[1.0.5] TAC Life Support v0.11.2.1 [12Dec]

[diomedea]

@ Patupi:

Yes, black-out came out as I was mainly thinking at g-stress (you may guess, I like flight sims too). More on that, I have a vague idea (of which I made a post for suggestions to Squad) about fitness and training of Kerbonauts, therefore stress endurance would be increased if properly trained, but on the reverse fitness decreases while Jeb and Co. remain inactive while aboard a ship for some time. And the above "fitness" parameter may easily accommodate for rehabilitation after hibernation (or even after an illness).

[freakingtree]

I really love the idea of the hibernation/cryo, coldsleep or whatever u wanna call it. Im actualy tryin to make a mod to do just that atm....buut its not goin very well so far so if it comes out for this mod then sweet!.

[DomDiaemus]

Is there a chance of adding small support units items so that they can fit a small lander? Existing "small" items seem somewhat a bit oversize. Thanks

[15nelsoc]

Can modular fuel tanks be utilized with this? My thought is use a stretchy tank with compartments for the food, waste, water, wastewater and so forth rather than have a bunch of different parts.

If someone has already made MFT cfgs for these resources would you care to share?

Here's a link for the config I use (modified from Nathankell's original):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fneao416tcr6qfk/TAC_LS.cfg

Edited November 26, 2013 by 15nelsoc
Credit where credit is due.

[NathanKell]

Is that mine? Was it for Kerbin-days or regular days? I have both.

[15nelsoc]

Is that mine? Was it for Kerbin-days or regular days? I have both.

I hate to double post, but just to make it clear, that is a modified version of NathanKell's config in my post two up from this one. I removed the utilization percentage from oxygen, so that I could get equal amounts of all three resources easily, the resource names have been changed to their new names, and I personally use it for Kerbin-days.

[NathanKell]

Sounds good!

[ShimmyTheJJ]

Semi-serious question here. How easy would it be for us/me to add another custom resource to this mod that is required for Kerbals to survive. For example coffee or caffeine? If not a new resource, then renaming another resource to that. This is purely for theatrical and comedic purposes.

[TaranisElsu]

Semi-serious question here. How easy would it be for us/me to add another custom resource to this mod that is required for Kerbals to survive. For example coffee or caffeine? If not a new resource, then renaming another resource to that. This is purely for theatrical and comedic purposes.

Shimmy,

Adding another resource requires a code change.

Renaming a resource requires edits to the following files:

{KSP}/GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport/PluginData/TacLifeSupport/LifeSupport.cfg

(created after running KSP with the mod installed)

{KSP}/GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport/TacResources.cfg

{KSP}/GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport/StockPartChanges.cfg

and config files for any parts that hold the resource.

Hope that helps!

[JeffreyCor]

Really like this mod a lot, great work on it! The easy customizing feature is a huge bonus. Well done!

[eggrobin]

I wanted to make an electrolyser TacGenericConverter, and I found some interesting numbers.

A standard kerbal (unmodified TACLS) consumes in one 24h day (rounded to 3 significant figures) :

1.79 kg of water (this is slightly less than half the daily recommended intake of adult human males), 316 g of food, 429 g of oxygen (that's 322 l at 20 °C, 1 atm, a bit more than half a human adult).

That same kerbal produces during the same time:

1.98 kg of waste water (more than the water intake, but some of this comes from the food), 56.2 g of dry solid waste, 511 g of carbon dioxide (it follows that the kerbal's respiratory exchange ratio is on average 0.866, which makes sense).

We shall now assume 1 kJ = 1 ElectricCharge, which seems to have become the consensus, e.g. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54327-Realism-Overhaul?p=731978&viewfull=1#post731978.

The average power consumption by the ISS water recovery system is (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20060047781_2006249861.pdf) 560 W. However, if we do not average over time, the consumption when in use seems to be 700 W (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332000/).

Using the figures from this last article, the ISS produces 1.5 gallons of water (5.68 l, or 3.46 kerbal * days) in one hour, using 2520 kJ in the process.

It follows that the ISS WRS is 1.53 times more energy efficient than the TACLS WaterPurifier, and that 11.5 of the latter would be needed in order to replicate the functionality of the former. The apparatus would be more massive by a factor of 6.55, but everything is made of solid platinum in KSP. The 90% efficiency is alright, since they plan on 94% for the EWRS and the current systems are around 80%.

