[1.0.5] FASA 5.44

[Kerbal01]

Are those white boosters new?

[frizzank]

They are the Titan IIIc boosters, I tweaked their model, texture and added nosecones in the last update. But the boosters have been in there since the beginning though.

Edited September 1, 2013 by frizzank

[RoboRay]

The wing module looks nice. How much lift are you getting? It shouldn't be enough for real flight, I know, just enough for a controlled steep gliding descent. Mainly wondering what kind of sink rate you had at minimum controllable speed.

[frizzank]

Well KSP flight dynamics are not the greatest but I did the best I could. Its a little on the unrealistic side right now, I didn't want it to be honorably difficult to fly. The real one was scraped for the same partly because it was so hard to control. Right now you have to keep 25 degrees down angle to maintain 80m/s airspeed, it feels pretty good but I am going to tweak it some more.

[NathanKell]

That looks epic!

A request, if I might: can you separate the two Mercury nose caps like you did for Gemini? So we have a small RCS pod (as Mercury has, like Gemini), then the main chute, then the decoupling cap?

[RoboRay]

Right now you have to keep 25 degrees down angle to maintain 80m/s airspeed, it feels pretty good but I am going to tweak it some more.

That sounds fairly reasonable, from the limited lifting area available. KSP being a game and all, erring on the side of "slightly unrealistic but usable" is probably better than erring on the side of "very realistic but unusable."

[frizzank]

Im going out of town for 2 weeks but before I go I thought I would upload winged gemini up to spaceport. Im sure it has loads of bugs in it but I will work on it when I get back, enjoy!

Spaceport Link

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/gemini-and-mercury-frizzank-aeronautical-space-administration-fasa/

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[CERVERUS]

Thanks frizzank!

[frizzank]

No problem, post if there is any bugs or problems...

[wasmic]

The winged Gemini looks great. Oh, and you haven't updated the changelog, neither for the NUKES!!! or the WINGS!!!

[CaptainKipard]

I'm afraid after all of that ego stroking I'm going to have to be constructive. Please optimise your mesh. I can see dozens of unnecessary triangles especially on those short tanks. Frankly I'm amazed that someone with this much talent would do something so noobish. Unless I'm missing something. They're cones and cylinders. Why on earth are they cut up like that?

[wasmic]

The winged Gemini is quite hard to land. I tried landing it at 40 m/s, but it started tilting from side to side, and in the end, it tilted over and the wings, due to being made of explodium, blew up. The capsule survived, though. Might it be because I landed with brakes on? Or because I used "only" three landing wheels?

[frizzank]

The winged Gemini is quite hard to land. I tried landing it at 40 m/s' date=' but it started tilting from side to side, and in the end, it tilted over and the wings, due to being made of explodium, blew up. The capsule survived, though. Might it be because I landed with brakes on? Or because I used "only" three landing wheels? [/quote']

Your going to need to maintain 80m/s and 20 to 25 degrees down angle until you get right up to the runway then flair up. It is a capsule with a wing on it so its not going to fly like a fighter.

I'm afraid after all of that ego stroking I'm going to have to be constructive. Please optimize your mesh. I can see dozens of unnecessary triangles especially on those short tanks. Frankly I'm amazed that someone with this much talent would do something so noobish. Unless I'm missing something. They're cones and cylinders. Why on earth are they cut up like that?

Thank you for your comment, if I have more time I will see if I can trim it down some.

For me its all about skirting the delicate balance between detail of the mesh, working time and optimizations. Me, I like for round things to look round hence most of the "Extra Triangles". I am not claiming that my meshes are perfect or completely optimized, but I have a limited amount of time and I must make decisions accordingly. I do the best I can in the very short amount of time I have and I stand behind my decisions.

Edited September 6, 2013 by frizzank

[gizer20]

I'm trying to download the fasa pack from spaceport but seems corrupted, anyone have a mirror link?

[TonUpBoy]

Did someone have the old Craft-files of the previous versions? Did they work? Will they be parts of further updates again?

[NathanKell]

frizzank, can't believe I didn't notice this before, but...what you have named Centaur is actually the Titan Transtage, not the Centaur. It's hypergolic, not hydrolox, and much much shorter than the Centaur. (And has those two telltale bulges.)

TonUpBoy, which craft files do you need?

