Remove ads

Rocket Design Agency - A Playtesting Quest

Reader mode
Remove ads
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
    • 6 is only a partial failure, which just means it has gone /somewhat/ wrong. Perhaps the capsule is off course.
     
    4WheelSword said:
    6 is only a partial failure, which just means it has gone /somewhat/ wrong. Perhaps the capsule is off course.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Aren't there supposed to be penalties to the rest of the stage for anything less than a full success on previous rolls that would push this over into a full failure? Certainly not trying to rules-lawyer us out of a success, just trying to understand what's going on.
     
    brmj said:
    Aren't there supposed to be penalties to the rest of the stage for anything less than a full success on previous rolls that would push this over into a full failure? Certainly not trying to rules-lawyer us out of a success, just trying to understand what's going on.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Ah yes, you're not wrong.
    Though I'm willing to let you slide through if the following rules are real good.
     
    4WheelSword said:
    Ah yes, you're not wrong.
    Though I'm willing to let you slide through if the following rules are real good.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Well, here's hoping that the last roll (which someone really ought to do...) is a good one, then.

    For anyone wanting to poke at the dice system, here's something I just hacked together out of something someone else did at some point:

    AnyDice
     
    Okay, rolling again since it looks like no one else wants to.

    Recovery +3

    Edit: Fuck. I think I just killed Chuck, for real this time.
    brmj threw 2 10-faced dice. Total: 2
    1 1 1 1
     
    Last edited:
    4WheelSword said:
    Hey @brmj does the astro land at sea or on land?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Sea. A land landing is supposed to be survivable, but is very much not plan A and might be rougher than one would hope for.

    Since this thing is intended to be able to abort from LEO at any time by turning retrograde, shutting the hatch, blowing some explosive bolts and firing the solid rockets, I figure depending on the sea to cushion things enough that people don't die is a bad plan, but the thought is that this is an uncontrolled reentry that has the potential to put it over a very large area, and sea is probably safer if you can't pick your terrain very well. Also, it's what the "fish people" would have considered the obvious approach.
     
    Last edited:
    Remove ads
    C11P10: Monkey Down
  • Threadmarks
    • It was incredible to watch a living creature in space, hair on end in the low gravity and a look of sheer animal curiosity crossing its features as a pellet of loose food floated across the capsule. When it came time for the return, everyone was excited to bring Chuck back down again.

    Unfortunately, it did not go to plan. The re-entry burn was a little of course, but not enough that it would endanger the capsule. It just meant that Chuck would experience a little more g-force on the way back down.

    What nobody had realised was that a little more force meant a little bit of drift meant a landing far off course and way outside of the target zone. The Navy had ships nearby - but nearby was never going to be good enough. Once the capsule, which came down ever so gently under its canopy of silk, landed a pair of Alleghanian destroyers were directed to race to the scene but it was too late. By the time they were on the scene, the small floats had already burst and the capsule was nowhere to be seen. There was only a faint trace of the dye that was used to show up its location to air units.

    The team at NASA had already switched off the cameras. Nobody wanted to watch.


    Two weeks later, a senior Navy officer appeared unannounced in Brads officer with a fascinating proposal. They wanted to test a new missile - not an orbital launcher, nothing that NASA would be interested in - which might be able to shoot down a satellite. Already the military was getting nervous about enemy satellites - after all, the Army were already spying on everyone else.

    They didn't want NASA to launch the missile though. They wanted to use a NASA satellite as a target.

    Will you let them?
    [ ] There's no reason not to let them have a go at a dead satellite.
    [ ] No. We're not here to advance weaponry.
    [ ] Well… what will they give us in return?
     
  • Threadmarks
    • 4WheelSword said:
    It was incredible to watch a living creature in space, hair on end in the low gravity and a look of sheer animal curiosity crossing its features as a pellet of loose food floated across the capsule. When it came time for the return, everyone was excited to bring Chuck back down again.

    Unfortunately, it did not go to plan. The re-entry burn was a little of course, but not enough that it would endanger the capsule. It just meant that Chuck would experience a little more g-force on the way back down.

    What nobody had realised was that a little more force meant a little bit of drift meant a landing far off course and way outside of the target zone. The Navy had ships nearby - but nearby was never going to be good enough. Once the capsule, which came down ever so gently under its canopy of silk, landed a pair of Alleghanian destroyers were directed to race to the scene but it was too late. By the time they were on the scene, the small floats had already burst and the capsule was nowhere to be seen. There was only a faint trace of the dye that was used to show up its location to air units.

    The team at NASA had already switched off the cameras. Nobody wanted to watch.


    Two weeks later, a senior Navy officer appeared unannounced in Brads officer with a fascinating proposal. They wanted to test a new missile - not an orbital launcher, nothing that NASA would be interested in - which might be able to shoot down a satellite. Already the military was getting nervous about enemy satellites - after all, the Army were already spying on everyone else.

    They didn't want NASA to launch the missile though. They wanted to use a NASA satellite as a target.

    Will you let them?
    [ ] There's no reason not to let them have a go at a dead satellite.
    [ ] No. We're not here to advance weaponry.
    [ ] Well… what will they give us in return?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    That was unfortunate. Plausible, but damn unfortunate.

    So, in-universe, even if the re-entry burn problem was the root cause, not being able to get to where it actually landed before the floats gave out was the real killer. I see two plausible fixes for that: improving the float longevity, and improving the response time. Pursuing both would probably make sense.