Regarding CO2 reprocessing, we first need to consider that the ISS produces oxygen by electrolysis and vents carbon dioxide (these calculations will come in handy for CO2 reprocessing anyway, as both the Sabatier and the Bosch processes convert CO2 and H2 to water, which you still need to separate).

Using the numbers found at http://www.jamesoberg.com/elektron2_tec.html, one comes to the following specifications for an electrolyser that replicates the functionality of Elektron scaled to 3 kerbals (this is actually slightly less efficient). There is some mass loss representing the vented hydrogen. if we want to keep it for use in a Sabatier or Bosch reactor (or more boosters ), this process produces 81.0789 g of hydrogen (that's about a litre if it's liquid, or 0.9 m^3 at atmospheric pressure) :

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Electrolyser
	conversionRate = 1
	inputResources = Water, 1, ElectricCharge, 51776
	outputResources = Oxygen, 3.7215675, false, Hydrogen, 7.443135, true
}

All units are kerbal*days, that is, the electrolyser consumes a kerbal*day of water to produce 3.72 kerbal*days of oxygen, and does so in a day. The energy consumption is about 0.6 kW. Specifications for the Sabatier and Bosch reactors later, I need some sleep.

Edited November 29, 2013 by eggrobin
Added Hydrogen.

[15nelsoc]

NathanKell sent me the config file he made for TAC LS here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/krr60w1nuyc1lgp/TAC_LS_MFS.cfg

If your redistribute it at some point just be sure to give NathanKell credit.

[seanth]

I am cross-posting my response here so that others can see it (https://github.com/taraniselsu/TacLifeSupport/issues/5):

Keep in mind that I set everything up so that Kerbals consume one "unit" of each resource per day, but each unit is a different amount (mass and volume). One unit of oxygen is 0.429 kg and 1.490 liters. One unit of water is 1.798 kg and 1.798 liters.

Most of my math and references can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aioc9ek3XAvwdGNsRlh3OVhlbTFBR3M4RW0zLUNTRFE&usp=sharing

I have been playing with changing values in the LifeSupport.cfg and am seeing things I don't understand. If I set FoodConsumptionRate to 0.3125 and DefaultResourceAmount to 86400 (so 0.3125units/day), and make a test vehicle of just a 4k battery and a mk1 pod, it claims I have a total amount of food in the pod of 0.3125 units. The StockPartChanges.cfg should be setting the pod's amount of Food to 1.0.

Am I misunderstanding the FoodConsumptionRate setting? I expected the total amount of Food in the mk1 pod to be 1.0, and after 24 hrs it would be 0.6875 units.

Halp?

[Nolnoc]

Following regex's resource textures, I made some replacement textures for the CO2 scrubber and the water reclaimer.

Downloads:

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Kerbal%20Textures

[TaranisElsu]

Is there a chance of adding small support units items so that they can fit a small lander? Existing "small" items seem somewhat a bit oversize. Thanks

May I ask which parts you are using? I would like to get an idea of how big your lander is. Also, you can add the resources to any part that you want.

Following regex's resource textures, I made some replacement textures for the CO2 scrubber and the water reclaimer.

Downloads:

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Kerbal%20Textures

Your download link does not seem to work.

I have been playing with changing values in the LifeSupport.cfg and am seeing things I don't understand. If I set FoodConsumptionRate to 0.3125 and DefaultResourceAmount to 86400 (so 0.3125units/day), and make a test vehicle of just a 4k battery and a mk1 pod, it claims I have a total amount of food in the pod of 0.3125 units. The StockPartChanges.cfg should be setting the pod's amount of Food to 1.0.

Am I misunderstanding the FoodConsumptionRate setting? I expected the total amount of Food in the mk1 pod to be 1.0, and after 24 hrs it would be 0.6875 units.

Halp?

It sounds like you are doing it right. Do you have the Module Manager (v1.5) (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55219) ? I forgot that I still have not included that in the download. Download the DLL and put it in the {KSP}/GameData directory. If you do have it, would you upload your log file from {KSP}/KSP_Data/output_log.txt?

@eggrobin,

Looks like you have done a lot more research on that aspect of the converters. I have to admit that my ElectricCharge consumption rates and efficiency values are arbitrary right now. I did obey Conservation of Mass, but not Conservation of Energy yet. Do you mind if I use some of your numbers?

[eggrobin]

@eggrobin,

Looks like you have done a lot more research on that aspect of the converters. I have to admit that my ElectricCharge consumption rates and efficiency values are arbitrary right now. I did obey Conservation of Mass, but not Conservation of Energy yet. Do you mind if I use some of your numbers?

