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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] A recent article has caught your attention: A man talking about so-called 'base camps' for space exploration. (Next segment will be speculative lifter design.).
     
    [X] A recent article has caught your attention: A man talking about so-called 'base camps' for space exploration. (Next segment will be speculative lifter design.).
     
    I think our rocket is cheaper and easier to use (single tank, single stage), but maybe less stable, and the range isn't that great, compared to most others? Is that right?
     
    [X] A recent article has caught your attention: A man talking about so-called 'base camps' for space exploration. (Next segment will be speculative lifter design.).
     
    Well, hydrazine costed $ 7.00/1kg, through if in bulk production that would fall to $ 1.00/1kg. LOX was stupidly cheap, $ 0,04/1kg. From that, i count ok $9440 for fuel.
     
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    kpkdktswnw2015 said:
    Well, hydrazine costed $ 7.00/1kg, through if in bulk production that would fall to $ 1.00/1kg. LOX was stupidly cheap, $ 0,04/1kg. From that, i count ok $9440 for fuel.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Fuel is never even close to the most expensive part of a rocket. I would guess that the main reason ours is cheaper is that it is single stage: less engines and staging stuff and tank walls means less money spent on them.
     
    kpkdktswnw2015 said:
    Finding price of steel from 1950s is not easy...
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    A rocket costs far more than its weight in steel. Expect a big price markup from using aerospace-grade everything, a lot of money spent on labor and such, the engines (which are going to be incredibly expensive because they are complex, full of precisely machined parts, made in very small numbers and using some pretty fancy metallurgy), the costs that went into the design process, and so on.

    Estimating rocket costs from first principles like you are trying to do is probably going to be an exercise in futility.
     
    We only have two engines and not a huge amount of plumbing and no staging, which might make us the cheapest option. Plus, a faster/simple loading-and-firing procedure might make the Army happy.

    Edit: The Hydrazine fuel still kind of stinks and I'm sure they wish we could just use AvGas, though. And our range comparatively sucks. Oh well, can't have everything.
     
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    [X] Time for some stress relief, and this time you're choosing the bar (Start next segment with 0 stress).

    Get rid of that stress to let us get more on the next job.
     
    UDMH is nasty stuff. A big plus would be if they can use something they know how to deal with and have large stocks of already. Like AvGas.
     
    Doing some rolling - Vote is still open.
    4WheelSword threw 6 10-faced dice. Reason: Design Competition Total: 30
    4 4 3 3 3 3 10 10 5 5 5 5
     
    [X] Time for some stress relief, and this time you're choosing the bar (Start next segment with 0 stress).
    Stress reduction is important.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • The wait for the decision is long, stressful and tense and the team has never seemed less unified as you spend your days doing, essentially, nothing but waiting. You all spend the time debating exactly what criteria your rockets will be judged on, how you could have designed it differently, even throw together draft concepts for what those might have looked like. The low range was a worry all the way through the design process for some members of your team and, though you think it will be considered acceptable enough for the purposes of the competition.

    Finally you decide you've had enough of staring at the same four walls. You are getting out whether anyone decides to come with you or not. But perhaps this time, you'll be the one to choose where to go. Maybe you'll even get to make them squirm a little.

    Of course, you pretty quickly lose your team to hedonism and base excitement and descent into it yourself as well. You see glimpses of familiar faces between shots and the attention of pretty boys wearing tight jeans and not much else. At some point you manage to gather enough of everyone to drink a round of spirits before you scatter back to the four winds.

    The night ends, and the day dawns, in another strangers bed and you haven't felt so relaxed in months. Even if the hangover is an absolute killer.

    You roll into work the next day to find a letter with the big, red New Alleghany Army stamp on it. It could only be the award decision, and you tear it open with all the eagerness of a child at Christmas.

    Of course, as ever, the decision is not what you might expect. The Army has decided that it will buy the EPL Ajax design and you whoop with glee. You've won! But they will not be buying in the numbers you expect - instead only paying out for four brigades worth plus testing models. All told there will only be fifty or sixty Ajax missiles in the initial build and as you read on, the reasoning becomes obvious. The Redstone design was also selected as a long range design which was also small enough to be air-transported as yours is. They'll be building less of them- perhaps only twenty - but nonetheless there will not only be EPL designs on the pads.

    Perhaps it is for the best. It somewhat ameliorates the pain of building weapons rather than rockets purely designed for their own sake. But something has to pay the bills, and gosh are the bills racking up. Soon you will need a larger team if you're going to keep putting out successful designs. But there are so many other good options for what to recommend between now and the next project.

    What sort of upgrade do you need?
    [ ] A wind-tunnel just for us (Allows 1 free rocket optimisation roll)
    [ ] An engine test-rig (Allows 1 free engine optimisation roll)
    [ ] Our own chemical lab (Allows better fuel research)
    [ ] A bigger team wouldn't never hurt (+1 stat)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Our own chemical lab (Allows better fuel research)
    I'd pay near-anything to not have to choose between shitty alcohol rockets and shitty Hydrazine-LOX rockets - RP-1/LOX or even UDMH/DNTO (Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine - a hydrazine derivative and Dinitrogen Tetroxide) would be excellent.
     
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