THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[KAL 9000]

57 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Thanks, KAL, that's very cool. Do the symmetrical waves symbolise the twin nuclear reactors of the Fontanes class of probes, spewing radiation into the void? The aliens might think that they are wifi routers....

The story will soon become more... complicated than that.

I'm afraid I can't really explain without giving too much away. However, starting with my next episode, Froemone will give a detailed technical description of the upcoming missions, and you are welcome to make patches for any of them.

The waves represent radio waves, data being transmitted back to Earth.

Alright.

[greenTurtle1134]

On 3/22/2017 at 10:48 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

If anyone has a plausible idea on how to protect against 500+ rems

So, water is a very good radiation shield, no?

Pick a comet. Any one will do. Intercept with it. Drill into the core. The habitation module is going to be a tiny speck in the center, surrounded by liquid water, molten from heat by a nuclear reactor. Reactors generate heat, so this is going to be way more efficient than microwaving the thing. Since the hab will be surrounded by a few meters of water, that should absorb any ionizing radiation. The drilling craft can be very light because the water can then be hydrolysed into fuel and oxygen for the crew. Grow plants if you wanna, or just bring food. The comet itself will already be on an eccentric orbit, and you can even choose one that is going to intercept Jupiter on its own. If you have too much mass, remove some ice from the outside (there's more than enough). Stick some nuclear nozzles at any angle, and you now have a laughable comet-ship. Send said comet-ship to Europa (again, helps if you already have a Jupiter intercept). Once you get there, exit the comet-ship and drill into Europa quickly. Same deal, the molten sea will protect you from ionizing radiation. Playing some tricks with gravity assists might let you capture the comet-ship so you can go home. If you can't, just live out the rest of your life on Europa. It's probably better there, considering that those in domination of Earth just sent you on a suicide mission.

Chuck the comet at the Board if you can.

How do we detect a Jupiter-grazing comet? Throw Steledith out with a telescope and a chair. Bring coffee every hour, come back in a munth for results.

Steledith is badass, by the way. I'm loving both the insane astronomical abilities and the couldn't-care-less attitude toward more terrestrial concerns. She almost sounds like one of the interstellar robots herself. It is my opinion that pure science beats pure bureaucracy, any day of the week. I expect her to come up with the location of all the datacores and the ways to retrieve them safely and make all the Resource Companies beg nicely for her to tell them.

[UnusualAttitude]

20 hours ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

Steledith is badass, by the way. I'm loving both the insane astronomical abilities and the couldn't-care-less attitude toward more terrestrial concerns. She almost sounds like one of the interstellar robots herself. It is my opinion that pure science beats pure bureaucracy, any day of the week. I expect her to come up with the location of all the datacores and the ways to retrieve them safely and make all the Resource Companies beg nicely for her to tell them.

Oh yes, ever since I introduced Steledith back in this entry, I've been wanting to develop her character and her role in this story. She's a lot of fun to write; a sort of kerbal scientific reasoning machine, trapped inside her own insanely powerful intellect, except for the occasional moment of lucidity.

This is all part of a wider plan to give some of my secondary characters some love. Expect similar treatment (eventually) for others, such as Froemone, Cat, Lisabeth... and maybe others you might have forgotten about, but who are still out there, doing important stuff. 

[Starman4308]

Am I correct in understanding that, by the time you're at Ganymede, Jovian radiation has dropped to levels practical for manned/Kerballed exploration? Even at the most distant point, Ganymede will be at most a few light-seconds away from the inner Jovian moons, potentially making tele-operation of probes from Ganymede or a similar orbit a reasonable thing to do.

[HamnavoePer]

On 24/03/2017 at 10:47 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

This is all part of a wider plan to give some of my secondary characters some love

Yay! Secondary Character Love!

[UnusualAttitude]

4 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Am I correct in understanding that, by the time you're at Ganymede, Jovian radiation has dropped to levels practical for manned/Kerballed exploration? Even at the most distant point, Ganymede will be at most a few light-seconds away from the inner Jovian moons, potentially making tele-operation of probes from Ganymede or a similar orbit a reasonable thing to do.

Yes, radiation would be acceptable on Ganymede, and with Ganymede at its closest approach to Europa, you would have a similar signal delay to Earth-Moon (about 2 seconds).

