find the solution as well.

I don't know exactly, I just know that it was something else I had installed.

[Razgriz1]

8 hours ago, septemberWaves said:

Does anyone happen to know what causes this error? It's a new install of BDB, via CKAN.

 

24 minutes ago, CAPFlyer said:

What did it turn out to be?  It's useful for anyone coming in here later that may see a similar issue to know what the reason was so they might be able to find the solution as well.

 

21 minutes ago, septemberWaves said:

I don't know exactly, I just know that it was something else I had installed.

I believe that it's Skyhawk Science System.

[derega16]

On 11/15/2022 at 7:03 AM, Blufor878 said:

I am a firm advocate of spaceflight variety.

Another shot including the Saturn IB and a Dragon 2 Falcon 9 stack.

Time traveller: move a chair

The timeline:

[spvceaccountant]

On 11/14/2022 at 9:04 PM, Rodger said:

 

Ah I see you worked out a solution just as I replied to the previous post lol. The subcategory cfg from the 000_filter extensions folder doesn’t matter as BDB ships it’s own, in the compatibility folder. But yeah the fixed cfg file I linked from the dev branch has options for both the real and kerbalised names,  automatically switching depending on if you have the realnames patch or not. So it will be fixed in the next release.

Haha, well thanks for your help mate.

[Pudgemountain]

Everyone else: .....

Me: I wonder if I can strap a Delta upperstage onto a Titan and send them to other planets.

So I did that and sent a probe to Ike and a lander to Moho since I had contracts for both.

Due to previous failed attempts at launching I did not screencap the Ike probe launch until the end but I did screencaps on the Moho lander launch.

Now the actual missions. No Ranger cam photos on the Ike orbiter the Antenna blocked it.

Spoiler

First Launch of Titan Delta.

Payload: Baxter II.

Destination. Orbit Ike.

The rocket was OP for Ike but I wanted to see if it worked (I turned off boiloff.)

Next one the Moho lander.

Spoiler

Launch 2.

Payload: Leftover Debussy Lander named Momo III.

Destination: Land on Moho

Studies have indicated that Moho's rocks were formed from Volcanism. However due to how much fuel it takes just to land on Moho we have determined that a unmanned sample return is a no go.

No joke even with the the help of the Delta stage I ran out of fuel 3 seconds before impact and hoped the RCS thrusters would land it. It did but if this was a manned mission the crew would've gotten severe whiplash.

[pTrevTrevs]

BDB-Related Spaceflights of 1984: "Literally 1984":

1984 is a big year for NASA, and sees the first flights of several new pieces of hardware which will be invaluable to the administration going forward. However, the year also sees a number of setbacks and failures, the impact of which is uncertain at this point. The Space Shuttle flies five times this year, a record made possible by the introduction of a new orbiter to the fleet. Apollo/Saturn, on the other hand, sees fewer flights this year than ever before, and to some this signals an imminent end to NASA's faith in the venerable lunar-derived hardware. Saturn is down but not out, however, and a new upgrade may just be the thing to propel it back to center stage as one of NASA's premier heavy lift vehicles...

 

February: STS-41B performs the first untethered spacewalks and achieves the reflight of the SPAS-01 satellite, although an electrical problem with the remote manipulator system prevents it from being deployed on free-flight.

Quote

 

March: Skylab 84-A, photographed here from inside the Vertical Integration Facility at LC-34, begins its mission to the station. Around six hours after launch, instruments indicate a higher-than-acceptable temperature in the Apollo spacecraft's fuel cells, and by T+10 hours the mission is aborted out of fear that the fuel cell may explode. Skylab 84-A was to have been the first mission to land in the Gulf of Mexico and be recovered by a smaller coastal task force, but due to the early mission end it instead splashes down at a contingency landing site in the Indian Ocean and is recovered by the USS Enterprise.

Quote

 

April: Space Shuttle Challenger launches on STS-41C, a dual-purpose mission to deploy the Long Duration Observation Facility and to repair the Solar Maximum Mission satellite. The flight sees the first practical use of the Manned Maneuvering Unit, as mission specialists perform an untethered spacewalk to capture the satellite and bring it into the payload bay.