I certainly would not mind if you used some of my numbers.

Given that all foreseeable processes for CO2 reprocessing convert it and H2 to water + something else, the current CO2 -> O2 + waste converter is probably an abstraction a Bosch reactor (CO2 + 2H2 --> C(solid waste) + 2H2O) coupled with an electrolyser (2H2O --> O2 + 2H2), yielding a net CO2 --> C(solid waste) + O2.

While the Bosch reaction is exothermic, the required compressors/heaters and controls mean you need to supply quite a bit of power to manage it. This 1971 paper mentions 950 W to sustain four (human) crewmembers. Moreover, we have to include the power requirements from the electrolyser (about 1 kW for four humans). I will investigate more recent papers.

A seemingly more practical (in terms of the requisite pressures and temperatures) reaction is the Sabatier reaction (CO2 + 4H2 --> CH4 + 2H2O). This requires a supply of hydrogen, but hydrogen is light enough, and it produces methane as waste.

As these two reactions give H2 an essential life support role, I think it is worth considering modeling it. This will also allow for life support systems based on of 2H2 + O2 cells, which were historically used in Apollo and STS for both water and power.

I will now try to find specifications for Bosch and Sabatier Reactors, as well as for fuel cells.

I have not found any instances where LOX/LH2 used for propulsion was also used in fuel cells or life support systems, so I think it is safe to base my calculations on a Hydrogen resource separate from the MFS LiquidHydrogen.

For ease of computation, I shall use 1 unit of Hydrogen to represent as many molecules of hydrogen as there are molecules of oxygen in 1 unit of Oxygen (1 kerbal * day), namely 13.4067 mol. This means 2 units of Hydrogen will nicely react with 1 unit of Oxygen in a fuel cell to form 0.268764 units of Water.

RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
   name = Hydrogen
   density = 0.0000270274
   flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
   transfer = PUMP
}

It might be wise to call it LifeSupportHydrogen to avoid conflict with other mods (and general confusion), though this does not seem to have been necessary for Oxygen.

Edited November 29, 2013 by eggrobin
Changed density ever so slightly.

[larsmaehlum]

A 2H2O system would be really cool, but using human numbers might be a bit weird as the Kerbals are quite a bit smaller and should use less Oxygen imho.

[Saphykitten]

Since you changed it from TAC_Water, TAC_Oxygen, ect, Talisars tanks and such doesn't work for them anymore! The values need to be changed to match the new resource names. Any chance we can get this in motion?

[TaranisElsu]

Since you changed it from TAC_Water, TAC_Oxygen, ect, Talisars tanks and such doesn't work for them anymore! The values need to be changed to match the new resource names. Any chance we can get this in motion?

While waiting for an official update, it is an easy fix that you can do yourself. Find the parts' .cfg files, and in the RESOURCE {} sections, take the "_TAC" off the names.

[diomedea]

For some reason, in VAB/SPH the description text associated with every manned command module includes twice this text: "Equipped with the Thunder Aerospace Corporation (TAC) Life Support System". No apparent duplication of LS goods values.

Would like to know where/how to amend the above text.

[eggrobin]

using human numbers might be a bit weird as the Kerbals are quite a bit smaller and should use less Oxygen

They already do (they are modeled as half a human). The specifications I am computing take this into account: the electrolyser above supplies a bit more than 3 kerbals, while Elektron supplies a bit more 3 humans.

Using the SM2A-03-Block II-(1) Apollo Operations Handbook, page 2.6-19/2.6-20, as a reference (H2O produced at a rate of 2.297E-2 lb/(A*h), voltage 29 V), producing one TACLS unit of Water yields 18014 kJ (18014 ElectricCharge), so if we want to supply one kerbal with water, we will produce 208 W = 0.208 ElectricCharge/s. Compare with the OX-STAT panel's 750 W under normal Kerbol exposure at Kerbin, or with the Mk-1 Pod's life support consumption of 41.6 W. This seems reasonable.

This yields the following spec for a 1-kerbal fuel cell,

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Fuel Cell
	conversionRate = 1
	inputResources = Oxygen, 3.7215675, Hydrogen, 7.443135
	outputResources = Water, 1, false, ElectricCharge, 18014, true
}

or the following for a 3-kerbal fuel cell.

