Kerbal Cup: Team COM Goes to Mars!

[NathanKell]

As you will have seen from the Kerbin Cup thread, the new challenges are out! Team Crotchety Old Modders, your forum champs and Standard Bearer in the final battle against Reddit, is going to Mars, NASA-style! And yes, you read that right. Mars. Not Duna.

We're doing it full real: real (or proposed) NASA hardware from the 60s and 70s. A realistic alternate history as to why. And the full suite of realism mods. The challenge says to use hardware inspired by the Integrated Program Plan. So to start things off, here are some relevant links.

Von Braun's 1969 Mars plan for the IPP

A "Maximum Rate Traffic Model" of the IPP in cislunar space

And by googling I found this: Apparently something was done in stock KSP...

Note that our plan may vary somewhat...you'll have to stay tuned to find out!

Entry posted.

Edited August 3, 2014 by NathanKell

[NathanKell]

Team Crotchety Old Modders is:

ferram4

Majiir

NathanKell

r4m0n

[ferram4]

Reserving for pics and stuffs.

[BadRocketsCo.]

Go modders! Knowing you guys, you should be able to solve the challenge blindfolded!

[Streetwind]

Oh fun for Nathan, he gets to play with his own mods! And Reddit apparently forgot to stipulate that he may not release any convenient updates during the coming week... I can only imagine the Mister Burns impression that must have happened.

Well then, guys. Go and teach NASA how it's done!

Edited July 24, 2014 by Streetwind

[tygoo7]

Go forum! This challenge looks very interesting. And your team has all the realism guys especially Nathan! You guys can win this!

[Tw1]

Finally! A thread! We missed you in the earlier round banter. It's a little late for that now, so:

You have The Force of The Forum behind you!

(And you guys can even fix the mod if it breaks...)

Edited July 24, 2014 by Tw1

[Heagar]

A very ambitious and interesting project.

When i wish all that "realisim", i would use "Orbiter" instead (uses a three body problem instead of only one, solar winds, original texture of planets/moons etc.), but with that you could not build spaceships as in KSP, of course.

Aah, i almost forgot:

In case you need a quick overview of informations on studys of the NASA regarding a mission to mars, please take a look at this site. In the linked thread there are the most proposals listed, witch have ever existed. You will find there also (in an different section) informations for other hardware (e.g. rockets).

Personally i believe, that a mission to the mars will be international (NASA, ESA, russia, japanese, maybe chinese too), because no single space administration have the funds to carry it out alone.

[GusTurbo]

As you will have seen from the Kerbin Cup thread, the new challenges are out! Team Crotchety Old Modders, your forum champs and Standard Bearer in the final battle against Reddit, is going to Mars, NASA-style! And yes, you read that right. Mars. Not Duna.

We're doing it full real: real (or proposed) NASA hardware from the 60s and 70s. A realistic alternate history as to why. And the full suite of realism mods. The challenge says to use hardware inspired by the Integrated Program Plan. So to start things off, here are some relevant links.

Von Braun's 1969 Mars plan for the IPP

A "Maximum Rate Traffic Model" of the IPP in cislunar space

And by googling I found this: Apparently something was done in stock KSP...

Note that our plan may vary somewhat...you'll have to stay tuned to find out!

So hyped for this!

[ManaaniWanderer]

Good luck modders!

[The Jedi Master]

Use the Force, modders! Trust me!

[ferram4]

So given that the hype thread should have hype rather than be dead (and filled with Team Jedi congratulating us and adding more pics than we have) I'll post what I've been working on:

So long story short, this is a different timeline than our own, where rather than going for Lunar Orbit Rendezvous or even Earth Orbit Rendezvous, the American moon landing was a direct ascent on a mammoth rocket design, essentially based on the Saturn C-8 design study, but instead of an S-IVB for an upper stage it uses a stretched SLS stage B. The original SLS stage B; the original Space Launching System was a USAF project using high-thrust SRMs and a large LH2 + LOX core to put relatively large payloads into space.

Anyway, enough rambling, here's what we've got so far, and what we're going to have to uprate heavily to make it to Mars:

I guess it makes sense to call it the Saturn VIII, considering that it's based off of the C-8 design and has 8 F-1s on the 1st stage and 8 J-2s on the 2nd stage as opposed to 5 for the Saturn V.

You should compare the size of the exhausts in the first 4 pictures. It's awesome, isn't it?

If you can believe it, this is still too small compared to the real thing.

It kind of just expands too fast for a coherent flame to appear. Also, note the lack of clouds to decrease loading times.

Note that this is from a different launch. Many test launches were made refining the design. Also note clever use of procedural parts to put the tank on the bottom.

This leaves the SLS B stage to do the final push into orbit and make the TLI burn. Note the roll markings painted on the stage for earlier in the ascent and the spherical tanks near the bottom of the stage for storing helium for pressurization.