Quote

The LDOF is derived from the USAF KH-9 camera system, but has been downgraded somewhat compared to its predecessor due to its classified origins. It will perform a photographic survey of Earth over the course of five years in LEO.

 

June: Intelsat 5-9 launches onboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. Once a staple of commercial and government launches alike, the long-serving Atlas-Centaur is now yet another expendable launch vehicle seeing less and less business due to the Shuttle's rising fame.

Quote

 

July: Skylab 84-B launches to perform the mission originally attempted by Skylab 84-A several months prior. The crew of five spends four months aboard Skylab and returns to a pinpoint landing in the Gulf of Mexico, just offshore of Panama City Beach, Florida. Incidentally, this is to be the final manned launch of Saturn IC, as the workhorse rocket's successor is nearly ready...

Quote

 

August: STS-41D sees the first flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission deploys three communications satellites and carries the OAST-1 payload of scientific instruments. Included in this package is a large rollout solar array intended to test designs soon to be used on Skylab and the recently-announced Space Station Freedom. The large panel is extended and retracted several times during the mission and studied for any flaws or vulnerabilities.

Quote

 

October: STS-41G deploys the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), and performs a spacewalk demonstrating the use of a new orbital refueling system for small spacecraft and satellites. Challenger also carries an improved version of the Shuttle Imaging Radar first flown on STS-2 to produce radar maps of the Earth from space.

Quote

 

November: On Discovery's second flight, STS-51A, two communications satellites deployed on STS-41B are captured and returned to Earth for repair. Westar 6 and Palapa B2 both experienced failures of their PAM-D perigee kick motor and were left stranded in their initial orbits. The crew of STS-51A makes use of the MMU to retrieve both satellites and return them to the Orbiter's payload bay, where their omnidirectional antennas are removed to fit inside the closed doors. Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center at the end of a highly successful mission.

Quote

 

December: Saturn SA-401, the first of the new Saturn Multibody series of modular launch vehicles, launches from LC-37. Saturn MB incorporates a number of design changes developed with experience from Saturn IC and Space Shuttle launches. The first stage has been stretched an additional two meters, and the classic black-and-white Saturn paintjob has been eschewed in favor of ET-like spray-on foam insulation. While the S-IVB remains the same, it now makes use of the 500-series APUs, allowing for ullage to restart the J-2 engine in-flight. The old Apollo SLA-derived fairing has been replaced with a straight-sided modular fairing, with a payload adapter designed for integration with the Centaur-G upper stage and IUS. Finally, while not being flown on this mission, Saturn Multibody features support for up to four UA-1205, 1206, or 1207 solid rocket boosters to lift extra heavy payloads. Thanks to these improvements, Multibody can loft payloads that the Shuttle cannot, whether it be due to size, mass, or energy requirements, and while STS is slated to launch multiple interplanetary spacecraft before the end of the 1980s it will ultimately be Multibody that carries the biggest and heaviest payloads to other worlds going forward.

Quote

SA-401 is also the first rocket to make use of the newly modified LUT on LC-37, which has been repainted battleship grey to match the STS service structures on LC-39 and equipped with a Shuttle-derived gaseous oxygen vent umbilical and service gantry.

The payload for this first flight is a classified DOD spacecraft, but to those with the proper clearance it is known as STANDPIPE 2, an identical spacecraft to the one launched by a Saturn IC last year. STANDPIPE collects signals intelligence from geostationary orbit and is designed with developing nations in mind. STANDPIPE 1 is currently on station over India to spy on the USSR, China, and Iran, while STANDPIPE 2 will take up position above South America to search for communist influence in Latin America.

[TaintedLion]

1 hour ago, pTrevTrevs said:

BDB-Related Spaceflights of 1984: "Literally 1984":

1984 is a big year for NASA, and sees the first flights of several new pieces of hardware which will be invaluable to the administration going forward. However, the year also sees a number of setbacks and failures, the impact of which is uncertain at this point. The Space Shuttle flies five times this year, a record made possible by the introduction of a new orbiter to the fleet. Apollo/Saturn, on the other hand, sees fewer flights this year than ever before, and to some this signals an imminent end to NASA's faith in the venerable lunar-derived hardware. Saturn is down but not out, however, and a new upgrade may just be the thing to propel it back to center stage as one of NASA's premier heavy lift vehicles...