I am using Remote Tech with signal delay, and I don't use Mechjeb or kOS. I've nothing against either, and this is nothing to do with realism (it actually isn't realistic, but is explained away by my Kerbals being awful at automation), it's just a gameplay choice I made to force myself to do certain things with crew only.

Remote control of a lander with a two second delay is possible, it's just really impractical. Hmmmm.... we shall see. 

[greenTurtle1134]

I am surprised that nobody has poked gigantic holes in my plan. C'mon guys, I know they're there, wake up and rip my carefully planned ideas to shreds!

Edited March 27, 2017 by greenTurtle1134

[Starman4308]

37 minutes ago, greenTurtle1134 said:

I am surprised that nobody has poked gigantic holes in my plan. C'mon guys, I know they're there, wake up and rip my carefully planned ideas to shreds!

Probably the biggest issues are:

#1: Very difficult to intercept a comet; either large amounts of delta-V or a multi-slingshot trajectory will be required, neither of which plays well with manned missions.

#2: In order to maneuver the comet, sophisticated equipment would be needed to mine the comet for LH2+LOX and attach an engine.

#3: Good luck keeping said comet intact during thrusting.

[UnusualAttitude]

56 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

I am surprised that nobody has poked gigantic holes in my plan. C'mon guys, I know they're there, wake up and rip my carefully planned ideas to shreds!

Yeah... The basic concept kinda works in theory (if you fluff over the major engineering challenges of digging a safe structure inside an undifferentiated mess of ice and dust, which we can do I suppose, the Trans Pacific Resource Company doesn't abide to the same health and safety regulations as NASA). A few metres of ice would make an excellent shield against most types of radiation. I will actually be using this idea for Near Earth asteroid mining thanks to Roverdude's Asteroid Recycling mod and perhaps for other things.

But @Starman4308 is right, riding a comet out to Jupiter doesn't work out: the delta-vee requirement would be insane, and/or the transfer time too long for a reasonable crewed mission. And unfortunately, in the Real Solar System, a "Ganymede-assisted gravity capture" isn't really a thing, unlike in stock where you can get a Jool capture off Tylo.

[KAL 9000]

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

-snippety snip-

We attach a giant heatshield to the comet, and aerobrake into Jupiter orbit. 

It's foolproof.

[UnusualAttitude]

18 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

We attach a giant heatshield to the comet, and aerobrake into Jupiter orbit. 

It's foolproof.

What could possibly go wrong.... ? 

[KAL 9000]

14 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

What could possibly go wrong.... ? 

Many things. But Jeb gives his approval for this plan, so we know that if it fails, it will be in an awesome fireball.

Edited March 28, 2017 by KAL 9000

[greenTurtle1134]

5 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

We attach a giant heatshield to the comet, and aerobrake into Jupiter orbit. 

It's foolproof.

No, idiot, the comet IS your heatshield!

7 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

if you fluff over the major engineering challenges of digging a safe structure inside an undifferentiated mess of ice and dust, which we can do I suppose, the Trans Pacific Resource Company doesn't abide to the same health and safety regulations as NASA

Ah, here's a solution: melt the outsides, let them refreeze, you now have an ice container, see?

On the other hand, I cannot refute @Starman4308's complaints regarding intercepts, equipment, and fragility.

Edited March 28, 2017 by greenTurtle1134
Gramma/er

[insert_name]

better idea, just nuke the moons, and use the force form the blast to put it outside the radiation belts. like an orion drive but without the expensive spaceship.

Edited March 28, 2017 by insert_name

[greenTurtle1134]

Just now, insert_name said:

better idea, just nuke the moons, and use the force form the blast to put it outside the radiation belts. like an orion drive but without the expensive spaceship.:P

This makes MOAR radiation.

Adjusting Jupiter's magnetosphere? Know somebody at Kardashev-1?

[KAL 9000]

12 hours ago, insert_name said:

better idea, just nuke the moons, and use the force form the blast to put it outside the radiation belts. like an orion drive but without the expensive spaceship.

That would take a ridiculous amount of nukes... 

And if Europa moves further away from Jupiter, the tidal heating decreases and the subsurface ocean freezes over. Which kills anything that might be living there. 

And what if you accidentally nuke a Crew member on the surface?

