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

[Zorg]

8 hours ago, heakhaek said:

Help parts that say they have a built  in decoupler don't have a deouple icon in the staging. I have been pruning the the BDB folder so I have no idea what I might have done.

Some parts have two decoupler modules such as for the top and bottom, only 1 module can be staged. Other parts might have a mainly structural use and has the decoupler as an option. For such parts you need to decouple manually in flight using the part action window or you can enable staging on that part by right clicking in the VAB editor and clicking enable staging in the decoupler settings.

[Hank Kerman]

Quick question. What is the origin of the S-IVF? It is the same diameter as the S-II but is significantly shorter. I cant seem to find any mention of it on the wiki, either.

[SpaceFace545]

1 hour ago, Hank Kerman said:

Quick question. What is the origin of the S-IVF? It is the same diameter as the S-II but is significantly shorter. I cant seem to find any mention of it on the wiki, either.

It's loosely based on the third stage of the First Lunar Outpost Comet HLLV rocket. 

[heakhaek]

12 hours ago, Zorg said:

Some parts have two decoupler modules such as for the top and bottom, only 1 module can be staged. Other parts might have a mainly structural use and has the decoupler as an option. For such parts you need to decouple manually in flight using the part action window or you can enable staging on that part by right clicking in the VAB editor and clicking enable staging in the decoupler settings.

Thanks that helps a lot.

[DaveyJ576]

I am long overdue in paying my screenshot tax, so here it goes:

ATLAS ABLE PIONEER

On September 24, 1959 NASA was taking Atlas Able 9C through a Flight Readiness Firing at LC-12 at Cape Canaveral. Just prior to ignition a configuration error was noted for the sustainer engine. The countdown was halted and the error corrected. The FRF went off without a hitch, clearing the path for launch. Two days later, sheepish NASA technicians revealed that they had forgot to include a system for equalizing the atmospheric pressure inside the payload fairing. Quick rework corrected the problem.

On October 15, 1959 the last Atlas C lifted the Able/Pioneer stack cleanly through the sky in a highly successful liftoff.

Spoiler

 

https://imgur.com/85ZE7zK

Staging occurred as planned and the Able pushed the Pioneer P-1 out towards the Moon. Spacecraft separation occurred normally, with the spin decoupler spinning up the spacecraft for the Altair firing. With the propulsive stage over, the newly renamed Pioneer 5 headed out into interplanetary space.

Spoiler

 

The cruise to the moon went well, with the monopropellent motor making one mid-course correction. As the spacecraft approached the moon, she lined up to adjust her periapsis, made that burn successfully, and slid in behind her target. Pioneer 5 easily performed the circularization burn and became the first man-made object to orbit the moon. Her science program yielded a lot of valuable data concerning our nearest neighbor, and set the stage for more ambitious missions to come.

Spoiler

Real life result: a misconfigured valve during the FRF sent helium into the propellant line for the sustainer engine at ignition. The engines shut down, but shortly after the rocket suffered a catastrophic RUD and it exploded on the pad in the biggest explosion at the Cape to date. NASA shifted to the Atlas D booster for subsequent missions, but a variety of errors lead to a 100% mission failure rate. The 2nd mission failed because NASA neglected to provide a means to equalize the pressure within the payload shroud during ascent.

Atlas Able was developed only because NASA was initially unaware of the Air Force's work on Agena. The much greater power and versatility of Agena relegated Atlas Able to interim status and it was quickly discontinued once Agena came on line. It really was a stopgap rocket to get decent size payloads out to the moon quickly. It was a mismatch really, with a powerful booster matched with a skinny and somewhat underpowered upper stage. Atlas Agena made much more sense from a capability standpoint. Thor Able (and later Thor Delta) was a better capability match.

I made one little fudge on this flight... I configured the Able stage with the Stock amount of fuel and therefore the use of the Altair solid third stage was unnecessary. I included the Altair for looks only and did not light it. The Able got Pioneer all the way to the moon with a little fuel to spare! I have found that going to the moon is really hard using solid upper stages. They are not precise enough.

BTW, the new visual configs look absolutely amazing!

Edited November 8 by DaveyJ576
small edit

[Pappystein]

On 11/8/2024 at 3:34 PM, DaveyJ576 said:

  Hide contents

 

https://imgur.com/85ZE7zK

Atlas Able was developed only because NASA was initially unaware of the Air Force's work on Agena. The much greater power and versatility of Agena relegated Atlas Able to interim status and it was quickly discontinued once Agena came on line. It really was a stopgap rocket to get decent size payloads out to the moon quickly. It was a mismatch really, with a powerful booster matched with a skinny and somewhat underpowered upper stage. Atlas Agena made much more sense from a capability standpoint. Thor Able (and later Thor Delta) was a better capability match.

