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

[GoldForest]

3 hours ago, Elro2k said:

Thanks for the craft file! Quick question, I tried to load it into the game, but it still says it's missing parts. Is there another notable mod you can remember using for this rocket? The C-8B craft works just fine, but the regular C-8 is missing "strut connector heavy"

Ah, I see now. Yeah, those are KWRocketry struts. I put them there so the payload wouldn't wobble around. 

[RocketBoy1641]

On 5/5/2023 at 1:47 PM, GoldForest said:

BS*R

Big Saturn Rocket.

Saturn is not a Falcon. 

Well, Falcon was one F word.  I always took it was something else a little more Freudian.

[GoldForest]

2 hours ago, RocketBoy1641 said:

Well, Falcon was one F word.  I always took it was something else a little more Freudian.

You and everyone else, yeah. I'm going with the official terminology. 

[Richmountain112]

Exactly how do I stack the Lunar Rover on the LM?

[kspbutitscursed]

Go to @Friznits beautiful unofficially official wiki and go to the rovers there has instructions about how to build install the lrv 

Or you can make ot a subassembly instead and load up you apollo stack and integrate the lrv there by remove the sla farings and removing the lower adapter.

[Zorg]

1.5 and 1.25m fairings for Taurus/Minotaur C. The 1.25 is new and the 1.5 is the same as Minotaur IV.

 

[Royalswissarmyknife]

33 minutes ago, Zorg said:

1.5 and 1.25m fairings for Taurus/Minotaur C. The 1.25 is new and the 1.5 is the same as Minotaur IV.

 

I'm  ready to Kitbash!

[DaveyJ576]

SATURN IB REPLACEMENT?

For the record, I want to state that I really like the Saturn IB. It is one of the coolest rockets ever, and iconic to boot. The IB and it's older brother the Saturn I hold a special place in U.S. rocket history and for good reason. However...

It was not optimal. No respectable rocket engineer () would deliberately design a rocket with clustered tanks.  No less than Werner Von Braun himself once testified before a Congressional committee that it was an engineering compromise, and if conditions had been different, it would not have been built that way. Its whole reason for being was to get a large powerful launcher built as quickly and cheaply as possible, hence the concept of using tank construction based on existing smaller designs and clustering them together. The biggest drawback is greatly increased weight, with reduced performance when compared to a comparable mono-tank design.

In most reasonably realistic alternate history scenarios, the existence of the Saturn IB is a given. So the real question is, assuming that some sort of Apollo/Saturn/Skylab program continued beyond what historically happened, what do you do for a follow-on medium lift, man rated rocket? 12 complete Saturn IB vehicles had been built under the original contract, so when all of these had been used what do you do then?  It makes little sense to continue to produce what is essentially an engineering kludge. Making the assumption that financial concerns would continue to dominate any post-Apollo planning, I would like to present what I consider to be the best option available to NASA in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It is none other than the Saturn INT-20, which I will refer to as the Saturn III.

Specifically, the three F-1 engine variant (hence the name Saturn III) that could put 78,000 lbs. (35,380 kg) into a 185 km orbit. This is roughly twice the payload of the last version of the Saturn IB, eliminating a huge gap in capability. The four and five engine variants are overpowered and would require the shutting down of multiple F-1 engines before staging, requiring that you haul dead weight uphill. This rocket has several distinct advantages over other Saturn variants for the LEO mission:

1. No new hardware needs to be developed. Everything already exists.
2. No new engine development is needed.
3. No heavy and time-consuming modifications to the S-IC are needed to accommodate solid or liquid boosters.
4. The only changes to the S-IC are removing equipment like engine plumbing, and external fairings, and blanking off engine openings.
5. Some software revisions would be necessary but would be minimal. Some aerodynamic testing would be required, but would also be minimal.
6. Changes to the MLP are minimal, requiring only the removal of unnecessary hold-downs and piping.
7. The single biggest change would be shortening the LUT, but this simply requires removing some arms and removing the S-II section. Yes, I know that is more complicated than I have made it sound, but no new hardware needs to be developed.
8. The ability to haul hefty payloads (i.e. LM Lab or Skylab resupply modules) in the SLA, along with a full Block 2 CSM (still short fueled) is now possible.
9. From start of the project to first flight would probably be about one year. The pacing item would be the work to shorten the LUT.