[UnusualAttitude]

16 hours ago, insert_name said:

better idea, just nuke the moons, and use the force form the blast to put it outside the radiation belts. like an orion drive but without the expensive spaceship.

 

4 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

That would take a ridiculous amount of nukes... 

Indeed it would, but this debate happens to be irrelevant. My Kerbals don't have nukes, at least not yet.

By "nukes", I mean a device intentionally designed to cause death & destruction on a massive scale thanks to the explosive output of a supercritical mass of fissile material. 

They do, of course, have nuclear reactors. Pretty damn good ones now, too. In the course of developing these, one can assume that accidents happened, or that some mad nuclear engineer discovered the definition of "supercritical mass" in a most empirical way. 

But a device designed to reproduce these apocalyptical results intentionally...? 

Why would you want that?

[KAL 9000]

48 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

 

Indeed it would, but this debate happens to be irrelevant. My Kerbals don't have nukes, at least not yet.

By "nukes", I mean a device intentionally designed to cause death & destruction on a massive scale thanks to the explosive output of a supercritical mass of fissile material. 

They do, of course, have nuclear reactors. Pretty damn good ones now, too. In the course of developing these, one can assume that accidents happened, or that some mad nuclear engineer discovered the definition of "supercritical mass" in a most empirical way. 

But a device designed to reproduce these apocalyptical results intentionally...? 

Why would you want that?

*cough* Humans are stupid *cough*

[Starman4308]

On 3/29/2017 at 11:46 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

They do, of course, have nuclear reactors. Pretty damn good ones now, too. In the course of developing these, one can assume that accidents happened, or that some mad nuclear engineer discovered the definition of "supercritical mass" in a most empirical way. 

But a device designed to reproduce these apocalyptical results intentionally...? 

I think it's safe to say that the "or" in your statement is a mathematician's "or"; even careful operators will have accidents.

I'll point out, though, that A, reactors go supercritical all the time (i.e: when they want to increase reactor output), and B, getting a mushroom cloud* is extraordinarily difficult, requiring a fissile mass to go prompt-critical very very quickly so that a large fraction of the nuclei react before your nuclear weapon ceases to be a nuclear weapon and starts to be a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma.

*You know what I mean.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Starman4308
Increased historical relevance.

[UnusualAttitude]

21 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

I'll point out, though, that A, reactors go supercritical all the time (i.e: when they want to increase reactor output), and B, getting a mushroom cloud* is extraordinarily difficult, requiring a fissile mass to go prompt-critical very very quickly so that a large fraction of the nuclei react before your nuclear weapon ceases to be a nuclear weapon and starts to be a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma.

Yeah, I understand that it is almost impossible to achieve anything like a real nuclear explosion without actively trying to do so. I'm just assuming that anyone innocently working on the problem of generating power from nuclear fission would inevitably deduce what would happen if you pushed things to a prompt critical level.

Despite these difficulties, we humans developed functional nuclear weapons before we built our first nuclear power station. But this happened in the context of a desperate struggle between world superpowers with opposing ideologies. No such powers exist in The Camwise Logs. The Resource Companies don't want to wipe out anyone. They want to sell resources to them...

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 13 OVERVIEW.

This year saw many major changes to the space programme's objectives and infrastructure. Operations were gradually shifted from the Pacific island of Omelek to Madang, a new launch site situated just five degrees south of the equator on a wide coastal plain. The space available allowed the construction of a five kilometre long runway, greatly facilitating spaceplane operations.

Projects carried out during Year 13 included the development and testing of the new RLV-class SSTO spaceplane, a renewal and extension of the orbital communications network, both for low orbital operations and deep space probes. A new space telescope was launched.

The first infrastructure that will enable extended crewed operations starting in Year 14 was also launched towards the end of Year 13: the first E-Tug, acting as a test bed for the ELF thruster, and a station to be launched to high lunar orbit. This station will act as a staging-post for Near Earth mining operations with the eventual goal of stockpiling large quantities of propellant for future exploration missions down to the Moon's surface, as well as into the main asteroid belt and beyond.

A large crewed ship – NES Prosperity – will be built early in Year 14. This will be the first of several NES (Near Earth Ship) vessels. Their goal will be to set up the first mining operations on several Near Earth Objects. In the long term, most of these mining stations will be remotely operated, but the first generation will be crewed in order to ensure that the experimental equipment performs as expected.