It's much larger than our Apollo spacecraft; keep in mind that that's an Apollo CSM at the top.

This is an interesting design, using a pair of LH2 + LOX -powered RL-10As for course corrections, LOI and for beginning the initial descent. It's got much higher Isp than the engines that were used for this in our timeline (compare 444s to 311s), but there's boiloff that requires starting the landing soon after reaching the moon. Basically, you start the descent with this stage, and then switch to...

...this guy, which has 4 Lunar Module Descent Engines (though they should probably be called something else in that timeline) for making the final descent and landing. It's a much taller vehicle than the LEM was, so landing site choice is crucial. When you're done, you ascend...

...using the Apollo SPS and a few small SRMs to get the CSM going. The logic behind using the SRMs is to give an option for landing abort as well as ensuring that the SPS can be ignited away from the lower stage. Dumping hot, high pressure exhaust onto tanks that may still have some hypergolic fuel in them might result in a descent stage tank rupturing and causing an explosion, so it's a (probably not completely necessary) safety precaution. As it turns out, a nearly full CSM has enough dV to ascend from the moon and return to Earth.

Now, you're probably wondering, why so much thought into the background and the design? Well, fleshing that out helps us figure out exactly where to go in designing the Mars lander and the LVs to get them there. It also provides us with a more-powerful-than-a-Saturn V rocket to begin the designing with, although (as you will likely see later) it has its own design issues.

Edited July 31, 2014 by ferram4

[The Jedi Master]

That's awesome. It's huge!

[Thomas988]

Jeez! That's one insane rocket! Good luck, and may the forums win!

[tygoo7]

Holy crap that is massive! Looking to forward to see you guys on Mars. Good luck!

EDIT: Wait a second, there's a mod to add expanding exhaust or is that just an edit with HotRockets?

Edited July 30, 2014 by tygoo7

[NathanKell]

Another teaser:

November 1965: DynaSoar 3 roars into the heavens on a pillar of flame. After the UA1204 solids were crew-rated on prior SLS A-42 flights, and

for the spacecraft and

, DynaSoar 3 carried Col. James Wood into orbit aboard the fifth* type of spacecraft to carry a human being into space (

).

*that number would be retroactively changed to sixth once X-15 flights were counted.

T+20, Pitch program initiated

SLS A core separation, revealing the Vega upper stage / orbital maneuvering system for DynaSoar. It is a less risky variant of Centaur, featuring rigid tanks and a single RL-10. When SLS was selected over Titan derivatives as the DynaSoar launch vehicle, Vega (borrowing the name from a canceled NASA upper stage project) was selected both as the upper stage for DynaSoar and for NASA missions that did not call for a full Centaur.

Edited July 31, 2014 by NathanKell

[Thomas988]

Agh! I can't handle all this cool! The forum is going to Mars!

[The Jedi Master]

What is that little orange dot... OH WAIT THAT'S THE ORANGE TANK.

[Tw1]

Looks pretty close to the real ones so far.

It is that something specific to those engines that makes the flame expand? I don't recall it being part of HotRockets..

[ferram4]

I've been messing with SmokeScreen's settings trying to get those effects to work well, because I for one think that rocket exhaust should expand from "moderately concerning jet of supersonic fire" to "gigantic and somewhat terrifying plume of gas that is larger than the rocket it's coming from," not just because it's realistic, but because it's cool.

[Streetwind]

I must admit, I am incredibly amused by how much that Saturn VIII looks like a sibling of the Russian N-1...

[Rune]

I've been messing with SmokeScreen's settings trying to get those effects to work well, because I for one think that rocket exhaust should expand from "moderately concerning jet of supersonic fire" to "gigantic and somewhat terrifying plume of gas that is larger than the rocket it's coming from," not just because it's realistic, but because it's cool.

That should, indeed, totally happen at some point. And the invisible exhaust in space, of course, so you savour lighting them in the atmosphere. Not to mention a proper code rework so it is thrust what varies with isp and atmospheric density, and not fuel consumption.

Rune. That last one bugs me a lot, personally.

[NathanKell]

Rune: Get KIDS or RF. We both fix that.

Also, as you can tell, you're not getting IPP as it was. The point of divergence is in the 1950s. But I doubt Tom Paine (assuming he's even tapped) would complain, given we're going for an EOR C-8 architecture for Mars...actually, basically a combo of Von Braun 69 and LESA.

[NathanKell]

Well, after a somewhat late submission (sorry!) the entries are both officially posted by Rowsdower. The link is in the Cup thread, and also in the OP here.

Rune: we did, in fact, do something like Von Braun's '69 plan, except we expanded on it even further, and used storables for all post-TMI propulsion. For that reason all hardware but the ERV is expended.