The prime contenders for a competitor to the Saturn III are the INT-19, aka Saturn II (S-II + S-IVB plus solid boosters) and the Saturn IB-C or IB-D (Saturn IB with Minuteman or Titan solid boosters). These rockets would have violated most, if not all of the points listed above. Specifically, any of these alternatives would have required substantial and expensive changes to the launch mount/MLP and the LUT to accommodate the solid boosters, and an extensive reworking of the basic airframe in order to handle the side loads imparted on the first stage by the boosters. You also accept all of the negative performance and safety issues of using SRBs with a manned launcher.

So that is my case for the Saturn III as a mid-1970s replacement for the Saturn IB. I like the Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn IC, but it would have required an extensive R&D program with new stages, new GSE and launch pads, and new spacecraft. I think the Saturn III is more realistic given the political and financial environment facing NASA in the 1970s. And it looks cool!  Saturn III is a handy and versatile launcher and I flew the below mission with it.

First stage uphill flight, staging, and second stage push to orbit.

Spoiler

Pitch down to hit orbital parameters, and stable orbit at 250km.

Spoiler

Payload extraction and orbital operations.

Spoiler

This flight uses what I call the Block 2B CSM. It uses the five man CM, along with a Tweakscaled roll out Gigantor solar array in the otherwise empty SIM bay. The LM Lab has a lot of greebles on it, and is intended for Earth observations. I flew four crew on this mission, pilot, engineer, & two scientists. I did fly a J-2S on the 2nd stage and standard F-1's on the first stage. If I upgraded to F-1A's my payload capacity increases. I used MechJeb PVG to a 250 km orbit. 2.5x KSRSS Earth. Upon SECO I had roughly 8% fuel remaining in the S-IVB. Max acceleration was 3.2 Gs, well within real life tolerances. It flew like a dream.

It is so cool to be able to fly these type of hypothetical missions with BDB. I would like to extend my personal thanks to @CobaltWolfand the entire dev team for all of the hard work.

Edited May 8, 2023 by DaveyJ576

[exospaceman]

Idk why but I am having problem with the launch escape system. Whenever I load a rocket with a LES the plumes seem to appear although I haven't activated yet how can I fix this?

[Blufor878]

25 minutes ago, exospaceman said:

Idk why but I am having problem with the launch escape system. Whenever I load a rocket with a LES the plumes seem to appear although I haven't activated yet how can I fix this?

Do you have waterfall AND realplume installed? I've found that having them both is helpful (the rest of you can correct me if I'm wrong).

[exospaceman]

I have waterfall just not real plume

 

[exospaceman]

Thank you

[kspbutitscursed]

31 minutes ago, exospaceman said:

Thank you

maybe you could try SRB waterfall efects that may have configs for it 

[RocketBoy1641]

16 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

SATURN IB REPLACEMENT?

For the record, I want to state that I really like the Saturn IB. It is one of the coolest rockets ever, and iconic to boot. The IB and it's older brother the Saturn I hold a special place in U.S. rocket history and for good reason. However...

It was not optimal. No respectable rocket engineer () would deliberately design a rocket with clustered tanks.  No less than Werner Von Braun himself once testified before a Congressional committee that it was an engineering compromise, and if conditions had been different, it would not have been built that way. Its whole reason for being was to get a large powerful launcher built as quickly and cheaply as possible, hence the concept of using tank construction based on existing smaller designs and clustering them together. The biggest drawback is greatly increased weight, with reduced performance when compared to a comparable mono-tank design.

