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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
    • This was interesting. Very interesting.

    The monkey is easy enough, even if it means a slightly larger satellite than we have been using. Returning it safely, rather less so, but they may have a smallish warhead reentry vehicle to modify rather than having to build a monkey sized capsule from scratch. Their rocket looks too small for a human sized capsule, but who knows?

    Lunar flyby shouldn't be all that tough with a small enough satallite and a big enough launch vehicle, but it's not trivial either. Still, exciting stuff.

    Interesting that the navy is trying to turn their tiny missile into a launch vehicle. I admit to to some skepticism about getting any kind of useful payload on that since cubesats haven't been invented yet.

    Not sure about next steps for us.The long term outcome I really want to see is long term sustainability and growth. I don't want a post Apollo slump or future launch vehicles treated as purely pork opportunities for a handful of politicians. I want cheap access to space, a permanent presence and people landing on mars before the end of the century. A race should help spur the space program so we get useful funding at all, but it runs the risk of an outcome much like the historical one at the end. For the short term, I don't really want to rush manned spaceflight any more than we already are, but an emphasis would not be out of place once we have established basic capability to do it at all.
    brmj threw 2 10-faced dice. Reason: Other war roll Total: 14
    8 8 6 6
     
    [ ] We have to move bio-science and human spaceflight up the timeline!

    [ ] This is no race. They have their plans and we have ours.

    I'm with NemoMarx. Either of these sound good to me. I'd lean towards the latter at the moment, but getting a living human into space is going to be a hell of a milestone and a big national bragging right.
     
    @4WheelSword I keep coming back to my thoughts about how to achieve at least partial reusability for a launch vehicle with realistic near-term technology. Yes, I know that you said that part of the rules isn't exactly ready, but that isn't likely to stop me from something at the design study level. So, a few questions if you don't mind.

    What exactly is required for something to land? The rules document only really explicitly says parachutes, but I assume a lifting body configuration or a rogallo wing are also good enough alone, without additional equipment? I take it that autonomous propulsive landing in 1 g is not a thing we can do with the computing tech of the time? And if I'm applying modifiers like heat shields or recovery equipment to something that has a fuel tank, can I apply the modifiers to the empty weight if they only ought to ever be used once the fuel is gone? Also, what's the delta-v to reenter if you've got a normal engine rather than a thruster pack? Finally, would a reusable first stage need a suborbital heat shield, or could it do without?

    Here's a sketch of my current thoughts:

    Rockets do not like seawater and an uncontrolled landing on land is bad, so the first stage ought to glide to a controlled landing, either with wings or a rogallo wing. Return to launch site would be nice, but I don't know what the delta-v for that looks like and it might be a bit much to ask. If that isn't possible, then we either need a fortuitously placed island, a water landing, or some mad scheme involving an aircraft carrier.

    Second stage reuse is harder because it has to reenter from orbit and a good mass fraction is super important, so just reuse the expensive stuff instead. The fuel tank becomes disposable, and the engine and avionics and such get to go in something reentry capable. This is probably an aerodynamic reentry vehicle, but one could also imagine a truncated nasa-style blunt body cone with the engine bell in the tip or something more like a point-first warhead reentry vehicle. This then behaves very much like the capsule for a manned spacecraft and can maybe even make a water landing in the case of the cone designs. This doesn't exactly make sense in game, since engines are hardly more expensive than their mass of tank according to the rocket design rules (I strongly believe this should be changed), but in real life it very well might. Failing that, I'll probably have to either waste more mass on this than I want to or abandon second stage reuse, unfortunately.
     
    Hey, I like these ideas so ponder away! Just because they're not in the rules yet doesn't mean I can't be prompted to write them.

    Logically, all that is required for something to land is equipment to allow it to do so softly. A lifting body, lifting surfaces, rogallo wing, parachutes - all of these will work as part of their mass is assumed to include at least simple landing gear.
    Autonomous propulsive landings are out, yes... at least currently. At least in 1G.
    You can absolutely apply the modifier to the empty weight to represent returning without fuel, or just to the reentry vehicle if you go that route.
    Delta-V to reenter depends on altitude. At 100km-120km you can just... wait. Drag will pull you back in. At 200km (ISS altitude) you're going to want 100m/s or so iirc.
    A reusable 1st stage would require a sub-orb heat shield, yes.

    I've changed the values for tanks to make them significantly cheaper bcos you have a point.

    @Estro I think we have a new recruit for O'connell :3
     
    4WheelSword said:
    Hey, I like these ideas so ponder away! Just because they're not in the rules yet doesn't mean I can't be prompted to write them.

