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Rocket Design Agency - A Playtesting Quest

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Cast and Characters
  • Informational
    • NASA
    Brad L. Whipple - Director, New Alleghany Space Administration

    Payload Design - +1
    Rocket Design - +2
    Engine Design - +3
    Mission Planning - +1
    Flight Control - +2
    Damage Control - +0
    Spacecraft Activity - +0
    Extravehicular Activity - +0
    Experimental Activity - +2

    Flight Objectives
    - Continue scientific launches, progressing to probes into the space beyond orbit by year end 1959.
    - Begin experiments which will allow a progression to human spaceflight before year end 1960.
    - Cooperate with the Armed Forces in developing their abilities through the application of spaceflight.

    Mission Schedule - Current Date: January 1960
    - Low Orbit 1 (Summer 1958) - Hope-2 (Partial failure)
    - Re-entry test 1 - Sub-orbital - Full Success, August 1958
    - Low Orbit 2 - Partial Failure, Hope-3 , October 1958
    - Re-entry test 2 - Failure, November 1958
    - Military Communications - Success, ARTS, December 1958
    - High Orbit 1 - Success, Hope-4, January 1959
    - Re-entry test 3 - Success, March 1959
    - Bio-sciences - Launch Failure, July 1959
    - Discovery 1, Success, September 1959
    - High Orbit 2 - Success, Hope-5, October 1959
    - Lunar Probe - Launch Failure, Artemis-Lunar, November 1959
    - Bio-sciences - Success, Astrocaphe-Chuck, December 1959
    - Discovery 2 - Failure, January 1960
    - Astrocathe test - Success, animal in space, February 1960
    - March lost due to Artemis redesign
    - NAN payload - April 1960 - First Hermes Flight
    - Crown 3 - Spring/Summer 1960
    - Commercial payload - Summer 1960
    - IRVOS 1 - Summer 1960
    - NAA Communications - Summer/Fall 1960
    - Space Camp test - Summer/Fall 1960
    - NAN payload - Fall/Winter 1960
    - Commercial payload -Winter 1960
    - Astrocathe test - Winter 1960
    - NAA Communications - Spring 1961

    - Astrocaphe phase 1 (3 crewed flights)
    - Astrocaphe phase 2 (3 crewed flights)

    Hardware
    - Prometheus (1M to LEO)
    - Hermes-L (6M to LEO)
    - Hermes-B (8M to LEO)

    Andre Larkin - Team Lead at EPL
    Rocket Design 0
    Engine Design +2


    EPL Design Team
    Antony Miratha, Aerodynamics
    Susan Stone, Astrophysics
    Michael Cole, Rocket Engineering
    Amy Mathews, Trajectory Planning
    Simon T. Harrison, Chemical Engineering

    +2 Rocket Design, +2 Payload Design +1 Engine Design, +1 Fuel Selection, +1 Flight Planning

    Side Characters
    Dr. Evan Hart - Research Director at EPL
    Arthur Ley, proponent of Lunar flight.
    Franz Haber, Doctor and researcher.
    Dieter von Markand, Pacifist and astrophysicist.

    EPL Facilities
    Design workshop
    Chemical research laboratory
    Launch analysis equipment
    (Please note that EPL has neither rocket nor engine manufacturing facilities)
     
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  • Informational
    • [X] Government research agencies will want a rocket that can touch space.
     
    [X] Government research agencies will want a rocket that can touch space.
     
    No military will want anything to do with the nasty chemicals we are using. It has to be science.

    [X] Government research agencies will want a rocket that can touch space.
     
    WorldOfHurt said:
    No military will want anything to do with the nasty chemicals we are using. It has to be science.
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    Historically, both sides of the Cold War used hydrazine and other similarly nasty propellants in their early ICBM designs. The advantage of them is that they're "hypergolic," that is to say, when mixed with the appropriate oxidizer they ignite at room temperature. And also that they don't require cryogenic refrigeration, unlike liquid oxygen or worse yet liquid hydrogen.

    Frankly, our current fuel mix for this engine is kind of the worst of both worlds in that we have a corrosive, unusually toxic fuel AND a cryogenic oxidizer, but if it gives us higher performance for sounding rockets, it's probably still all good.
     
