trooperist
Cinnamon Roll AI
After some digging it seems it for appeared in Q1 1955. So to keep Korolev happy we need a crewed space flight by Q1 1960.
Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)
- Thread starter Shadows
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Budget: Microchips, Jetplanes, and the Weather Channel
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
[X] Plan: Doing the most with the least
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
- Location
- The great frozen north
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
[X] Plan: Disaster Prevention
As for the launch pads around the globe debate, I see lots of reasons not to have them: No actual reason for it (as far as I can tell); increases our future costs for no material benefit; invalidates infrastructure we've poured into the existing launch complex; job creation over organizational mission; waste of better spent resources; etc.
What are the reasons we should build them, other than for political support?
It's not like we need an equatorial site and we have yet to need to launch retrograde. We also don't need the PS right now.
Any chance you can put the deadline on this somewhere on the next update @Shadows ?
As for the launch pads around the globe debate, I see lots of reasons not to have them: No actual reason for it (as far as I can tell); increases our future costs for no material benefit; invalidates infrastructure we've poured into the existing launch complex; job creation over organizational mission; waste of better spent resources; etc.
What are the reasons we should build them, other than for political support?
It's not like we need an equatorial site and we have yet to need to launch retrograde. We also don't need the PS right now.
Last edited:
We need to build a larger pad as-is, so no matter what, we're spending money on new facilities. Singapore (as well as New Guinea, if we end up going that way, although less so) is advantageous because it allows for easy downrange recovery. My personal goal is to develop a rocket with limited reuse within a decade sinec we have very different pressures from real life (IRL, the effort went to "make an expendable ICBM and then convert it to a launcher" until fairly late). This would be setting us up for that as an option. I also see the two complexes as filling a different long-term role, with Mogadishu being more interested in development or "bespoke" launches and has the required infrastructure, whereas the other facility does the exact same launch over and over again assembly line style and is optimized for streamlined operations.
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
I don't really follow your logic. It seems more like you're making the reasons fit to justify the project rather than the project actually having these benefits.
Sure, we need a new pad, but it doesn't make much sense to build the new pad we need for our new experimental launches (and every other launch in the future) away from our existing Mission Control. We will still need a new pad in Mogadishu.
As for downrange recovery, I'm assuming you're referring to boosters landing on islands down range. It's a decent idea, I'll give you that, but it's nothing an oil rig can't solve. Though I'd debate that we have the computing power for it. We have IRL knowledge that limited reuse is possible for splashdowns. When we get to the point where there is enough compute power to land boosters, well, oil rig.
I guess I also find the idea of a rapid cadence launchpad in the South Pacific a little absurd. Weather, geology, and distance are all working way against the idea. Not to mention ecological damage.
I can certainly see building it as the experimental facility, but that presents its own ecological issues.
The real question to ask is "what benefits does a pacific island have over Mogadishu?" The only one I see is the down range island, and that's easily solvable within the next decade when we actually need it solved.
Temporally, me thinking "we should build a launch facility in Singapore" possibly predates the promise being available, and is a result of me and Cyber trying to figure out how feasible it'd be to coast all the way to the Maldives for recovery. It's just more convenient.
Most of our experimental launches, at least until 1960, will be done on our existing 30 ton pad. A 500-ton pad is necessary for later things.
Boosters, engine pods, etc.
Landing on an oil rig is difficult for several reasons. For one, you're not trying to hit a Borneo-sized island, but instead a small platform that's maybe a kilometre to a side at most if we go for an extreme megaproject. This means that we can't just rely on the engine pod being aerodynamically stable and passively following a ballistic trajectory but instead need to actively steer it towards a target, which is tricky. Also, the target landing area is also in 5 km of water, which is way deeper than any oil well nowadays, let alone what's possible in the '50s, so anything we make will need to be a free-floating structure. Keeping it in the desired location will be difficult pre-GPS; LORAN has an inaccuracy of about 2% of range, for example. Floating platforms are also expensive; a large platform is probably around as expensive as a new launch pad.
I, too, am against a rapid cadence launchpad in the South Pacific. There's a reason my preferred location is somewhere with decent weather, good enough geology, proximity to what we need, and isn't in a particularly environmentally sensitive area.
The experimental facility should ideally be as close to our labs as possible, so I don't see a reason to move it from Mogadishu.
I do not think it's as easy to solve as you think. That said, again, not a fan of a Pacific Island, and I've stated the advantages of "100 km from Singapore" already.
Singapore might not be an environmentally sensitive area, but I don't think you can say the same thing about Borneo. Even if large chunks of metal falling from the sky on a regular basis doesn't disrupt the ecology, the recovery efforts probably will. Rocket parts aren't the sort of thing you can recover from a the jungles of Borneo without heavy equipment.
Edit: Said jungles might also increase the price of recovery to the point where water recovery is comparable.