    Logically, all that is required for something to land is equipment to allow it to do so softly. A lifting body, lifting surfaces, rogallo wing, parachutes - all of these will work as part of their mass is assumed to include at least simple landing gear.
    Autonomous propulsive landings are out, yes... at least currently. At least in 1G.
    You can absolutely apply the modifier to the empty weight to represent returning without fuel, or just to the reentry vehicle if you go that route.
    Delta-V to reenter depends on altitude. At 100km-120km you can just... wait. Drag will pull you back in. At 200km (ISS altitude) you're going to want 100m/s or so iirc.
    A reusable 1st stage would require a sub-orb heat shield, yes.

    I've changed the values for tanks to make them significantly cheaper bcos you have a point.

    @Estro I think we have a new recruit for O'connell :3
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Good stuff.

    A couple more less fundamental ones. If my flight plan involves a landing under remote control, but only after reentry and maybe even from a chase plane within visual range, do I have to pay for a full dish? Also, what fuel and engine technologies do we have access to right now? My working assumption is that we don't have access to staged combustion, H2/lox or nozzles other than atmospheric and vacuum yet, but can do all other cycles (though we lack a cryogenic fuel for expander cycle) and probably at least centripetal injectors (invented in the early 30s, it turns out). Finally, can I assume the presence of some very limited rcs or other means of controlling a second stage without having to pay anything extra? Enough to, say, flip retrograde and burn to deorbit? Just in case mass is really that tight in the end, since I'd rather not have to spin stabilize the stage and reenter on the other side of the planet. Shipping it back would cost money too, after all.
     
    brmj said:
    Good stuff.

    A couple more less fundamental ones. If my flight plan involves a landing under remote control, but only after reentry and maybe even from a chase plane within visual range, do I have to pay for a full dish? Also, what fuel and engine technologies do we have access to right now? My working assumption is that we don't have access to staged combustion, H2/lox or nozzles other than atmospheric and vacuum yet, but can do all other cycles (though we lack a cryogenic fuel for expander cycle) and probably at least centripetal injectors (invented in the early 30s, it turns out). Finally, can I assume the presence of some very limited rcs or other means of controlling a second stage without having to pay anything extra? Enough to, say, flip retrograde and burn to deorbit? Just in case mass is really that tight in the end, since I'd rather not have to spin stabilize the stage and reenter on the other side of the planet. Shipping it back would cost money too, after all.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Full dish yes.
    Main limitation is to avoid experimental modern day fuels and cryogenics because they're not about yet. You're pretty on the nose with it.
    YPR control is needed for any on-orbit manouvres.
    I doubt you're going to be able to do targeted re-entry at this point. Hell, Mercury was generally off-course by tens of miles.
     
    ... I may have come up with a scheme to land a booster without any kind of control or excessive saltwater exposure.

    Give it a rogallo wing and have it glide engine first, which ought to be more stable because of the weight distribution. Set it up to passively glide in a nice, shallow slope. For landing gear, equip it with a pair of inflatable pontoons over by the engine. Then it just passively lands like a tail-dragger aircraft but on the water, and the engines stay mostly dry. If spray and splash is likely to still be a problem, some kind of inflatable or otherwise deployable cover could perhaps be arranged. Assuming the weather is decent, a ship stationed in the area can just motor on up to it and retrieve it with a crane within a couple hours of landing.

    [X] This is no race. They have their plans and we have ours.

    This feels like it could easily be a vitally important vote that sets the tone for years to come, and I genuinely don't know what to do. Picking the more conservative one in the hopes that it will let us revise goals and focus later on rather than just shut off the possibility of acting as if there is a space race going on.
     
    [ ] We have to move bio-science and human spaceflight up the timeline!

    [x] This is no race. They have their plans and we have ours.

    Europa has its spaceplane.

    Akikitsuni has made a point of sending *and* retrieving a living thing on their *first* flight.

    I don't think we have much to win in a race on their terms.

    Our rockets should be manned or having organisms aboard when it suits our purposes, not for empty one upmanship.
     
    As a sanity check on the inflatable pontoons scheme, it turns out that the Bartini Beriev VVA-14 used them and had a gross weight of 52,000 kg. For reference, a Titan 3B first stage was about 7,000 kg empty. This strongly suggests it is possible to build inflatable pontoons that are up to the challenge.
     
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    C10P1: War, elsewhere
  • Threadmarks
    • War-Progress - Stalemate.
    Dyskelande and Europan security forces are deployed to the Southern Cathayan coastline to defend enclaves and interests across the region. Attempts to push further out than the edges of these Western refuges have met stern resistance and bogged down in the rugged, humid climes.
    Caspia and Akitsukini have deployed observers on both sides of the conflict and while Europan reporters have suggested ulterior motives, currently there have been no military movements from either of the regional great powers.

    ---

    January 1959 had come far more quickly than anyone had expected and now the program was accelerating. Every week Brad was faced with more and more difficult decisions about the progression of the program and he had less and less time to look to his team for support in them.