In most reasonably realistic alternate history scenarios, the existence of the Saturn IB is a given. So the real question is, assuming that some sort of Apollo/Saturn/Skylab program continued beyond what historically happened, what do you do for a follow-on medium lift, man rated rocket? 12 complete Saturn IB vehicles had been built under the original contract, so when all of these had been used what do you do then?  It makes little sense to continue to produce what is essentially an engineering kludge. Making the assumption that financial concerns would continue to dominate any post-Apollo planning, I would like to present what I consider to be the best option available to NASA in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It is none other than the Saturn INT-20, which I will refer to as the Saturn III.

Specifically, the three F-1 engine variant (hence the name Saturn III) that could put 78,000 lbs. (35,380 kg) into a 185 km orbit. This is roughly twice the payload of the last version of the Saturn IB, eliminating a huge gap in capability. The four and five engine variants are overpowered and would require the shutting down of multiple F-1 engines before staging, requiring that you haul dead weight uphill. This rocket has several distinct advantages over other Saturn variants for the LEO mission:

1. No new hardware needs to be developed. Everything already exists.
2. No new engine development is needed.
3. No heavy and time-consuming modifications to the S-IC are needed to accommodate solid or liquid boosters.
4. The only changes to the S-IC are removing equipment like engine plumbing, and external fairings, and blanking off engine openings.
5. Some software revisions would be necessary but would be minimal. Some aerodynamic testing would be required, but would also be minimal.
6. Changes to the MLP are minimal, requiring only the removal of unnecessary hold-downs and piping.
7. The single biggest change would be shortening the LUT, but this simply requires removing some arms and removing the S-II section. Yes, I know that is more complicated than I have made it sound, but no new hardware needs to be developed.
8. The ability to haul hefty payloads (i.e. LM Lab or Skylab resupply modules) in the SLA, along with a full Block 2 CSM (still short fueled) is now possible.
9. From start of the project to first flight would probably be about one year. The pacing item would be the work to shorten the LUT.

The prime contenders for a competitor to the Saturn III are the INT-19, aka Saturn II (S-II + S-IVB plus solid boosters) and the Saturn IB-C or IB-D (Saturn IB with Minuteman or Titan solid boosters). These rockets would have violated most, if not all of the points listed above. Specifically, any of these alternatives would have required substantial and expensive changes to the launch mount/MLP and the LUT to accommodate the solid boosters, and an extensive reworking of the basic airframe in order to handle the side loads imparted on the first stage by the boosters. You also accept all of the negative performance and safety issues of using SRBs with a manned launcher.

So that is my case for the Saturn III as a mid-1970s replacement for the Saturn IB. I like the Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn IC, but it would have required an extensive R&D program with new stages, new GSE and launch pads, and new spacecraft. I think the Saturn III is more realistic given the political and financial environment facing NASA in the 1970s. And it looks cool!  Saturn III is a handy and versatile launcher and I flew the below mission with it.

First stage uphill flight, staging, and second stage push to orbit.

  Hide contents

Pitch down to hit orbital parameters, and stable orbit at 250km.

  Hide contents

Payload extraction and orbital operations.

  Hide contents

This flight uses what I call the Block 2B CSM. It uses the five man CM, along with a Tweakscaled roll out Gigantor solar array in the otherwise empty SIM bay. The LM Lab has a lot of greebles on it, and is intended for Earth observations. I flew four crew on this mission, pilot, engineer, & two scientists. I did fly a J-2S on the 2nd stage and standard F-1's on the first stage. If I upgraded to F-1A's my payload capacity increases. I used MechJeb PVG to a 250 km orbit. 2.5x KSRSS Earth. Upon SECO I had roughly 8% fuel remaining in the S-IVB. Max acceleration was 3.2 Gs, well within real life tolerances. It flew like a dream.

It is so cool to be able to fly these type of hypothetical missions with BDB. I would like to extend my personal thanks to @CobaltWolfand the entire dev team for all of the hard work.