Last edited:
[X] Plan: Spaceplanes and South America
-[X] [FUND] 1.5% - Going back to 1.5% of the budget would be a difficult sell, but you could point to the ongoing human spaceflight program as justification for it. That didn't mean it'd be easy, of course. Just easier. (+230R/turn, -55PS)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Deliver a Weather Observation Satellite covering North America. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 3d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Deliver a Weather Observation Satellite covering Asia and South America. (+10PS) (Int(C) moves 3d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Launch a Lunar Impactor before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to New Delhi Physics Institute bonus)
-[X] Conduct Prototype Spaceplane research (+5PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Build a Launch Facility in South America by 1957Q1. (+10PS, UWF moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build and test-fly a spaceplane before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to Sao Paolo Aerodynamics Centre's bonus)
-[X] Build the Sydney Microelectronics Research Centre by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 1d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Conduct All-Sky Survey (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards favor)
-[X] Conduct Transistor Computing Investigation in Mombasa by 1958Q1. (+5PS, CPAL moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build a Launch Facility in South America by 1957Q1 (+10PS) (CPAL moves 3d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Research Support (-5PS, +3 to all Science and Engineering dice until 1957Q1)
-[X] Request Negotiation Aid - (Lowers progress requirements on Launch Sites, slightly increases R costs) (-10PS)
-[X] [GRAD] OperationsX2
-[X] [GRAD] Science
-[X] [GRAD] Politics
So, we're full up on PS, which actually means it's kind of hard to promise too much. Still, I think these are some fun things to promise, and it puts a launch facility in one of the options people aren't opposed to.
-[X] [FUND] 1.5% - Going back to 1.5% of the budget would be a difficult sell, but you could point to the ongoing human spaceflight program as justification for it. That didn't mean it'd be easy, of course. Just easier. (+230R/turn, -55PS)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Deliver a Weather Observation Satellite covering North America. (+5PS) (Int(D) moves 3d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Deliver a Weather Observation Satellite covering Asia and South America. (+10PS) (Int(C) moves 3d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Launch a Lunar Impactor before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to New Delhi Physics Institute bonus)
-[X] Conduct Prototype Spaceplane research (+5PS, FWW moves 2d5 steps towards Favor, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards Oppose)
-[X] Build a Launch Facility in South America by 1957Q1. (+10PS, UWF moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Complete Exploratory Propellant Research (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (UWF moves 2d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build and test-fly a spaceplane before 1957Q3. (+5PS, +2 to Sao Paolo Aerodynamics Centre's bonus)
-[X] Build the Sydney Microelectronics Research Centre by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 1d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Conduct All-Sky Survey (Phase 3) by 1957Q1. (+5PS, SDL moves 2d5 steps towards favor)
-[X] Conduct Transistor Computing Investigation in Mombasa by 1958Q1. (+5PS, CPAL moves 2d10 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Build a Launch Facility in South America by 1957Q1 (+10PS) (CPAL moves 3d5 steps towards Favor)
-[X] Research Support (-5PS, +3 to all Science and Engineering dice until 1957Q1)
-[X] Request Negotiation Aid - (Lowers progress requirements on Launch Sites, slightly increases R costs) (-10PS)
-[X] [GRAD] OperationsX2
-[X] [GRAD] Science
-[X] [GRAD] Politics
So, we're full up on PS, which actually means it's kind of hard to promise too much. Still, I think these are some fun things to promise, and it puts a launch facility in one of the options people aren't opposed to.
Well we need some justification when we ask Mil to build us a gigantic helicopter
Edit: Half-serious jokes aside, we can probably get within 2-3 km of a target point reliably, even accounting for wind drift during parachute descent. A 5 km circle of cleared field that our engine pods crash into and are then airlifted out is neither bad for the environment nor costly on the scale of "building a dynamically positioned platform in 5000 m of water"
Last edited:
Something tells me that, even if it's technically possible to build such a bird (rockets are big and the Square-Cube law is a cruel mistress) the costs for developing, building, and operating it would be so massive that sea recovery would be far cheaper.Well we need some justification when we ask Mil to build us a gigantic helicopter
A Mi-6 would be more than enough for engine pod recovery. If we want to do entire first stages, something like the Mil V-12 might be required.
Last edited:
Well we need some justification when we ask Mil to build us a gigantic helicopter
Edit: Half-serious jokes aside, we can probably get within 2-3 km of a target point reliably, even accounting for wind drift during parachute descent. A 5 km circle of cleared field that our engine pods crash into and are then airlifted out is neither bad for the environment nor costly on the scale of "building a dynamically positioned platform in 5000 m of water"
Apollo got within 1 km, there's a memo having recovery forces move back so there's no accidental impact of the capsule on ship. I'll dig up the citation once I can find my copy of Failure is Not An Option.
Last edited:
Here's an article on it: https://www.fastcompany.com/9036655...hed-down-they-were-so-accurate-it-scared-nasa
It mentioned it's about actually about 3~4km but that's still very close.
It mentioned it's about actually about 3~4km but that's still very close.
Vote closed