[Kerbal01]

There should still be craft files in the DL,maybe yours is corrupted.

[CaptRobau]

Kudos for yet another awesome release frizzank. Didn't think it'd work (as non-stock spaceplanes generally don't do), but I actually managed to land it from a 100 km orbit into some field... in the dark.

Edited September 15, 2013 by CaptRobau

[TonUpBoy]

@NathanKell

I need the Gemini Lander/Centaur craft file and the Gemini with the landing gears attached (Gemini craft as a lander like in the movie Countdown). Thx.

@DarthVader

No my download isn't corrupted.

These specific files are gone since the last two updates.

Edited September 16, 2013 by TonUpBoy

[frizzank]

frizzank' date=' can't believe I didn't notice this before, but...what you have named Centaur is actually the Titan Transtage, not the Centaur. It's hypergolic, not hydrolox, and much much shorter than the Centaur. (And has those two telltale bulges.)[/quote']

I thought a Transtage was just a generic name for that stage in a rocket. I just called it Centaur cause it sounded cool.

@NathanKell

I need the Gemini Lander/Centaur craft file and the Gemini with the landing gears attached (Gemini craft as a lander like in the movie Countdown). Thx.

@DarthVader

No my download isn't corrupted.

These specific files are gone since the last two updates.

I had to re-do all the ships since I updated everything. If someone wants to make a really cool Gemini/Centaur lander that works well for mun missions I will include it in the next update.

[NathanKell]

It's...both. That's why it's confusing. AND to top it off, there _were_ plans to use both stages for Lunar Gemini missions!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_%28rocket_stage%29

You can see how the Centaur is basically one giant LH2 tank, with a bitty LOX tank at the top, and two RL10s, whereas the Transtage has a built-in fairing around the two long-and-narrow tanks for the hypergolic fuels.

It looks like Gemini-era Centaurs were finished in polished aluminum, (to better reflect heat away from the cyrogenic propellants?) and kept in fairings. Modern Centaurs have the foam insulation characteristic of, i.e., the Shuttle External Tank.

You might want to look at http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemntaur.htm for pics of how Gemini would mate to Centaur.

Sorry if that's TMI...

[Tiberion]

Not sure there could but too much information on this subject. That's pretty cool. Interesting that NASA tapped the breaks a little on the moonshot. Also interesting that they had a multi-launcher mission mapped out, but went with a single enormous Saturn launcher anyway.

[NathanKell]

Astronautix, from what I've read, well, whoever is writing the articles really has it in for NASA's Apollo-era choices. For example, read the entry on Apollo D2. Elsewhere I've read it estimated that Lunar Gemini costs and time would have bloated at least as much as Apollo, which is a good part of why they didn't go for it. (Of course, empire-building and turf wars, as the article says, is part of it too, don't want to pretend it's not.)

Hell, they originally were going to do EOR without LOR, which meant TWO Saturn V launches! (IIRC.) But LOR meant they could squeeze it all in one.

What's really interesting is EOR-LOR, or LOR-LOR. Now that's Moon on the cheap! You could swing that with two uprated Titans, I think, especially if you went the Soyuz route of separate orbital hab to cut down on CSM mass. Maybe four, if you had to do LOR-LOR with a newPollo-Centaur and newLEM-Centaur.

[LameLefty]

Astronautix is good but, well, the author's info is often incomplete or not very well-sourced, and often the descriptions editorialize based on some questionable data. If you have access to a usenet archive (does Google Groups still exist?) check out posts from the old sci.space.history group. Some of the regulars in that group REALLY knew their stuff; heck some of them were the engineers and program managers who worked Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, ASTP, and Shuttle. A lot of others had archived all the old NTRS (NASA Technical Reference Service) documents on every obscure space program or proposal ever made, pretty much.

In the modern, post-Usenet era, the next best thing is the forum here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=25.0

Some of the old sci.space regulars have turned up there, and there quality of information is very, very good.

[frizzank]

Big G, Still in progress...

I took a lot of artistic license with this. I am sure someone will rant how its not exactly as it was in the designs, but they never actually made the thing. So I can say something happened in Kerbal fiction before they produced it, and that's why it looks different.

It has an extendable docking tube, batteries, some mono fuel, and an SAS module. Carries 6 additional Kerbals.

I really wish KSP tools had cube maps. It would really help the foil look better....

Javascript is disabled. View full album