Vermilion Space Telescope

At the end of Year 12, the Trans Pacific Research Institute also ordered a powerful infrared telescope to be deployed into MEO.

At the request of several Investigators, a new instrument was required to provide a more detailed map of the Sol System's smaller bodies.

VST was launched into a 200x200 km orbit by an RLV-11 spaceplane on Day 112. From there, its Hall thruster propulsion unit gradually raised it into a 6,500x6,500 km orbit from which it began its scientific mission.

DSN Orbital

Earlier this year, the Board looked in to launching an orbital deep space communications relay, in order to be free from dependancy on a ground-based network, for strategic reasons. The JX-2 deployable antenna developed by SH Engineering Dynamics allowed such a concept to become viable, and was integrated with a solar electric drive using Hall effect thrusters. This gave the vehicle sufficient delta-v to reach a very distant polar orbit (close to the limit of Earth's Hill sphere) whilst maintaining compatibility with the launch capacity of the RLV-8 SSTO, despite the considerable mass of the antenna array (3.5 tonnes).

RLV-8 with DSN Orbital was launched on Year 13, Day 125. The payload was successfully injected into a 200x200km orbit at a 5° inclination. DSN then boosted its apogee up to 500,000 km before circularising and switching its inclination to 90 degrees over a period of several weeks. The final orbit is polar and outside the orbit of the Moon, where line of sight with all deep space probes is ensured.

DSP One & Two

In order to learn more about the planets and planetesimals beyond Saturn, the Board requested a new class of deep space exploration probes. These would have to be smaller and cheaper to manufacture (and launch) than the Fontanes class, and be able to reach their distant targets in a reasonably short time frame, despite the huge distances involved.

The gridded ion thruster fitted to the Fontanes probes is still the best engine technology available for such requirements, although to cut costs a single engine is fitted allowing the probe to be powered by a single Kastria MX-4 reactor. Total launch mass is 6.88 tonnes, compared to 9.35 tonnes for the Fontanes class. The lighter, more compact design also allows a DSP class probe to be launched (along with its transfer stage) in one go by RLV. Estimated delta-v is in excess of 110 km/s.

At around Year 13, Day 150, Earth was at near opposition with the ice giant Neptune. This opened up a transfer window for a Sol swing-by transfer, by first of all braking into low solar orbit, then accelerating at periapsis. DSP One exceeded solar escape velocity by far and is on track to encounter Neptune during the summer of Year 17.

A second DSP probe was launched on Day 221. It was parked in a high orbit and is waiting for an Earth – Uranus opposition to perform a similar transfer. A third DSP is under construction and will target a KBO that is yet to be specified.

E-Tug

E-Tug is a reusable, uncrewed utility vehicle that will transfer payloads from Low Earth Orbit to Lunar Orbit or to the Lagrange points and even beyond. It will also be the first vehicle to be equipped with the ELF thruster. The ELF (or Electrodeless Lorentz Force) thruster was developed after a review concluded that it was the most promising means of electrical propulsion available in the immediate future. Indeed, ELF delivers a better thrust density than any other existing plasma thruster, and at a higher efficiency. But its other key advantage is that it can use many different types of propellant; not only the noble gases commonly used by other electrical thrusters (argon, xenon, etc.) but also elements and molecules that are far more readily available throughout the system (such as hydrogen, the air of various atmospheres and even water), thus opening up a host of in situ refuelling concepts for consideration.

With ISP ranging from 1500-3000 (water) and from 4500-9000 (LH2), shipping vast quantities of chemical propellant to orbit will no longer be necessary. It becomes possible to return useful amounts of fuel from Near Earth Objects, to be stockpiled as water in orbits high in Earth's gravity well until it is required for transfers to other bodies. Crewed deep space missions equipped with such thrusters could perform fast transfers to their targets and refuel from any of the myriad of small icy bodies in the outer system, thus reducing total mission times dramatically.

E-Tug will be powered by four 100kW solar arrays. Orbital manoeuvring capability is provided by four LH2 arcjet thruster blocks. Along with its deployment system, it can be launched fully fuelled with water and LH2 by a standard L30 (30-tonne payload) rocket.

