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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)
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • We also need to consider the number of engines being lit off at once. We're lighting off nine chambers with the boosters versus three chambers with more power. I feel the more power is going to be the better pick imho, despite it being a harder sell.

    [X] More Power (Less engineering, harder to sell)
     
    [X] More Boosters (More engineering, easier to sell)

    We will make the rocket work.
     
    [X] More Boosters (More engineering, easier to sell)
     
    [X] More Boosters (More engineering, easier to sell)
    C L U S T E R
     
    Last edited:
    [X] More Boosters (More engineering, easier to sell)

    The physics favors this one, and it is a development in a direction that will be useful later on.
     
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    This is wonderful. I appreciate that they seem to be to scale. Once we've got more rockets someone will have to stick all of those in the same image like that "rockets of the world" poster.
     
    brmj said:
    This is wonderful. I appreciate that they seem to be to scale. Once we've got more rockets someone will have to stick all of those in the same image like that "rockets of the world" poster.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    They're to scale, yes :) it's about 3cm per pixel, and I'll keep going in that scale until we get into the truly monstrous designs. And then I'll probably keep trying.
    I'll also be drawing for other nations, when that becomes necessary. Be prepared for intelligence briefings...
     
    [X] More Power (Less engineering, harder to sell)

    I'm nothing if not biased, though.
     
    Inserted tally
    Adhoc vote count started by 4WheelSword on Dec 5, 2018 at 8:49 PM, finished with 17 posts and 13 votes.
    Click to expand...
     
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    C1P7
  • Threadmarks
    • The boosted design is clearly the more capable and much more likely to get picked up by the FCAR given how much lower the cost predictions are for it. You're sad to push aside the plans for a ten meter rocket, but if you manage to get this funded then at this rate you'll be building unimaginably massive rockets in just a couple of years.

    "So how are you going to get these boosters to detach?" You ask the pair who brought the idea to the table though you are specifically asking the aerodynamics specialist of the pair.

    "Well, we've only had a brief look-" Anthony begins to answer

    "We need to make some proper drafts-" Michael interrupts before being interrupted in turn.

    "We looked at a cage or a clamp set-up but I don't think they'll be reliable enough. I think we should mount them on a slot in the main hull and use a pair of pyrotechnic bolts to hold them in place. When they're empty the bolts fire and simple air resistance makes the tanks drop backwards off the main rocket."

    "Sounds good. Get to looking at it, then, and we'll take a look and see what we can do with the rest of this beast you've designed."

    The rest of the 'beast' is not really that much different from the original design for MISIT, other than a few structural reinforcement ideas around where the boosters would be attached. But, nonetheless, there are always places to improve on even an excellent design.

    Choose your optimisations!
    [ ] Reduce mass of centre stage (+2 stress)
    [ ] Reduce mass of booster stages (+1 stress)
    [ ] Enhance control by enlarging the steering vanes (+1 stress)
    [ ] Enhance stability by enlarging the vane mounts into true fins (+1 stress)
    [ ] Enhance reliability with backup equipment (+1 stress)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Enhance reliability with backup equipment (+1 stress)

    Definitely a yes on this - if we aren't eating a reliability penalty from all these engines, I'll be real damn surprised. As it is, I wonder if we have a test plane or could acquire one that we could mount a prototype of the booster attachment system to, so we could test that before we went to full up flight testing.
     
    [X] Enhance reliability with backup equipment (+1 stress)

    This should increase our stress to... a 3 after this round of voting, right?
     
    [X] Enhance reliability with backup equipment (+1 stress)
    If we intend to put someone in this thing, this is obligatory.

    [X] Enhance stability by enlarging the vane mounts into true fins (+1 stress)
    This I'm not at sold on, but it seems like the other obvious thing to improve to make sure we don't kill anyone with this.
     
    Why did I not include this in the update...
    Plan voting please! You can choose multiple options!
     
    [X] Plan Extra Safe For Canned Apes
    -[X] Enhance reliability with backup equipment (+1 stress)
    -[X] Enhance stability by enlarging the vane mounts into true fins (+1 stress)

    The intent behind this thing is to eventually put someone in a little metal cylinder and launch them into the sky on a plume of fire. That isn't really a thing anyone has done yet, or at least not this high. I am of the opinion that ensuring they survive the experience is key, and reliability and stability are the best ways to do that out of the options we were given.
     
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