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Fuel Cell
	conversionRate = 3
	inputResources = Oxygen, 3.7215675, Hydrogen, 7.443135
	outputResources = Water, 1, false, ElectricCharge, 18014, true
}

Using the same Hydrogen resource, we can also update the spec of the electrolyser---also, new numbers based on computations with a ridiculous number of significant figures. I changed the density of Hydrogen very slightly. These numbers conserve mass well enough (the error is 1E-7):

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Electrolyser
	conversionRate = 1
	inputResources = Water, 1, ElectricCharge, 51776
	outputResources = Oxygen, 3.7215675, false, Hydrogen, 7.443135, true
}

RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
   name = Hydrogen
   density = 0.0000270274
   flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
   transfer = PUMP
}

Next up: Sabatier and Bosch!

A remark concerning the power consumption of the pod (41.6 W for the Mk I): It seems okay. the Orlan spacesuit consumes a maximum of 54 W, but it's a spacesuit. We can handwave that a human spacesuit has the same volume/heat losses as a 1-kerbal pod. This also appears to work gameplay-wise.

The 2.31 W consumption on EVA seems very low though. This means you can survive with 18 times less power by staying outside the pod (and resupplying every 12 h)...

Edited November 30, 2013 by eggrobin
750 W, not 750 kW...

[TaranisElsu]

For some reason, in VAB/SPH the description text associated with every manned command module includes twice this text: "Equipped with the Thunder Aerospace Corporation (TAC) Life Support System". No apparent duplication of LS goods values.

Would like to know where/how to amend the above text.

Two causes immediately pop into mind (that are easy to check):

(1) You have two version of my mod installed. Is there both a {KSP}/GameData/TacLifeSupport directory and a {KSP}/GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport directory?

(2) You have two copies of the ModuleManager DLL installed. This mod requires Module Manager version 1.5 or later. But make sure that you only have one copy (other mods use that too).

Beyond those two, I would need to see the log file found at {KSP}/KSP_Data/output_log.txt. Do any of the resources show up twice? Does the description text show twice on every command pod, even those from other mods? What other mods do you have installed?

I hope that helps!

[seanth]

It sounds like you are doing it right. Do you have the Module Manager (v1.5) (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55219) ? I forgot that I still have not included that in the download. Download the DLL and put it in the {KSP}/GameData directory.

I retested things with Module Manager installed and things work as expected, now. Thanks.

[diomedea]

@ TaranisElsu: thanks. Could not find duplicates as in (1) or (2).

Below is my "output_log.txt":

https://www.dropbox.com/s/frjhth6959n545r/output_log.txt

The double description appears in all manned command pods, but the PPD-12 cupola (just one as should be). No manned command pod from other mods.

About the list of mods (in no particular order):

- Mechjeb

- VOID

- KER

- FAR

- Kethane

- L Tech

- Editor Extensions

- Achievements

- KSPX

- Boat Parts (R3-R4)

- Texture Compressor

- TC systems

- Actions on the fly 1.1.1.

- Deadly Reentry v4

- MultipleSaves

- SteamGauges

- PreciseNode

- Kerbal Alarm Clock

- Procedural Fairings

- Procedural Wings

- Radial Experiment Storage Container

- Science Defs

- Kerbal Dust Experiment

- Hull Camera VDS

- Haystack

- ISA MapSat

- SCANSAT

- TAC Life Support (of course)

- KSP Interstellar

- KSP Story Missions

- RT2

- Protractor

- Enhanced Navball

- Docking Navball

- Mk2 cockpit internals

- KAS

- LaunchCountDown

- Kerbin Town

- Kerbin City

- Chatterer

[eggrobin]

A 1-kerbal Sabatier CO2 reprocessing unit (source: http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/40487/1/04-3358.pdf).

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Sabatier Reactor
	conversionRate = 1
	inputResources = CarbonDioxide, 1, Hydrogen, 3.4623213297201505,  ElectricCharge, 300
	outputResources = Water, 0.23258488055756316, false, Waste, 3.313853064479525, true
}

The main problem for the Bosch reactor seems to be that the catalyst is fouled by the graphite deposit. Apparently, newer catalysts solve this. This paper does not mention power consumption, but the operating temperatures seem to be similar. I just reused the characteristics from the 1971 prototype, assuming they can be replicated with non-expendable catalysts.

A 1-kerbal unit:

MODULE
{
	name = TacGenericConverter
	converterName = Bosch Reactor
	conversionRate = 1
	inputResources = CarbonDioxide, 1, Hydrogen, 1.7311606648600752,  ElectricCharge, 9959
	outputResources = Water, 0.23258488055756316, false, Waste, 2.481022167311451, true
}

Edited November 30, 2013 by eggrobin
added Bosch.