 

When these come up it points out a problem many engineers have grappled with since the Wright brothers, Blériot etc have all grappled with, Oh I can't forget all the naval architects and engineers fighting this problem as well.

Fineness Ratio.   The thinner an object is on its line of flight, the more apt it is to loose control.   Every Atlas Able was a failure, and those that cleared the tower succumbed to the super narrowness of the 2nd stage compared to the Atlas First stages.    This is also one of the driving reasons for Able and Delta to transition into Ablestar(Epsilon)  and Delta-E with their shorter fatter tanks that doubled or more the fuel capacity while lowering the fineness ratio to a more acceptable number, and reducing the strengthening needed to withstand aerodynamic forces at the junction between the first stage and the Able/Ablestar/Delta stage. 

 

Daveyj576,  Nice shots.  I agree with you on the built in reflective features working really well

 

[leberonjaems]

Will we get a saturn c-8 nova in the next update?

[DaveyJ576]

18 minutes ago, leberonjaems said:

Will we get a saturn c-8 nova in the next update?

The dev team has stated several times that they have no interest in doing so. However, if you look back through the thread, there have been several posters that have created a reasonable facsimile of the C-8 using parts from other mods.

[GoldForest]

2 hours ago, leberonjaems said:

Will we get a saturn c-8 nova in the next update?

 

1 hour ago, DaveyJ576 said:

The dev team has stated several times that they have no interest in doing so. However, if you look back through the thread, there have been several posters that have created a reasonable facsimile of the C-8 using parts from other mods.

(Cobalt has said he likes my C-8 better than the regular C-8... perhaps we could convince him to make the GoldForest C-8 )

Edited November 10 by GoldForest

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, leberonjaems said:

Will we get a saturn c-8 nova in the next update?

Also there is no such thing... almost-mostly.

What C-8 is, was the PROOF that EARTH Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) would work, not a REAL concept.  With the switch to Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, the entire case of the C-8 became a house of cards that fell flatter than the Flat Earther's think the Earth actually is.   

C-8 was never intended to be Part of NOVA.  Again it was used as a comparison of performance.   Pretty much after Von Braun withdrew from MSFC prime design (he met his goal of landing on the moon) a few low level NASA engineers who were tasked with developing this "Never going to fly" rocket Pushed to get it built in the post Saturn Moon program.  Remember, Saturn C-5 (later Saturn V) was actually much more efficient than EITHER the C-8 proposal OR EOR proposal in terms of cost, development cycle and end results (C-8 would have generated LESS science per launch than the Saturn V.)    The *ONLY* advantage C-8 brings is a quicker transit time between Earth and the Moon with a lower safety margin since the Apollo capsule would land on the Moon.

While those engineers were pushing to get the C-8 considered for ANYTHING, Saturn MLV launched.  And provided better performing rockets that were smaller, cheaper and had a greater potential for payload to orbit.   IE something better than C-8.   Currently, the only part really not in BDB to make all the MLV variants are the 156" SRMs (which are 2.5m in KSP scale)   The closest approximation is probably Photon INC's Shuttle SRBs (they are not exactly correct but they are close if you ignore the thrust chamber.)

And Lets face it,   C-8's stage sizes are not conducive to any other rocket before or since and it's basic design is uglier than the Russian N-1 rockets.  <-- (ok that last is 100% my opinion)

 

[DaveyJ576]

Okay, so who has the ultra double top secret procedure for SUCCESSFULLY landing the Ranger Block 2 Rough Lander sphere on the moon (KSRSS 2.7x)?  The best I have achieved has been slowing it to about 90 m/s at about 1300 m. At that point the BE-3 motor burns out and the probe re-accelerates to an unsustainable speed before impacting and going kabloom. I started retro fire at 50k using the midcourse correction engine and RCS and fired them until they run out of fuel at about 10k. That slows me to about 940 m/s. I light the BE-3 solid between 4-5k. Any lower than that and it impacts the surface before the motor quits and without slowing down enough. 4k is to low and 5k is too high!

Admittedly I was using a fairly steep approach vector, around 70 degrees. Do I need to shallow it out?

Is it possible that in balancing the BE-3 motor the dev team made it too wimpy?

Most likely I am gooning this up somehow.

[GoldForest]

3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

Also there is no such thing... almost-mostly.

What C-8 is, was the PROOF that EARTH Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) would work, not a REAL concept.  With the switch to Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, the entire case of the C-8 became a house of cards that fell flatter than the Flat Earther's think the Earth actually is.   

