The Gemini Dilema

[klesh]

Hi,

So I am wondering how you folks are making your Gemini recreations?  Are you using a 1.875m rocket or a 2.5m one?  The reason I ask is that the SM-18 service module is complicating that question for me.

Here is the Gemini spacecraft for comparison:

Spoiler

 

Note the tapered service module.  We can achieve that look, but only with the FL-A215 tank adapter, which has no service-moduleness to it.  Your rocket then becomes 2.5m.

The SM-18 service module was clearly intended to go with the Mk2 Command Pod, modeled after Gemini, but it's lack of taper mean your rocket will stay at 1.875m.  This appears to be the intended configuration.

 

 

The engines that are clearly Gemini recreations have butts set at 1.875m, and though you can make them bare and put them on a 2.5m rocket, they were surely intended to be for the 1.875m form factor.

 

So, does this mean the Mk2 capsule itself is too big?  If the bottom of the tapered service module is supposed to be 1.875, then surely the top can't start there?

[Kerbart]

One look at the crew will ruin any Gemini simulator intentions you had anyway.

The tapered cone in the RL Gemini was there because there was a diameter mismatch between rocket and capsule. You don’t have that in KSP so I would go for the 1.8 geometry.

That is what I will do, one of the reasons Gemini is my favorite program is because of the slick, streamlined looks of the Titan-2 LV. In my eyes that would get ruined by a 2.5m body.

Instead of the quad RCS’s I would opt for the single ones, by the way. Again, much cleaner

[klesh]

1 minute ago, Kerbart said:

The tapered cone in the RL Gemini was there because there was a diameter mismatch between rocket and capsule. You don’t have that in KSP so I would go for the 1.8 geometry.

 

Ah, so indeed the capsule is too big then.  However, for ease of KSP lego style building, I can see why they would've just made it as they have.  Its too bad, I enjoy the look of the tapered service module.

I did a quick mock up with 2.5m parts and the new engines have nowhere near enough power for a 2.5m form factor.

 

Straight service module it is then.

[Kerbart]

7 minutes ago, klesh said:

Ah, so indeed the capsule is too big then.  However, for ease of KSP lego style building, I can see why they would've just made it as they have.  Its too bad, I enjoy the look of the tapered service module.

Yes... but technically it’s not the capsule where the problem is. It’s the Kerbals. I know that there are Gemini (and Soyuz!) mods where we have two Kerbals side by side in a 1.25m pod but it’s really stretching it. 

The total weight should be the same so for that 2.5m tanks wouldn’t cause the engines to be that much underpowered. But using the Titan-2 engine on a 2.5m tank would definitely look silly!