To me the easiest for a what if of a plan for long term S1B-ish capacity is that they would plan to switch over to production of the S1C (1 F1S).  That said, two SRBs from the titan program give even better lift and would be an easy inclusion in the S1C design.  Add to that S-V still in the stable for interplanetary and an S3 is less likely.  So, the question becomes why the higher cost of an S3 for missions that don't need it if you decommission both S1B and S-V in favor of S3 as a jack of all between the two trades.  In the end, your history; your justification.

[CobaltWolf]

19 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

SATURN IB REPLACEMENT?

For the record, I want to state that I really like the Saturn IB. It is one of the coolest rockets ever, and iconic to boot. The IB and it's older brother the Saturn I hold a special place in U.S. rocket history and for good reason. However...

It was not optimal. No respectable rocket engineer () would deliberately design a rocket with clustered tanks.  No less than Werner Von Braun himself once testified before a Congressional committee that it was an engineering compromise, and if conditions had been different, it would not have been built that way. Its whole reason for being was to get a large powerful launcher built as quickly and cheaply as possible, hence the concept of using tank construction based on existing smaller designs and clustering them together. The biggest drawback is greatly increased weight, with reduced performance when compared to a comparable mono-tank design.

In most reasonably realistic alternate history scenarios, the existence of the Saturn IB is a given. So the real question is, assuming that some sort of Apollo/Saturn/Skylab program continued beyond what historically happened, what do you do for a follow-on medium lift, man rated rocket? 12 complete Saturn IB vehicles had been built under the original contract, so when all of these had been used what do you do then?  It makes little sense to continue to produce what is essentially an engineering kludge. Making the assumption that financial concerns would continue to dominate any post-Apollo planning, I would like to present what I consider to be the best option available to NASA in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It is none other than the Saturn INT-20, which I will refer to as the Saturn III.

So that is my case for the Saturn III as a mid-1970s replacement for the Saturn IB. I like the Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn IC, but it would have required an extensive R&D program with new stages, new GSE and launch pads, and new spacecraft. I think the Saturn III is more realistic given the political and financial environment facing NASA in the 1970s. And it looks cool!  Saturn III is a handy and versatile launcher and I flew the below mission with it.

2 hours ago, RocketBoy1641 said:

To me the easiest for a what if of a plan for long term S1B-ish capacity is that they would plan to switch over to production of the S1C (1 F1S).  That said, two SRBs from the titan program give even better lift and would be an easy inclusion in the S1C design.  Add to that S-V still in the stable for interplanetary and an S3 is less likely.  So, the question becomes why the higher cost of an S3 for missions that don't need it if you decommission both S1B and S-V in favor of S3 as a jack of all between the two trades.  In the end, your history; your justification.

Chiming in here with some thoughts.

The Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn 1C is a fairly unrealistic design. I could make several arguments as to why, but there's one big one - nothing like it was ever studied IRL. No monotank S-1, no single F-1, etc. So in terms of plausibility it's more or less off the table. Something that comes up a lot is, as great as ETS is, it wasn't researched and written to the same standard as later space alt histories. The Saturn 1C is the result of the combination of switching to an orbital rather than lunar program, along with the authors' desire to keep the F-1 in production.

The Saturn 1B INTs were looked into, such as the ones with UA-120 boosters, but no matter what you still wind up having to keep producing the S-1B stage. The INT Saturns weren't just meant to fill the gap in payload capability - they were also meant to reduce to total number of production lines needed for various stages. Since the S-1B was only used for the Saturn 1B, it was primed on the chopping block.

Which leads on to @DaveyJ576's INT-20. From my understanding, the INT-20 was considered the favored design, since it essentially consisted of two Saturn V stages that would have to be in production anyways (assuming you want to continue the lunar program). As Davey pointed out, the biggest issue is changing the LUT - though, I think even in your explanation you downplay the difficulties and costs associated with said work. (Ground infrastructure is EXPENSIVE!).