    Floats will be a matter of better/thinker material, more compartmentalization, larger floats all together or something else of the sort, and may be hard to do too much about given the space and mass limitations. Response time, though, is something we could definitely look at doing something about. The obvious answer, short of blanketing the sea with more ships, is to make heavier use of air assets. Helicopters are the obvious approach and are probably already part of the plan, but a 1960 era helicopter probably doesn't have the speed or range to extend things as much as we'd like. Outfitting a few seaplanes for the task might make a lot of sense. Something like a Grumman HU-16 Albatross or a PBY Catalina. The navy should have phased out the Catalina-equivalent relatively recently, so NASA getting a few to operate themselves shouldn't be too hard I would think. Or, future recovery plans could include a few Navy operated seaplanes for situations like this.

    With that in mind, I am tempted to make a deal with the devil here on the understanding that even though they just kind of fucked up, telling them no outright would only make things harder for us without actually preventing the test from eventually happening using something else.

    [X] Well… what will they give us in return?
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Well… what will they give us in return?

    Honestly? Mildly tempted to try and turn this into a way to also test micrometeorite/debris impacts at extremely high velocities - plan a satellite that will intentionally fly through the potential debris clouds from the target satellite's destruction, and see how much damage actually occurs according to telemetry systems.
     
    [X] No. We're not here to advance weaponry.

    You are all familiar with my stance on the military by now.
     
    Goodwill or material goods? I'm gonna go with the goods, since I don't think the Navy has too much to offer us. Also I really don't like debris in orbit, but I'm willing to compromise on that.

    [X] Well… what will they give us in return?
     
    [X] Well… what will they give us in return?

    All of our stuff is in lower orbits anyway, and the debris should handily decay itself into the atmo.
     
    4WheelSword said:
    Another regular sight during the Cathayan conflict of the 1950's, the GUAP Shershen was a late '40s's air superiority fighter armed with two 20mm cannon and two 12.7mm MG's. It fared poorly against the Coalition jets.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Counter-rotating propellers... nifty. Though, with three blades each and four guns each at a different angle from the propeller hub, shooting through them without tanking the rate of fire is probably pretty horrifying mechanically.
     
    brmj said:
    Counter-rotating propellers... nifty. Though, with three blades each and four guns each at a different angle from the propeller hub, shooting through them without tanking the rate of fire is probably pretty horrifying mechanically.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm fairly confident that one of the reasons the Shershen suffers is because even when it can get on the tail of Coalition jets (not impossible. Contra planes are faaast) it's only firing one of it's .50s every 4 minutes.
     
    4WheelSword said:
    I'm fairly confident that one of the reasons the Shershen suffers is because even when it can get on the tail of Coalition jets (not impossible. Contra planes are faaast) it's only firing one of it's .50s every 4 minutes.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I believe that's known as either a serious, or critical, design flaw. But hey, at least it's not the catastrophic design flaw that would be a faulty interrupter gear for the cannons...

    That said, the designer who came up with the idea of putting all the weapons in the nose, instead of say, the machine guns on the wings zeroed at some point ahead of the plane should still be shot. Maybe only out of a cannon, but still shot.
     
    Pyro Hawk said:
    I believe that's known as either a serious, or critical, design flaw. But hey, at least it's not the catastrophic design flaw that would be a faulty interrupter gear for the cannons...

    That said, the designer who came up with the idea of putting all the weapons in the nose, instead of say, the machine guns on the wings zeroed at some point ahead of the plane should still be shot. Maybe only out of a cannon, but still shot.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    As both an act of mercy and terror, I propose he be shot by the weapon of his own design.
    It'll be just like a modern day sword of Damocles. He wont know when the shot will come.
     
    [X] Well… what will they give us in return?

    It'd be nice to be asking this for a change.
     
    You know, on second thought, if the Shershen's guns are each offset close to 60 degrees from eachother (which looks possible but unlikely from the image, though it wouldn't be perfect in any case) and the props are geared such that they can not slip relative to eachother, the interrupter gets a lot less horrific since they can all be hooked to a single mechanism and have six short chances to fire per rotation. Still going to tank the rate of fire unless someone did something really clever, but that system is less concerning than I thought.
     
    Last edited:
    C12P1: What the Navy want
  • Threadmarks
    • "We're already recovering every damn capsule you shoot into space. Isn't that enough?" The Captain asks, tapping her foot on the floor, "And as far as I know, we're paying through the damn nose for every launch we schedule with you."

    It was true. The Navy was paying an absolute premium for NASA's launch services, and it was a wonderful little buff to the administration's somewhat paltry budget.

    "You absolutely are. And it's one hell of a partnership for us here at NASA." Brad said, wordlessly offering a refill on the officers coffee. After a moment's hesitation she nods and he has to fight a grin. He has her. "Look, the Army is already on board with civillian led launch services here at NASA. The Air Force is pursuing its own damned fool crewed flight program with those rocket planes. That leaves the Navy out in the cold without any serious launch capacity or its own crewed options. Do you want to be left out of spaceflight?"

    "We've got a man on the Astrocaphe program." She protested.

    "You mean we've got a Navy test pilot. Flight Lieutenant Anders is proving to be a wonderful candidate, but the Army has four, and the other five are civilian." He paused, allowing the ratio to sink in, "There's an awful lot we can do for you. That we can do for each other. We just have to find the middle ground."

    What do you want?
    [ ] Missile tech - Help developing a new rocket, a heavy launcher.
    [ ] Submarine tech - Help developing the first base camps for orbit.
    [ ] Surface resources - more ships tasked to recover crewed flights.

    What will you give them?
    [ ] Nothing. You give them enough.
    [ ] One of each Astrocaphe phase flight.
    [ ] Two of each Astrocaphe phase flight.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Submarine tech - Help developing the first base camps for orbit.
    [X] One of each Astrocaphe phase flight.

    I really want a leg-up on this technology.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top