    As Simon_Jester said, they definitely did use chemicals similar to the ones we are using. Further, they even considered their use in common munitions like air-launched missiles and RATO systems - the advantage being that nobody would need touch the things from factory to use, and as such the tanks full of horrible toxins were irrelevant. Of course, SRBs were pretty much universally better for this, but they had hypergolic liquid fuels and didn't have solid motors of that size, so they made do with the toxicity until the latter could be developed.
     
    [X] Government research agencies will want a rocket that can touch space.

    Ultimately, this rocket wouldn't be useful for the Army, due to the worst of both worlds state, and the Navy wouldn't want a liquid RATO booster, because having to fuel up a rocket motor AND a fighter jet is going to be a massive hassle, especially considering that both the fuel and oxidizer need specialized safety equipment to handle.

    Meanwhile, research agencies aren't going to care as much about nasty fuels, and if this does start developing into a Space Race era quest, having us be a neatly civilian agency that the government can back for their peaceful exploration of space would be useful - imagine if Von Braun had been assigned to work with the Navy Research Laboratory on Vanguard, instead of building SRBMs for the Army?
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • "What about the Navy?" Amy asks, "My dad is an officer in third fleet and he's always going on about the rocket landing ships they had. Maybe we could offer them something like that?"

    The rockets that had been used for landing assaults by New Alleghanian forces were small, unguided things packed with solid propellant and enough of an explosive charge to make them worthwhile. What you were proposing was significantly larger and more capable - but also more delicate.

    "It would take a lot of conversion work to get something like this shipboard. I can't imagine the Navy would want anything but a solid propellant missile." You answer, pondering something lurking in the back of your brain. Would a multi-ton solid fuelled rocket even work? The pressures inside would be immense and it would surely be almost too heavy to fly.

    "The Army then. We can build a rocket that can do a bombers job without ever putting anyone at risk." Michael offers, "Maybe we can't match the real big ones yet but I bet we can get a ton or two on a ballistic trajectory."

    "How are you going to do targeting?" Anthony leans back in his chair, folding his arms, "I bet you any money that the guidance system would cost as much as the rocket, and take twice as long to develop."

    "Hey, I think you can have a little more faith in me than that, thankyou." Amy half snaps, suddenly tense. Apparently she feels a little delicate. You have to step in before the team meeting becomes the team argument. You wish it was the first time it had threatened to do so.

    "I don't think I want to design a weapon at all." You say, redirecting.

    "Then what? The military has all the money" Michael is apparently hawkish enough to push it.

    "So does the FCAR." The Federal Committee for Aeronautics Research has been the home of almost fifty years of high profile design studies and has been instrumental in advancing the technology of New Alleghanian air power. They're well funded, always interested in new projects and surely going to be at the forefront of rocket research once they get a nudge in the right direction.

    "And how exactly do you intend to attract their interest. We're good but we're not about to build a brand new rocket plane." Susan asks.

    You hadn't even considered the idea of making something with wings. It's not a bad idea, though perhaps one that should wait for another time.

    How will you draw them in?
    [ ] We will go higher than ever before (priority: reaching 150-200km altitude).
    [ ] We will go further than ever before (priority: Minimise weight, Maximise control).
    [ ] We will present plans for manned rocket flight (priority: human-rated payload).
    [ ] We will maximise payload (priority: Maximise payload mass).
     
  • Threadmarks
    • I kind of want someone to draft up a possible design before we get started on figuring out how to draw them in - how high and fast can we go with this engine in a single stage design, or is trying out staging feasible?
     
    Ash19256 said:
    I kind of want someone to draft up a possible design before we get started on figuring out how to draw them in - how high and fast can we go with this engine in a single stage design, or is trying out staging feasible?
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    For the engine design, assuming we just use the single engine, here's what I have terms of mass and cost (along with payloads ranging from 1 to 5M with TWR+Delta-V):

    Total Mass: 12.6027 (10.8M Fuel, .54M Fuel Tank, 1.2M Engine, .0627M Explosive Bolts)
    Total Cost: 3.83
    Delta-V (w/ 1M Payload): 2,913m/s
    TWR (w/ 1M Payload): 1.5
    Delta-V (w/ 3M Payload): 2,173m/s
    TWR (w/ 3M Payload): 1.31
    Delta-V (w/ 5M Payload): 1,753m/s
    TWR (w/ 5M Payload): 1.16

    Now, assuming I'm using the ballistic calculator right (for the degrees), we can get barely get 5M of payload up just beyond 150km in height. If we go with say 1M of payload (and again assuming I'm using the ballistic calculator right), we'd be going up to... about 400km?