    But this month, January, would determine a lot of things. Would they refly the failed return mission or let the bioscience mission be it? How would they choose pilots for the capsules? What would be on the first flight of the Artemis, come summer? The upper stage engine was already on the test stand and they'd soon have the first lower stage in the assembly hall.

    It was not a race though. Other nations might be flying their own rockets - but they were not New Alleghany. There was no reason for him to pay attention to their developments, or consider them in his developments. It would be nice to be first of course, but he was not interested in petty displays of cultural arrogance. He had real work to do.

    The failed re-entry mission:
    [ ] Refly it as the next mission, delaying other missions.
    [ ] Double up the objectives of the Bioscience mission.

    Who will make up the first group of pilots?
    [ ] 'Army Favourites' - Test pilots from just the Army.
    [ ] 'The Best of the Best' - Test pilots from across the entire armed forces.
    [ ] 'Military Might' - Any military pilot may apply.
    [ ] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [ ] 'The Alleghanian Dream' - Any holder of a valid pilots license may apply.

    Design the Bioscience mission for:
    [ ] Prometheus
    [ ] Artemis

    Who will redesign the capsule for Artemis?
    [ ] We will redesign in house.
    [ ] The two companies already selected may complete the project.
    [ ] Re-open the project to any company.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [ ] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.

    I'm sort of thinking this? Because one of our major goals is kick-starting the civilian and scientific usage of space, having those as part of the program from the start might be useful.
     
    Here's my thoughts:
    The failed re-entry mission:
    [X] Refly it as the next mission, delaying other missions.
    [X] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [X] Artemis
    [X] The two companies already selected may complete the project.

    Reentry is crucial, and if we fail it again then we lose all the biosicience data. I hate the delay but we skipped the extra instruments test so that we'd have the time to do things like this.

    Federal/State employed pilots should already have background checks done on them and it makes sense to stay in-house; we're not military so I don't see a need to make military our only source.

    Artemis is 1.5x the cost for over 6x the payload; it'd be stupid to not use it.

    And we already contracted those companies; the changes are significant but why change companies since the ones we have are working fine?
     
    [X] Double up the objectives of the Bioscience mission.
    [X] 'The Best of the Best' - Test pilots from across the entire armed forces.

    [X] Artemis
    [X] Re-open the project to any company.
     
    [X] Refly it as the next mission, delaying other missions.
    [X] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [X] Artemis
    [X] The two companies already selected may complete the project.
     
    [X] Double up the objectives of the Bioscience mission.
    [X] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [X] Artemis
    [X] The two companies already selected may complete the project.
     
    [X] Refly it as the next mission, delaying other missions.
    [X] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [X] Artemis
    [X] The two companies already selected may complete the project.
     
    [X] Refly it as the next mission, delaying other missions.
    [X] 'With Service, Reward' - Any Federal or State employed pilot may apply.
    [X] Artemis
    [X] The two companies already selected may complete the project.
     
    How many instantaneous Gs can a dead simple unmanned spacecraft withstand? Because the lowest mass/cost way to deorbit my hypothetical upper stage engine pods is to carry a tiny fuel tank and use the engine they already have, which yields a twr of something like 30 for a brief moment at full throttle. Presumably the engine can be throttled down, but by how much? It isn't anything special.

    I may end up using a thruster pack to avoid needing a restartable variant of the engine even without this, since the difference is so low, but this is a case where every little bit matters enormously and I'd like to know if I have the option.
     
    Honestly a lot of this era of engines do not throttle. The deep throttle on the lunar lander was a technical marvel in 69, let alone 59.
    15-20Gs is generally considered safe towards the end of a burn. Instantaneous, well... I hope you're feeling lucky
     
    4WheelSword said:
    Honestly a lot of this era of engines do not throttle. The deep throttle on the lunar lander was a technical marvel in 69, let alone 59.
    15-20Gs is generally considered safe towards the end of a burn. Instantaneous, well... I hope you're feeling lucky
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So, thruster pack I guess. Or I can see if it still works out cheaper to do it with a little left over fuel before jetisoning the main tanks. Probably not, since it means a vastly higher mass and a correspondingly larger rcs system to point it in the right direction.

    Edit: it adds almost .1 mass. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I still do not love this.

    Edit 2: Okay, here's a really wacky scheme to deorbit without much additional hardware. Keep the tiny fuel tank, but only relight the gas generator, not the combustion chamber. It doesn't matter if it produced next to no thrust and has bad isp, since it only has to give us 100m/s. Looks like it comes out slightly ahead if the isp is at least 200 or so. At the end of the day, though, this would be a non-trivial research project of no use in absolutely any other context just to save like 20 kg max. Not worth it at all.

    On the other hand, if I do to a thruster pack, maybe I can ditch the YPR? Just point the thrusters backwards to it doesn't have to turn, use a conical capsule and count on aerodynamic forces to do the rest. Is this a thing I can get away with without penalty?
     
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