 

February: STS-41B performs the first untethered spacewalks and achieves the reflight of the SPAS-01 satellite, although an electrical problem with the remote manipulator system prevents it from being deployed on free-flight.

 

March: Skylab 84-A, photographed here from inside the Vertical Integration Facility at LC-34, begins its mission to the station. Around six hours after launch, instruments indicate a higher-than-acceptable temperature in the Apollo spacecraft's fuel cells, and by T+10 hours the mission is aborted out of fear that the fuel cell may explode. Skylab 84-A was to have been the first mission to land in the Gulf of Mexico and be recovered by a smaller coastal task force, but due to the early mission end it instead splashes down at a contingency landing site in the Indian Ocean and is recovered by the USS Enterprise.

 

April: Space Shuttle Challenger launches on STS-41C, a dual-purpose mission to deploy the Long Duration Observation Facility and to repair the Solar Maximum Mission satellite. The flight sees the first practical use of the Manned Maneuvering Unit, as mission specialists perform an untethered spacewalk to capture the satellite and bring it into the payload bay.

 

June: Intelsat 5-9 launches onboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. Once a staple of commercial and government launches alike, the long-serving Atlas-Centaur is now yet another expendable launch vehicle seeing less and less business due to the Shuttle's rising fame.

 

July: Skylab 84-B launches to perform the mission originally attempted by Skylab 84-A several months prior. The crew of five spends four months aboard Skylab and returns to a pinpoint landing in the Gulf of Mexico, just offshore of Panama City Beach, Florida. Incidentally, this is to be the final manned launch of Saturn IC, as the workhorse rocket's successor is nearly ready...

 

August: STS-41D sees the first flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission deploys three communications satellites and carries the OAST-1 payload of scientific instruments. Included in this package is a large rollout solar array intended to test designs soon to be used on Skylab and the recently-announced Space Station Freedom. The large panel is extended and retracted several times during the mission and studied for any flaws or vulnerabilities.

 

October: STS-41G deploys the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), and performs a spacewalk demonstrating the use of a new orbital refueling system for small spacecraft and satellites. Challenger also carries an improved version of the Shuttle Imaging Radar first flown on STS-2 to produce radar maps of the Earth from space.

 

November: On Discovery's second flight, STS-51A, two communications satellites deployed on STS-41B are captured and returned to Earth for repair. Westar 6 and Palapa B2 both experienced failures of their PAM-D perigee kick motor and were left stranded in their initial orbits. The crew of STS-51A makes use of the MMU to retrieve both satellites and return them to the Orbiter's payload bay, where their omnidirectional antennas are removed to fit inside the closed doors. Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center at the end of a highly successful mission.

 

December: Saturn SA-401, the first of the new Saturn Multibody series of modular launch vehicles, launches from LC-37. Saturn MB incorporates a number of design changes developed with experience from Saturn IC and Space Shuttle launches. The first stage has been stretched an additional two meters, and the classic black-and-white Saturn paintjob has been eschewed in favor of ET-like spray-on foam insulation. While the S-IVB remains the same, it now makes use of the 500-series APUs, allowing for ullage to restart the J-2 engine in-flight. The old Apollo SLA-derived fairing has been replaced with a straight-sided modular fairing, with a payload adapter designed for integration with the Centaur-G upper stage and IUS. Finally, while not being flown on this mission, Saturn Multibody features support for up to four UA-1205, 1206, or 1207 solid rocket boosters to lift extra heavy payloads. Thanks to these improvements, Multibody can loft payloads that the Shuttle cannot, whether it be due to size, mass, or energy requirements, and while STS is slated to launch multiple interplanetary spacecraft before the end of the 1980s it will ultimately be Multibody that carries the biggest and heaviest payloads to other worlds going forward.

Where did you get that upgraded LC-37? I think you have an upgraded LC-34 as well IIRC.

[pTrevTrevs]

35 minutes ago, TaintedLion said:

Where did you get that upgraded LC-37? I think you have an upgraded LC-34 as well IIRC.

It's just a homebrew of the Tundra LC-34 and the Atlas VIF. I scattered a few other structures around to make it appear realistic as well. I think LC-37 comes with Katniss's Cape Canaveral for KSRSS, but it's just made up of two of the Tundra vertical test pads.