INT-20 also offers the possibility of being combined with the S-1D first stage, greatly increasing the capabilities; in such a scenario, the S-1D would also become the first stage of future production runs of the Saturn V. Flying in that configuration, the skirt would be fixed to the stage resulting in a 1-2% decrease in payload due to the more complex (and without separation, redundant) structural design of the S-1D engine skirt. I can't remember if that assumed a stretch on the first stage. That would again require some expensive ground infrastructure work, but on some level you need to assume that money is forthcoming if you want to have cool toys.

[Elro2k]

26 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

The Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn 1C is a fairly unrealistic design. I could make several arguments as to why, but there's one big one - nothing like it was ever studied IRL. No monotank S-1, no single F-1, etc. So in terms of plausibility it's more or less off the table. Something that comes up a lot is, as great as ETS is, it wasn't researched and written to the same standard as later space alt histories. The Saturn 1C is the result of the combination of switching to an orbital rather than lunar program, along with the authors' desire to keep the F-1 in production.

Additionally, wouldn't a single F-1 engine not have the TWR necessary to lift the 1C? If I recall correctly, the 1C has some kind of uprated F-1. Gotta say though, I absolutely love the aesthetic of the 1C. Probably my favorite fictional Apollo era rockets. It's got all the right combined looks of the Space Shuttle, Saturn V and Saturn 1B.

[CobaltWolf]

23 minutes ago, Elro2k said:

Additionally, wouldn't a single F-1 engine not have the TWR necessary to lift the 1C? If I recall correctly, the 1C has some kind of uprated F-1. Gotta say though, I absolutely love the aesthetic of the 1C. Probably my favorite fictional Apollo era rockets. It's got all the right combined looks of the Space Shuttle, Saturn V and Saturn 1B.

It used an F-1A, which was a substantial improvement that existed IRL. If we'd built any more Saturn Vs, they would have used it.

[Blufor878]

Alright, hear me out

[GoldForest]

30 minutes ago, Blufor878 said:

Alright, hear me out

Non-reusable boosters... 0/10, would not fly again. 

[Blufor878]

17 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Non-reusable boosters... 0/10, would not fly again. 

I didn't feel like arguing with the symmetry tool. Maybe later...

[DaveyJ576]

37 minutes ago, Blufor878 said:

Alright, hear me out

Nice design, but this violates advantage #3 above. Titan 3, Delta 4H, and Falcon Heavy all had to have the core booster airframe essentially rebuilt when the side boosters were added. This rebuild adds considerable cost and time, and forces you to build two versions of the same rocket so that the non-boosted versions can be optimized. Perhaps in your particular case you could go to a four F-1 variant and subsequently shut down two in order to avoid surpassing the airframe G limits (roughly 4 Gs).

As a side note, as I understand it, the hoped for role of the INT-20 (my Saturn III)  was LEO access for manned Apollo spacecraft to Skylabs and for other science missions. Anything beyond that, either for heavy lift to LEO or to beyond LEO missions you could use Saturn V or one of the other existing rockets (Titan 3, Atlas Centaur, Delta, etc.). NASA wanted to shut down a production line and save all the associated costs. For that reason, in my opinion, Saturn IB and any associated variants had a target painted on them. Perhaps if Chrysler had a really, really strong lobby in Congress... maybe it would have been saved. But I think not.

[Blufor878]

Just now, DaveyJ576 said:

Nice design, but this violates advantage #3 above. Titan 3, Delta 4H, and Falcon Heavy all had to have the core booster airframe essentially rebuilt when the side boosters were added. This rebuild adds considerable cost and time, and forces you to build two versions of the same rocket so that the non-boosted versions can be optimized. Perhaps in your particular case you could go to a four F-1 variant and subsequently shut down two in order to avoid surpassing the airframe G limits (roughly 4 Gs).