Lunar DRO Station

A staging post will be required to stockpile the resources mined from NEOs and to transfer crews launching from Earth via SSTO or capsule to their respective deep space vehicles. Various locations were considered for such a station, and a 50,000 km Lunar Distant Retrograde (DRO) was selected. DRO orbits are stable over long periods of time (and therefore require very little station keeping), and the delta-v requirements to reach them are slightly lower than for the L4/L5 Earth-Moon Lagrange points.

The station core includes a large inflatable habitation module (that will be pressurised once the first crew reaches the station), a docking hub and a radiation shelter that is protected by the station's drinking water and food supplies. This connects to a second docking/solar truss where the standard large (94m3) resource tanks will be docked.

An L50 launcher was required to loft the core into a low parking orbit where it was captured by E-Tug One.

A second (L30) launch sent up four large tanks; two service modules for water (blue) and two zero boil-off cryogenic tanks for LH2 (white), of which only the LH2 tanks were full. E-Tug was used to dock these tanks to the station core.

The station was ready to begin its transfer to Lunar DRO, spiralling slowly up out of the Earth's gravity well, thrusting on the day side and coasting through the planet's shadow.

Despite the relatively high thrust of the ELF engine, the transfer took several weeks, but the station eventually swung past the Moon and circularised at 50,000 kilometres above the Lunar surface.

The station was then deployed and E-Tug One was free to accelerate back out of Lunar orbit and brake gently back into LEO, ready to be refuelled and reused.

CM-14-01 to DRO Station

With DRO Station in position, a first three-kerb crew was sent up: Commander Astrice, Second Pilot Ering and Junior Engineer Kimet. The first part of their mission will consist in setting up the habitable part of the station. The three kerbals will then go on to crew the Near Earth Ship Prosperity on her shakedown cruise, once the NES is assembled and ready to transfer to cislunar space.

The CM Opulence type capsule was designed to carry a total of six kerbals up to Lunar DRO, although this first mission will be flown at half capacity. This will eventually enable the crew of a NES and of a mining station to be rotated in a single launch.

A dedicated launcher was designed for the Opulence capsule, consisting of a 646 tonne rocket with a methalox first stage (one R1 Ratite and eight M1 Moa engines), and a hydrolox second stage (a single R1 Ratite). TLI is provided by another hydrolox stage with an RL10-B2 engine. The flight profile is devised so that the TLI stage crashed into the Lunar surface, and the Opulence capsule brakes into an eccentric Lunar orbit before performing a rendez-vous with DRO Station.

The first module of NES Prosperity will be launched in a few day's time.

Edited May 8, 2017 by UnusualAttitude

[michal.don]

Really beautiful design, all of your ships, but the RLV-11 spaceplane is really something special - I love the looks of it

Michal.don

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, michal.don said:

Really beautiful design, all of your ships, but the RLV-11 spaceplane is really something special - I love the looks of it

Thanks. I redesign my spaceplane with each new version of KSP, and this iteration was a real pain to get right: unlike previous variants this one burns LH2/LOx (like Skylon). Also, this one has a low wing with outboard engines (also like Skylon) and this sort of airframe is a challenge to balance using FAR aero. Wobble wobble, flip out at Mach 5 and 20+ kms, every single time. I got it eventually, but this is one of the reasons for the big delay between parts four and five of this story. 

And it's still not perfect, as we shall soon see...

[MaxL_1023]

What type of engines are you using for the SSTO? I can't seem to get a realistic mass fraction using available engines - I have been trying to mod a few but have not settled onto a good configuration yet. 

[UnusualAttitude]

4 minutes ago, MaxL_1023 said:

What type of engines are you using for the SSTO? I can't seem to get a realistic mass fraction using available engines - I have been trying to mod a few but have not settled onto a good configuration yet. 

None of the stock or modded dual cycle engines I know of come anywhere near being able to SSTO in RSS.

I use my own custom .cfg file that is as close to the REL SABRE as possible (taking into account there are many unknowns, notably its mass...). You can find these figures online.

I can send you the .cfg if you want, but my gamedata file is such a mess of hacks and re-modded stuff that I can't guarantee it will work for you. Just drop a PM if you're brave enough to try it. 

The model for the engine is from Nertea's MkIV system mod, re-modded to be a 3,75m part.