[Pudgemountain]

Bad news for Apollo on my end. A fire onboard the capsule during training killing three new kerbalnauts. Until we can determine what caused it and how to prevent more fires we are suspending development on Apollo. So what are we gonna test the Saturn I and V on and flyby the Mub before the Koviets you may ask?

BIG GEMINI!!!!

So far we did 2 Saturn I launches (They were also my first success using the Saturn Is) A unmanned then a Manned.

Spoiler

In honor of one of the Kerbalnauts killed in that Apollo fire we decided to name the Capsule Chaffee after Chaffee Kerman.

Reentry went unplanned and instead of splashing down into the ocean we landed in a grassy meadow. Anyone up for a picnic lunch?

We only were able to afford 1 Saturn V Launch so we decided to do the original goal of Apollo 6 by sending a unmanned spacecraft to the Mun and demonstrate the S-IVb's potential.

Spoiler

Unfortunately when it arrived to the Mun it was on the Farside which was at night so here are pictures of the sweet navigation lights instead.

Now we just need enough budget to do a manned munar flyby. By no means Big G is gonna replace Apollo while a munar flyby is possible, the Main tank and Fuel Cells run on the same fuel and what not a munar landing with Big Gemini is far fetched. So Big G would more than likely be used as a ferry for space stations and tourism.

[TaintedLion]

12 minutes ago, Pudgemountain said:

original goal of Apollo 6 by sending a unmanned spacecraft to the Mun

Apollo 6 was never meant to go to the Moon. It was supposed to fire the S-IVB again to get an orbit out to lunar distance, but not to the moon itself, then fire the SPS to prove that it could do an abort back to Earth if needed.

[Pudgemountain]

16 minutes ago, TaintedLion said:

Apollo 6 was never meant to go to the Moon. It was supposed to fire the S-IVB again to get an orbit out to lunar distance, but not to the moon itself, then fire the SPS to prove that it could do an abort back to Earth if needed.

My bad thanks for correcting me.

[shakuvendell]

Soooo.... What is Shelab? Saw it on the To-Do on the wiki.

[Adrianstu98]

Hi everyone!. I can't load the Skylab.craft because the bluedog_skylab_ATM_truss part is missing. I've been looking in the folder and the piece is there, but not in the game.

Edited November 20, 2022 by Adrianstu98

[Pudgemountain]

18 minutes ago, Adrianstu98 said:

Hi everyone!. I can't load the Skylab.craft because the bluedog_skylab_ATM_truss part is missing. I've been looking in the folder and the piece is there, but not in the game.

Do you have Breaking Ground? You need Breaking Ground to load Skylab.

[TaintedLion]

What would be accurate paint schemes for ETS Apollos?

Would they use the partial white paint that Skylab CSMs used, or would they have a full white paint coating?

[Jcking]

18 hours ago, Pudgemountain said:

Do you have Breaking Ground? You need Breaking Ground to load Skylab.

Only the truss bit requires Breaking Ground. All other Skylab parts are unaffected.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Jcking

[Pudgemountain]

I finally did a manned Munar Flyby mission with Skyhawk's tree and we one upped the Koviets. This time it was in the day and not at night.

Spoiler

On 11/19/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pudgemountain said:

 

I just love the Gemini docking camera.

Val steps out to do a spacewalk and check out her new suit. It is not a waste of money.

Why arent you waving Val?

Final picture taken by Lovell of Kerbin.

Unlike the Chaffee Capsule, Lovell actually splashed down.

Bonus funny science result.

Spoiler

 

It does further support that Big Gemini can reach the Mun and flyby. An orbit might be possible but no way of returning and a landing is out of the question so we are still forgoing with Apollo for a Mun landing.

[Heliotrope]

On 11/18/2022 at 10:16 PM, pTrevTrevs said:

Spoiler

BDB-Related Spaceflights of 1984: "Literally 1984":

1984 is a big year for NASA, and sees the first flights of several new pieces of hardware which will be invaluable to the administration going forward. However, the year also sees a number of setbacks and failures, the impact of which is uncertain at this point. The Space Shuttle flies five times this year, a record made possible by the introduction of a new orbiter to the fleet. Apollo/Saturn, on the other hand, sees fewer flights this year than ever before, and to some this signals an imminent end to NASA's faith in the venerable lunar-derived hardware. Saturn is down but not out, however, and a new upgrade may just be the thing to propel it back to center stage as one of NASA's premier heavy lift vehicles...