As a side note, as I understand it, the hoped for role of the INT-20 (my Saturn III)  was LEO access for manned Apollo spacecraft to Skylabs and for other science missions. Anything beyond that, either for heavy lift to LEO or to beyond LEO missions you could use Saturn V or one of the other existing rockets (Titan 3, Atlas Centaur, Delta, etc.). NASA wanted to shut down a production line and save all the associated costs. For that reason, in my opinion, Saturn IB and any associated variants had a target painted on them. Perhaps if Chrysler had a really, really strong lobby in Congress... maybe it would have been saved. But I think not.

Oh, my idea wasn't a serious suggestion. I'm a Florida man, remember? This was just for humor and meme potential. Also the PLUMES!!!

[DaveyJ576]

FYI, on my Saturn III build I had to add a spacer between the top of the S-IVB and the IU. My LM Lab design has a Coatl science boom that projects pretty far downwards when it is retracted. Without the spacer it would clip the top of the S-IVB hydrogen tank. The spacer solved the problem. For any other mission you wouldn't need it.

[RocketBoy1641]

8 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Chiming in here with some thoughts.

The Eyes Turned Skyward Saturn 1C is a fairly unrealistic design. I could make several arguments as to why, but there's one big one - nothing like it was ever studied IRL. No monotank S-1, no single F-1, etc. So in terms of plausibility it's more or less off the table. Something that comes up a lot is, as great as ETS is, it wasn't researched and written to the same standard as later space alt histories. The Saturn 1C is the result of the combination of switching to an orbital rather than lunar program, along with the authors' desire to keep the F-1 in production.

The Saturn 1B INTs were looked into, such as the ones with UA-120 boosters, but no matter what you still wind up having to keep producing the S-1B stage. The INT Saturns weren't just meant to fill the gap in payload capability - they were also meant to reduce to total number of production lines needed for various stages. Since the S-1B was only used for the Saturn 1B, it was primed on the chopping block.

Which leads on to @DaveyJ576's INT-20. From my understanding, the INT-20 was considered the favored design, since it essentially consisted of two Saturn V stages that would have to be in production anyways (assuming you want to continue the lunar program). As Davey pointed out, the biggest issue is changing the LUT - though, I think even in your explanation you downplay the difficulties and costs associated with said work. (Ground infrastructure is EXPENSIVE!).

INT-20 also offers the possibility of being combined with the S-1D first stage, greatly increasing the capabilities; in such a scenario, the S-1D would also become the first stage of future production runs of the Saturn V. Flying in that configuration, the skirt would be fixed to the stage resulting in a 1-2% decrease in payload due to the more complex (and without separation, redundant) structural design of the S-1D engine skirt. I can't remember if that assumed a stretch on the first stage. That would again require some expensive ground infrastructure work, but on some level you need to assume that money is forthcoming if you want to have cool toys.

Part of my reference to a S1C concept was knowing that there was push back to cluster's last stand as well as *IF* a stage was to be kept in service that they would seek to optimize twr.  The cluster would naturally go.  Add to that the S-IV stage being the same diameter would lead to push to make a longer tank using the existing tooling.  That said, I had never seen any lthing about if let alone how seriously the 1C concept may have been.  Any way you cut it, Nixon coming to office and the cost of the war in Vietnam certainly didn't help the case for any major exploration outside of LEO....and that was mainly accomplished by having left over Apollo hardware and politicians that like pork.  The end of a percieved race was the biggest killer though.  Any alt history is up to so many points of departure with real history.

Note: read manned exploration where I said exploration.

Edited May 10, 2023 by RocketBoy1641
Note

[Richmountain112]

Also, why can the experiments that come with this mod only be performed a limited number of times before they stop working?

Edit: I meant the Apollo CSM Experiments that came with Apollo 15-17 plus the LM Materials Study, specifically after collecting them with a 5-Kerbal Kane Command Pod.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Richmountain112