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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
    • Yeah, sure I'll allow approval for this one.
    I mean this is 1950. We are looking at really early design studies at this point, more than anything feasible on currently launch capacity. Given that there is no orbital capacity. 0. Nada. Ask me in 6 years.
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).

    Apologies for asking, but what does FCAR mean again? I'm just blanking on what the acronym stands for.
     
    So, would this timeline's version of NASA be instead called something like FASA (Federal Administration of Space and Aeronautics)?
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
     
    [X] Redstone Arsenal and the Defence Department (Military station applications).

    We can't allow those Cappies to corrupt our vital fluids from space!
    We must get there first, and conquer space in the name of god, apple pie, and the Alleghanian way!
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
    [X] The Willis Aircraft company (Business station applications).
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
    [X] The Willis Aircraft company (Business station applications).
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
    [X] The Willis Aircraft company (Business station applications).

    I'll take either. Willis don't have enough money to do it, though.
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
    [X] The Willis Aircraft company (Business station applications).
     
    Estro said:
    I'll take either. Willis don't have enough money to do it, though.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    At this point, neither have enough money for this - Mr. Whipple is basically proposing Von Braun's ring stations and maybe something like Von Braun's ferry rockets as well. We all know where those went. What these might allow him to do is direct funding towards rocket experimenters who are working on the next generation of rockets - including, say, one intended to eventually put a man into space?
     
    [X] FCAR, the civilian aeronautics research agency (Research station applications).
    [X] The Willis Aircraft company (Business station applications).
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • The FCAR, or Federal Committee for Aeronautics Research, is an underfunded, understaffed little research body employed not by any of the major universities but by the government instead. Nonetheless, they have managed to come out with some of the most important developments in aeronautical engineering in the last four decades, at least those that weren't launched into existence by the Akitsukini Genius of Matsuhara Asuka.

    So it is exciting enough to have an envelope lying on your desk with the FCAR's return postal address on it. Even more exciting is the contents; an invitation to an interview with the director of the body. You're on a flight two days later without a second thought. Even if he just wants to discuss your ideas, it's enough to know that apparently your speech struck a chord with at least one member of the audience.

    You are quickly disabused of that notion when you arrive, however.

    "No, I didn't hear you talk I'm afraid. A friend went, said it was something about resource exploitation and so on. Not my ball game." The director of FCAR, Alison Devrie, says when you ask her about it. "But the space camp thing, that sounds like you're talking our language."

    "I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean. The waystations are a stepping stone towards the future-"

    "Mr. Whipple, you're not the first dreamer to walk through that door and you won't be the last. I know you've got big ideas. But here at the FCAR, we're about making realities. You want to build camps in space, we say fine. We want space as well, but we're talking about baby steps, not giant leaps. Redstone and EPL, they're just beginning to talk about rockets that can go a few hundred kilometres, the Europans have that damn rocket plane that the intelligence boys is the first step towards what we're calling a space plane."

    "I'm aware of the developments in the field, yes." You say, now a little frustrated. "So what am I here for."

    "You must have considered the human factor in your work, yes? The risks and so on of putting a person up there?"

    "Of course I have. There'll be oxygen generation, water recycling, even-"

    "I don't need details right now." She says, interrupting your for a second time. "What I do need is the apparatus to answer questions. A feasibility study on the smallest 'space camp' you think would work as a test site. Can you do that?"

    "I mean, if I had time, sure, I just-"

    "10%.On top of your current salary.And benefits too, of course."

    "I-" they were serious, it seemed. This wasn't just pie in the sky thinking. "I'll need some time to think."

    "Take a couple days, but don't take too long. I'd like draft sketches by the end of the week."

    You've got a job, but you've got to prove yourself. How big are you designing for?
    [ ] Eight people at the least, you've got to test systems properly or it's not a functional design.
    [ ] Three people. Without at least some occupancy, what's the point of testing this thing.
    [ ] One person. Better to have a functional system than take big risks.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Three people. Without at least some occupancy, what's the point of testing this thing.

    8 people is too much for a memorial statue, and 1 is too few. Three is just about the right amount of casualties when the oxygen generation system blows up.
     
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    [X] Eight people at the least, you've got to test systems properly or it's not a functional design.

    Go big.
     
    [X] Three people. Without at least some occupancy, what's the point of testing this thing.
     
    [X] Eight people at the least, you've got to test systems properly or it's not a functional design.

    plus, it allows us to test more systems than a smaller design would, and test them more thoroughly.
     
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