 

February: STS-41B performs the first untethered spacewalks and achieves the reflight of the SPAS-01 satellite, although an electrical problem with the remote manipulator system prevents it from being deployed on free-flight.

 

March: Skylab 84-A, photographed here from inside the Vertical Integration Facility at LC-34, begins its mission to the station. Around six hours after launch, instruments indicate a higher-than-acceptable temperature in the Apollo spacecraft's fuel cells, and by T+10 hours the mission is aborted out of fear that the fuel cell may explode. Skylab 84-A was to have been the first mission to land in the Gulf of Mexico and be recovered by a smaller coastal task force, but due to the early mission end it instead splashes down at a contingency landing site in the Indian Ocean and is recovered by the USS Enterprise.

 

April: Space Shuttle Challenger launches on STS-41C, a dual-purpose mission to deploy the Long Duration Observation Facility and to repair the Solar Maximum Mission satellite. The flight sees the first practical use of the Manned Maneuvering Unit, as mission specialists perform an untethered spacewalk to capture the satellite and bring it into the payload bay.

 

June: Intelsat 5-9 launches onboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. Once a staple of commercial and government launches alike, the long-serving Atlas-Centaur is now yet another expendable launch vehicle seeing less and less business due to the Shuttle's rising fame.

 

July: Skylab 84-B launches to perform the mission originally attempted by Skylab 84-A several months prior. The crew of five spends four months aboard Skylab and returns to a pinpoint landing in the Gulf of Mexico, just offshore of Panama City Beach, Florida. Incidentally, this is to be the final manned launch of Saturn IC, as the workhorse rocket's successor is nearly ready...

 

August: STS-41D sees the first flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission deploys three communications satellites and carries the OAST-1 payload of scientific instruments. Included in this package is a large rollout solar array intended to test designs soon to be used on Skylab and the recently-announced Space Station Freedom. The large panel is extended and retracted several times during the mission and studied for any flaws or vulnerabilities.

 

October: STS-41G deploys the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), and performs a spacewalk demonstrating the use of a new orbital refueling system for small spacecraft and satellites. Challenger also carries an improved version of the Shuttle Imaging Radar first flown on STS-2 to produce radar maps of the Earth from space.

 

November: On Discovery's second flight, STS-51A, two communications satellites deployed on STS-41B are captured and returned to Earth for repair. Westar 6 and Palapa B2 both experienced failures of their PAM-D perigee kick motor and were left stranded in their initial orbits. The crew of STS-51A makes use of the MMU to retrieve both satellites and return them to the Orbiter's payload bay, where their omnidirectional antennas are removed to fit inside the closed doors. Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center at the end of a highly successful mission.

 

December: Saturn SA-401, the first of the new Saturn Multibody series of modular launch vehicles, launches from LC-37. Saturn MB incorporates a number of design changes developed with experience from Saturn IC and Space Shuttle launches. The first stage has been stretched an additional two meters, and the classic black-and-white Saturn paintjob has been eschewed in favor of ET-like spray-on foam insulation. While the S-IVB remains the same, it now makes use of the 500-series APUs, allowing for ullage to restart the J-2 engine in-flight. The old Apollo SLA-derived fairing has been replaced with a straight-sided modular fairing, with a payload adapter designed for integration with the Centaur-G upper stage and IUS. Finally, while not being flown on this mission, Saturn Multibody features support for up to four UA-1205, 1206, or 1207 solid rocket boosters to lift extra heavy payloads. Thanks to these improvements, Multibody can loft payloads that the Shuttle cannot, whether it be due to size, mass, or energy requirements, and while STS is slated to launch multiple interplanetary spacecraft before the end of the 1980s it will ultimately be Multibody that carries the biggest and heaviest payloads to other worlds going forward.

 

Wow these look so good. Pardon if this has been asked before, what visual mods are these?

[Blufor878]

So, I know this is the wrong place for this, but I felt like I needed to make a C8/Nova pattern rocket for the lander I made awhile back. And our resident C8 lover @GoldForest made his own awhile back, which gave me some points of reference...