C-8 was never intended to be Part of NOVA.  Again it was used as a comparison of performance.   Pretty much after Von Braun withdrew from MSFC prime design (he met his goal of landing on the moon) a few low level NASA engineers who were tasked with developing this "Never going to fly" rocket Pushed to get it built in the post Saturn Moon program.  Remember, Saturn C-5 (later Saturn V) was actually much more efficient than EITHER the C-8 proposal OR EOR proposal in terms of cost, development cycle and end results (C-8 would have generated LESS science per launch than the Saturn V.)    The *ONLY* advantage C-8 brings is a quicker transit time between Earth and the Moon with a lower safety margin since the Apollo capsule would land on the Moon.

While those engineers were pushing to get the C-8 considered for ANYTHING, Saturn MLV launched.  And provided better performing rockets that were smaller, cheaper and had a greater potential for payload to orbit.   IE something better than C-8.   Currently, the only part really not in BDB to make all the MLV variants are the 156" SRMs (which are 2.5m in KSP scale)   The closest approximation is probably Photon INC's Shuttle SRBs (they are not exactly correct but they are close if you ignore the thrust chamber.)

And Lets face it,   C-8's stage sizes are not conducive to any other rocket before or since and it's basic design is uglier than the Russian N-1 rockets.  <-- (ok that last is 100% my opinion)

 

Saturn C-8 was also considered for Direct Ascent, which would cut down transit time to the Moon/Mun. In KSP, I can see a use case for that. Time sensitive contracts, or people waiting last second to launch. 

Also, C-8 would be a good rocket for Mars/Duna ascent, direct (Possibly) or Earth orbit to MTI. Especially if you use some MLV concepts with C-8. 

While I'll agree that the "Nova" design is kind of ugly (For those that don't know, the "Nova" design uses a rather short Stage one with a rather long stage two.), the Saturn C-8 uses a longer Stage one, which is what I based my C-8 and C-8B (Seen above) on. 

[Pappystein]

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Saturn C-8 was also considered for Direct Ascent

Direct Ascent was always what C-8 was about.  In fact, before someone put the C-8 tag on it, the rocket was nebulously named "Direct Ascent alternative Rocket."

And it was meant to prove to the nay-sayers that Direct ascent was in a word, stupid.   It was QUICKER & Cheaper to make 33 launches of C-1 and C-2 and use the S-IVC-train to get to the moon.   Those 33 launches would put NASA and the USA on the moon by 1970, whereas Direct Ascent (nee C-8,) would cost 2x as much and not get to the moon before 1974.   But the main reason that C-8 is bad is the image below... Left is C-8  Right is what began the Lunar Module (LM) we landed on the moon with.

 

And to be clear before anyone thinks "But I can retrofit C-8 with a LM and do it like Apollo Saturn V did,"   You can but you will have a rocket that costs 3x as much to launch and 10x the cost to build, and also you are no longer Direct Ascent, you are Lunar Orbit Rendezvous.

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Also, C-8 would be a good rocket for Mars/Duna ascent, direct (Possibly) or Earth orbit to MTI. Especially if you use some MLV concepts with C-8.

I think it is fair to say that the technology to get to Mars is "still" out of reach.   I say that not as a person who doesn't believe we will get there, but as a person who has heard a lot of talk over a lot of years and no one has FLIGHT proven their "Technology" to do so, other than micro-scale experiments.

And yes, how you build your C-8 Analog in KSP is pretty good looking GoldForest, But a historical one (be it the original Direct Ascent alternative Rocket, or the "Nova" C-8....)  are ALL UGLY

 

4 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

Okay, so who has the ultra double top secret procedure for SUCCESSFULLY landing the Ranger Block 2 Rough Lander sphere on the moon (KSRSS 2.7x)?  The best I have achieved has been slowing it to about 90 m/s at about 1300 m. At that point the BE-3 motor burns out and the probe re-accelerates to an unsustainable speed before impacting and going kabloom. I started retro fire at 50k using the midcourse correction engine and RCS and fired them until they run out of fuel at about 10k. That slows me to about 940 m/s. I light the BE-3 solid between 4-5k. Any lower than that and it impacts the surface before the motor quits and without slowing down enough. 4k is to low and 5k is too high!

Admittedly I was using a fairly steep approach vector, around 70 degrees. Do I need to shallow it out?

Is it possible that in balancing the BE-3 motor the dev team made it too wimpy?

Most likely I am gooning this up somehow.

ALT-F12  Infinite Propulsion?