    EDIT: Ignore, as I messed up with structural (and not heavy duty tanks). >.>
     
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    Usili 2.0 said:
    For the engine design, assuming we just use the single engine, here's what I have terms of mass and cost (along with payloads ranging from 1 to 5M with TWR+Delta-V):

    Total Mass: 12.6027 (10.8M Fuel, .54M Fuel Tank, 1.2M Engine, .0627M Explosive Bolts)
    Total Cost: 3.83
    Delta-V (w/ 1M Payload): 2,913m/s
    TWR (w/ 1M Payload): 1.5
    Delta-V (w/ 3M Payload): 2,173m/s
    TWR (w/ 3M Payload): 1.31
    Delta-V (w/ 5M Payload): 1,753m/s
    TWR (w/ 5M Payload): 1.16

    Now, assuming I'm using the ballistic calculator right (for the degrees), we can get barely get 5M of payload up just beyond 150km in height. If we go with say 1M of payload (and again assuming I'm using the ballistic calculator right), we'd be going up to... about 400km?
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    How much weight is 1 Mass?
     
    HMS Sophia said:
    250kg

    Edit: also were currently restricted to heavy duty tanks so watch your designs @Usili 2.0
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    Oops. My mistake on that. >.>

    10ebbor10 said:
    250 kg.

    I think we can get away with 3M for a human capsule.

    [X] We will go higher than ever before (priority: reaching 150-200km altitude).
    [X] We will present plans for manned rocket flight (priority: human-rated payload).
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    I'm getting 3.3495M in total for it, with it being 2M for the capsule, .5M for the flight controls, .4M for the Battery Pack, .145M for a human-rated chute, and .3045M for the sub-orbital heatshield. I'm honestly presuming we'd need a battery pack for even a suborbital flight, since power is needed for both the capsule and flight controls?
     
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    Usili 2.0 said:
    I'm getting 3.3495M in total for it, with it being 2M for the capsule, .5M for the flight controls, .4M for the Battery Pack, .145M for a human-rated chute, .3045M for the sub-orbital heatshield. I'm honestly presuming we'd need a battery pack for even a suborbital flight, since power is needed for both the capsule and flight controls?
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    I really need to do a tech readout for available things don't I.
    Sub-orbital heatshield is unavailable at this time due to lack of research into re-entry effects.
    (However, if you're just building a what goes up must come down system, then you could cut the flight controls)
     
    Current Available Technology:
    • Armaments: Conventional Warhead, Early Nuclear Warhead
    • Scientific: Basic system
    • Crewed: Flight Seat, Flight Controls, Early Environmental Systems.
    • Flight: YMR Control, Thruster Pack
    • Communication: Basic Antennae
    • Power: Battery Pack
    • Recovery: Main Chute, Human-rated chute, back-up chute
    • Tank: Heavy Duty
    • Motor: XLR-1-1, XLR-1-4, XMR-1
    • Fuels: Alc/LOX, N2H4/LOX, N2H4/RFNA
    • Staging: Hot staging, Explosive bolt, Parallel Staging
    • Guidance: Basic Gyro, Basic Beam Riding
    • Aerodynamics: Carbon Vanes, Small Fins
    • Cycle: Primitive, Multi-Feed
    • Injector: Dual Split, Dual Impingement
    • Nozzle: Atmospheric
     
    [X] We will go higher than ever before (priority: reaching 150-200km altitude).

    Basically just the rocket equation. Efficient thrust per unit mass is all, as long as you can keep it pointed upwardly.

    [ ] We will go further than ever before (priority: Minimise weight, Maximise control).

    Guidance system? We want a rocket that can actually make adjustments(and of course this is the pre-pre lead into cruise missiles too)

    [ ] We will present plans for manned rocket flight (priority: human-rated payload).

    Kind of premature. Theres nothing in range to shoot a person TO, and killing anyone at this juncture would sour things a lot.

    [ ] We will maximise payload (priority: Maximise payload mass).

    Same rocket equations, but this leads into carrying warheads I think? Still, being able to send SOME kind of sampling kit up there is going to draw some scientific interest
     
    HMS Sophia said:
    I really need to do a tech readout for available things don't I.
    Sub-orbital heatshield is unavailable at this time due to lack of research into re-entry effects.
    (However, if you're just building a what goes up must come down system, then you could cut the flight controls)
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    We should know something about supersonic heating, though, if Not!Chuck Yeager has made his supersonic flight.
     
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