Bacon's Historical (and Alternate History) Space Program in RSS

[Chris P. Bacon]

The other day I threw together a short video of an (Apollo) RSS moon mission, and I thought it turned out pretty well. It's been a long time (several years) since I've done any video editing and I forgot how much I enjoy having that final product. I think I might start a series on various historical and cancelled spacecraft, with their missions recreated in RSS. (I've certainly got enough of the things built already )

Ares Mars Mission

The X-15

Constellation Mars Mission

Von Braun Mars Mission [1969] with the Mars Excursion Module

Venera 4V-1 - Soviet Venus lander

Edited March 18, 2015 by Chris P. Bacon

[Nicholander]

Awesome! But 2 things:

1. Why did you use that Futurama flag instead of the normal one? I'd prefer that you use the normal US flag.

2. Are you also planning to try and do the Soviet N1-L3?

[Chris P. Bacon]

1. because little green men are flying the spaceships

2. I'm working on rescaling Lack's SXT parts and adding realfuels for an N1, but its not really at the top of my list at the moment. I may try a 2-3 Proton Earth-Orbit-Rendezvous like a few Soviet proposals, or even the very kerbal looking UR-700, which was a heavy-lift variant of the Proton that was being designed along-side the N1. Probably the more realistic of the two designs, since it could actually be test fired and then rail transported to the launch site, whereas the N1 was test fired launch day, without hold-down clamps either.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Chris P. Bacon

[von Ziegendorf]

Coool!! I've read about von Braun's mission idea but couldn't really imagine it. Now I know what he meant Keep on flying!

[Chris P. Bacon]

It was pretty hard to scrape up any solid design info on the mission since congress axed the STS program (minus the Space Shuttle) before any solid designs were set. I ended up drawing some pretty heavy inspiration from this gallery on deviantart.

[von Ziegendorf]

You play with Realism Overhaul and Real Fuels? What kind of fuel you used for those NTRs?

[Chris P. Bacon]

Pure liquid hydrogen. It's why I could loft such a large stage to orbit, it hardly weighed anything for its size. And yeah, I run with every realism mod I can get my hands on.

[von Ziegendorf]

But what about boil-off during such long trip? Or that isn't implemented yet into RSS/RO?

[Chris P. Bacon]

Boil-off comes into play a bit, but I think it's only implemented on the procedural parts tanks. I was using a 10m Saturn S-II tank from FASA as the main tank, with some procedural parts ones on either end to stretch the stage in length. Either way it didn't noticeably decrease the dV by too much. I'd expect that when you're carrying a pretty hefty nuclear generator, you can afford the power to keep things in cryo, so I didn't let that realism issue bother me too much. NTR's with H2 propellant are proposed for most all of the Mars missions, so I'm sure its worked into the design considerations IRL as well.

[von Ziegendorf]

Well, I'm waiting for more flights

[WooDzor]

Subbed! awesome stuff Moar old school missions!!

[Nicholander]

I just found this thread again and I love both of those flights, both the Von Braun Mars expedition and the Nova direct ascent! (The "Blue Danube" in the Von Braun Mars expedition 500% better, by the way) Also, what are you going to do next? PLEASE do the Soviet N1-L3!

[Chris P. Bacon]

I've got ahold of some pretty comprehensive documentation and specs on the Constellation Mars mission, so I've been working my way though designing some hardware for it recently. It's got a two year gap between sending the Mars ascent vehicle and the crew vehicle to Mars (as it's got to start producing fuel for the return once it gets to the surface), so I might cave in and do an N1 mission in that time gap. I've been working on making some N1 launcher parts compatible with realfuels and RO, but rescaling, booting up ksp and testing stuff is slow work. Took me about 5 hours today just to get the Orion capsule scaled and working correct in RSS. I would just procedural-parts the N1, but I'm a stickler for getting these things to look just right in RSS, as well as performing to spec. Normally I'd stay away from something like the N1 because a lot of people already know a lot about it, and I'm more trying to showcase some missions that were lost to the history books.

That STS/Von Braun Mars mission is defiantly my crowning achievement thus far in KSP. The digging up research on the STS, construction, testing, watching the kraken shake things apart, reconstructing, and flying the mission with soul crushing parts lag was the sum total of about two weeks of work, putting in 3-5 hours each day. I wish I would've found out sooner that I still had room for the Component Space Shuttle with my other 140 mods, because it would've been nice to have it floating in the background of a few of the assembly shots. It was to be the crew transfer vehicle for the STS, and the fuel truck for the nerva shuttles (and ended up being the only surviving component of the Space Transportation System after it went through congressional approval).

Edited August 31, 2014 by Chris P. Bacon

[Chris P. Bacon]

Updated with the new Constellation video. (and here I thought the Von Braun mission was a tough build)

[Nicholander]

Not bad... Not bad indeed... In fact, I'd call it EXCELLENT! And yes, I've said it ∞ times, but are you going to do the N1-L3 next?

[Chris P. Bacon]

Yup, after these two giant mars missions that took about two weeks each, I'm going to be making some more moon missions. UR-700, N1-L3, and Orion-Altair are all at the top of my list. I've been holding off a bit on the N1 because I wanted the looks to be just right, but I think I'm ready to tackle it.

[Chris P. Bacon]

N1-L3 video is finished, and up on the main post.

[Nicholander]

YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you! Just THANK YOU! Awesome video, could you also list the mods you used and put up the craft file for it?

[Fox62]

Can we get a version of the Space Station Freedom? I would really like to see that.

[Chris P. Bacon]

... could you also list the mods you used and put up the craft file for it?

N1 and the Soyuz/LK are all by Bobcat, available here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81754-Release-BobCat-Ind-Space-Planet-products

I believe it comes with a craft file, but if not, its very simple to build, and really low on partcount.

I scaled it up to RSS scale and quickly fudged together a "close enough" cfg for the parts, but it's still a bit far from realism for me to feel comfortable sharing that RSS config.

This was a very rare build for me in that is was pretty much all a single mod. (the static objects are from Lack's KSC++ mod, and I placed some of them around Baikonur)

Can we get a version of the Space Station Freedom? I would really like to see that.

This is one I've been wanting to do for a long time (before I even started making videos), but I'm waiting to see if there's a good RSS config out there for the Component SpaceShuttle, or if I'll have to make one. I thought it'd be cool to make three videos, one for Freedom, Mir2 and the ISS, and show how the ISS was pretty much a half-breed of the leftover designs for the two stations after the cold war money ran out.

[Nicholander]

I think you should do Mir-2 first, and this Mir-2:

[Chris P. Bacon]

First unmanned video, the Soviet Venera lander. Gave me a reason to go to Venus for the first time!

[Nicholander]

Ah, awesome! But, are you going to do Mir-2 next? Or another unmanned probe? If you do Mir-2, PLEASE do the one which I put an image up before.

EDIT: Also, what is the mod that has those Venera spacecraft?

Edited September 20, 2014 by Nicholander

[Chris P. Bacon]

They're just made out of procedural parts and procedural fairings. Had to make a few custom textures for them, like the helical antenna on the lander.

The dish on the bus is from AIES and the solar panels are nearfuture.

The base of the lander is the KW-style procedural fairing base here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68892-0-23-StretchySRB-Texture-Pack-KW-Procedural-Fairings

The rocket is the OLDD Proton: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/76241-8K82K-aka-PROTON-%28OLDD-in-USSR%29-v-0-1?p=1085950#post1085950

[Nicholander]

Really hate to necro, but are you doing work on your next RSS cool thing? I really liked these!