I have always had issues with suicide burn landers that utilize SRMs, going back to Coatl Probes Plus and Tantares.   So I don't use them anymore without doing the above or making them so alt history they really shouldn't count for the probe they are now a stand in for

 

Edited November 10 by Pappystein

[gdogthe_man]

Help! every time i load into the game my titian engines are deprecated and when i try to replace them the undeprecated ones don't save. What do i have to do to fix this? this started when i updated to v1.14.0.

[slyfox023]

I apologize to ask again but will the Wiki be updated soon?

[Awesomesauce1337]

What's missing?

[Rodger]

3 hours ago, gdogthe_man said:

Help! every time i load into the game my titian engines are deprecated and when i try to replace them the undeprecated ones don't save. What do i have to do to fix this? this started when i updated to v1.14.0.

Maybe try saving the craft with a new name after swapping? And make sure there's no other depreciated parts remaining - it's not just the engines.

[DaveyJ576]

10 hours ago, slyfox023 said:

I apologize to ask again but will the Wiki be updated soon?

The Atlas portion has been updated, and @Friznit has a list he is working on. Was there something specific that you were looking for?

[GoldForest]

6 minutes ago, DaveyJ576 said:

The Atlas portion has been updated, and @Friznit has a list he is working on. Was there something specific that you were looking for?

Only Atlas A thru Atlas III, I will point out. Atlas V still needs an update, visually. The parts didn't really change. Though, I can see the old pics confusing some people. 

[DaveyJ576]

14 hours ago, Pappystein said:

 

ALT-F12  Infinite Propulsion?

I have always had issues with suicide burn landers that utilize SRMs, going back to Coatl Probes Plus and Tantares.   So I don't use them anymore without doing the above or making them so alt history they really shouldn't count for the probe they are now a stand in for

 

I actually do quite well with Surveyor, even the Coatl version. For the record, I actually did succeed once with the Ranger Rough Lander sphere, but that was several years ago when I was still playing a Stock solar system. There is a video on YouTube of one guy making it, but again it was on a Stock system. His approach speed was around 880 m/s. On KSRSS I am maxing out at 1183 m/s on a direct approach landing. Unless I am somehow gooning this up, I am thinking that the Ranger with the BE-3 solid just doesn’t have enough delta-v.

But perhaps that is the challenge that the dev team has laid down for us!  Improvise, adapt, overcome! 

[gdogthe_man]

8 hours ago, Rodger said:

Maybe try saving the craft with a new name after swapping? And make sure there's no other depreciated parts remaining - it's not just the engines.

Thank you. It was one of the dependencies not loading.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

3 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

I am thinking that the Ranger with the BE-3 solid just doesn’t have enough delta-v.

I have a video of doing this on JNSQ, and I just noticed that the ball + SRM have about 800m/s in the video from 4 years ago. But today in the VAB, the ball + ZE-3-LYC "Zeus" have 1929 m/s. I wanna give this another try tonight on KSRSS. You're using default scale, and what about inclination? And are you doing a true direct ascent (i.e. launching at night?) or Earth orbit first? Just wanna match situations so we can compare notes!

[Pappystein]

7 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Only Atlas A thru Atlas III, I will point out. Atlas V still needs an update, visually. The parts didn't really change. Though, I can see the old pics confusing some people. 

Um, I might be crazy (and it is entirely possible this is wrong) but I thought Atlas V was updated 2 BDB updates ago... (I just checked it was earlier than I thought late 2019)  

Atlas V is essentially "MODERN" Art form factor from BDB.   it is just Atlas V isn't all that interesting visually like the older Atlas rockets.

[DaveyJ576]

6 hours ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

I have a video of doing this on JNSQ, and I just noticed that the ball + SRM have about 800m/s in the video from 4 years ago. But today in the VAB, the ball + ZE-3-LYC "Zeus" have 1929 m/s. I wanna give this another try tonight on KSRSS. You're using default scale, and what about inclination? And are you doing a true direct ascent (i.e. launching at night?) or Earth orbit first? Just wanna match situations so we can compare notes!

LEO first, but from there directly to landing without lunar orbit. I use MechJeb. I flew two missions, Ranger 3 and 4, with a different lunar approach vector for each. Both trajectories were quite steep, probably 65 to 70 degrees. I did a game save at about 100k altitude and did multiple resets trying different altitudes for retro fire. BTW, my booster was a three stage Atlas Vega! A bit overpowered for this mission, but I wanted to try something different. Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks for the effort!

[InterstellarDrifter]

anyone else experienced this?   K-15 parts are not mirroring when snapping to nodes. The parts are unilateral, so they must mirror, or one side's parts will be upside down.