One small note I should make is that this rocket only has 7 engines on the first stage. I have an 8 engine version for history's sake, but I couldn't get the BDB F1 engines to fit without looking odd at certain angles.

Also I have more here:

So, does anyone want to place bets on how long before Goldforest notices?

Edited November 21, 2022 by Blufor878

[chaos113]

5 hours ago, Pudgemountain said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

It does further support that Big Gemini can reach the Mun and flyby. An orbit might be possible but no way of returning and a landing is out of the question so we are still forgoing with Apollo for a Mun landing.

Just spitballing here but couldn't you use the lem taxi varients tank with the lem decent engine as the engine to circularize at the mun and save the big g tanks for the return burn with a bit of help from the assent stage tanks

Edited November 21, 2022 by chaos113

[pTrevTrevs]

4 hours ago, Heliotrope said:

Wow these look so good. Pardon if this has been asked before, what visual mods are these?

Just the standard stuff. EVE, Scatterer, KSRSS Reborn's visual effects, Planetshine, Distant Object Enhancement, and TUFX.

[Pudgemountain]

37 minutes ago, chaos113 said:

Just spitballing here but couldn't you use the lem taxi varients tank with the lem decent engine as the engine to circularize at the mun and save the big g tanks for the return burn with a bit of help from the assent stage tanks

I haven't unlocked those parts yet. I am using Skyhawk's tech tree which makes career more harder but more fun to play. I still need to unlock all of the CSM and LEM parts but I wont be able to play this weekend due to being out of town for a week.

[DeadJohn]

6 hours ago, Pudgemountain said:

 

It does further support that Big Gemini can reach the Mun and flyby. An orbit might be possible but no way of returning and a landing is out of the question so we are still forgoing with Apollo for a Mun landing.

Big G and other BDB parts can do a disposable Apollo-style landing and return with a Titan lifter, long before Apollo and Saturn V parts are unlocked. Image #1 is how I did it, only able to land one crew member on the Moon.

Later Big G parts, continued Titan improvements, permitting more than 2 strap-on boosters, plus borrowing some other parts managed a direct ascent mission with 4 crew members. Image #2. IIRC the gray descent tanks were needed to begin ascent, got staged away on the way up, and the white Gemini upper parts finished the trip home using monoprop/hydrazine engines.

Lander #2 is IMO vastly superior to full Apollo, especially in career mode. Apollo with full science instruments cost 480k credits to put 2 crew on the Moon. Leo Direct Ascent with similar science gear only cost 134k, got 4 crew onto Moon's surface, and saved me time by eliminating Apollo's 2 docking operations.

(This is all based on a career playthrough with a prior version of BDB, Skyhawk Science System tech tree, and KSRSS at 2.5x or 2.7x scale. Skyhawk adds fuel types and offers gradual engine upgrades for ISP and thrust so maybe my attempts can't be repeated with other tech trees.)

[Blufor878]

1 minute ago, DeadJohn said:

Big G and other BDB parts can do a disposable Apollo-style landing and return with a Titan lifter, long before Apollo and Saturn V parts are unlocked. Image #1 is how I did it, only able to land one crew member on the Moon.

Later Big G parts, continued Titan improvements, permitting more than 2 strap-on boosters, plus borrowing some other parts managed a direct ascent mission with 4 crew members. Image #2. IIRC the gray descent tanks were needed to begin ascent, got staged away on the way up, and the white Gemini upper parts finished the trip home using monoprop/hydrazine engines.

Lander #2 is IMO vastly superior to full Apollo, especially in career mode. Apollo with full science instruments cost 480k credits to put 2 crew on the Moon. Leo Direct Ascent with similar science gear only cost 134k, got 4 crew onto Moon's surface, and saved me time by eliminating Apollo's 2 docking operations.

(This is all based on a career playthrough with a prior version of BDB, Skyhawk Science System tech tree, and KSRSS at 2.5x or 2.7x scale. Skyhawk adds fuel types and offers gradual engine upgrades for ISP and thrust so maybe my attempts can't be repeated with other tech trees.)

These are awesome pictures! But why does your kerbonaut look so disappointed? Was she hoping for cheese?