Author Topic: Modelling Mars  (Read 221372 times)

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #400 on: 10/07/2015 12:14 am »
That's great ! Can't help much about Udet plan - it was very murky in the book. What I remember is that Bleeker and York visits the NERVA testbed, Bleeker told her that development is so hard and delayed they had to sacrifice many useful functions, such as restart and deep throthling. Voyage NERVA, even without the 1980 disaster, would have lacked S-IVB flexibility.

My opinion is, considering the difficulties with NERVA, they would used just one to push the stack out of Earth orbit, and that would be it. Everything else would be plain chemical propulsion through the S-IVB.

After the disaster it is made clear that the S-II replaced the NERVA for Earth orbit departure.

Clustering NERVAs would be dangerous: neutrons would jump from the central NERVA to the lateral ones, messing up everything.

This discuss difficulties and dangers of an Earth orbit NERVA
http://www.wired.com/2012/09/nuclear-flight-system-definition-studies-1971/

Quote
contractors had recommended that no piloted spacecraft approach to within 100 miles of an operating NERVA I engine.

I have that report! It's very good.  Full of the nasty details that NTR advocates don't like to think on.  Baxter also does a great description of what can go wrong, something alse that NTR supporters don't like to think about.

The NERVA Mars missions all had three NERVAs side by side.  In some all three fired for Earth departure, in others only the two outer ones.  Single NERVAs were for flyby missions.

Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline Archibald

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #401 on: 10/10/2015 08:17 am »
Bellcomm was to NASA what Jiminy Cricket is to Pinocchio: the voice of reason they never really listened...
Han shot first and Gwynne Shotwell !

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #402 on: 11/19/2015 03:02 am »
If anyone is interested, I made up a calendar of these images on Lulu for myself!  Message me if you want the link.  It is set at the minimum price they charge: $9.99.

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #403 on: 01/17/2016 02:11 am »
I did a bit of a clean up on the Aviation Week magazine.  There was an issue published March 25 and April 1 in 1985.  I don't think that they could have released an issue 3 days after the launch with photos back then, so I went with April 1.  I have been working on photos and models for the landing in March and departure in April.  Stay tuned for this incredibly long mission!

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #404 on: 01/26/2016 12:03 am »
I went back and revisited an earlier part of the novel, Voyage, the Apollo-N flight.
The first image shows the Saturn-N in flight, at about the time it would be hit with the first stage pogo.
The second is the moment of ignition of the NERVA engine several days latter.  And the the moment of the explosion, with a few bits of debris flying free.  The SM thrusters are firing, trying to keep the attitude of the vehicle stable.

Offline Archibald

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #405 on: 01/26/2016 11:30 am »
Cool pictures as usual.
Tuesday January 28, 1986 30th anniversary coming soon.  :(
Han shot first and Gwynne Shotwell !

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #406 on: 01/26/2016 11:55 am »
There is a brief extract in the novel from the report on the accident:

Thursday, January 8, 1981

…On admission, Colonel Priest was nauseated, chilled, and agitated, with glassy eyes. His temperature was 104 degrees. He had been cut from his pressure suit. He suffered repeated vomiting, and swelling of the face, neck, and upper extremities. His arms were so swollen, in fact, that his blood pressure could not be taken with the normal cuff, and the nurses had to enlarge it.

He was periodically conscious, and sometimes coherent and logical, but I judged he was not strong enough to contribute to any debriefпngs concerning the accident.

Priest’s difficulty in speaking and lapses into incoherence made his relatives in attendance, and some of my staff, feel uncomfortable.

Twenty-four hours after admission I ordered four samples of bone marrow to be taken from Priest’s sternum and iliac bones (both front and rear). Priest was very patient during the proceedings. The samples were used to determine the whole body dose.

During the fourth and fifth days after admission, Priest was in great pain from injuries to the mucous membranes of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. The mucous membranes were coming off in layers. Priest lost both sleep and appetite. Starting on the sixth day his right shin, on which the skin was disintegrating, began to swell and feel as if it was bursting; it then became rigid and painful.

On the seventh day, on account of a profound agranulocytosis — that is, a drop in the number of granular forms of leucocytes, responsible for immunity — I ordered an administration of 750 milliliters of bone marrow with blood.

Priest was then moved to a room sterilized with ultraviolet light. A period of intestinal syndrome began: bowel movements occurred between twenty-five and thirty times every twenty-four hours, containing blood and mucus; there was tenesmus, rumbling, and movement of fluids in the region of the caecum.

Owing to the severe lesions in the mouth and esophagus, Priest did not eat for several days. We provided nutrient fluids intravenously. In the meantime, soft blisters appeared on the perineum and buttocks, and the right shin was bluish purple, swollen, shiny, and smooth to the touch.

On the fourteenth day Colonel Priest began to lose his hair, in a curious manner: all the hair on the back of his head and body fell out. He grew weaker, and his lapses into unconsciousness or incoherence grew more prolonged.

On Friday January 2, the thirtieth day after the accident, Priest’s blood pressure suddenly dropped.

Fifty-seven hours later, Colonel Priest died; I recorded the immediate cause of death as acute myocardial dystrophy.

Under the microscope, it was quite impossible to see Priest’s heart tissue. The cell nuclei were a mass of torn fibers. It is accurate to say that Priest died directly from the radiation itself, and not from secondary biological changes. Gentlemen, it is impossible to save such patients, once the heart tissue has been destroyed.

Of the three members of Apollo-N’s crew, only Colonel Priest was found to be alive when the capsule was recovered after reentry. The radiation from the ruptured NERVA core had hit Colonel Priest from behind, doing most harm to his back, his calves, his perineum, and buttocks.

His mother, wife, and son were in attendance at his death.

Source: Report of the Presidential Commission on the Apollo-N Malfunction, Vol. I: Testimony of Dr. I.S. Kirby to the Medical Analysis Panel (extract) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981)
« Last Edit: 01/26/2016 11:56 am by Ronpur50 »

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #407 on: 01/28/2016 10:03 am »
Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 313/11:33:22 (Jan 28, 1986)
313/11:37:07 CDR Okay. Natalie, I believe you’re going to tell the folks about our call signs for the rest of this mission.
313/11:37:11 MSP Thank you. I know that sometimes our space-age jargon confuses the hell out of people.
313/11:37:15 CDR Hot mike.
313/11:37:17 MSP Confuses people. And it sure confuses me. For instance, our space travelers’ “calendar.” We count our days from the moment we left the ground, aboard our Saturn VB booster, from the Jacqueline B. Kennedy Space Center. So, to us, today is MET 313 days — that’s three hundred and thirteen days of Mission Elapsed Time, more than three hundred days since we left Earth. While to you, it is a plain old Tuesday, January 28, 1986. And this business of the call signs is another problem. Why is it that spacecraft sometimes have call signs — individual names, like Apollo 11’s Eagle and Columbia — and at other times Houston will refer to us as just, say, “Ares”? The answer is that we need to use call signs when there is more than one separate spacecraft involved in a flight, and they need to be distinguished in our radio conversations. And that’s going to be true on this flight, when we get to Mars in a couple of months’ time, and we land on the surface in our MEM. Unlike the Apollo missions to the Moon, we decided not to choose the names for our separate craft until now, until after the launch, as we haven’t needed them. As a crew we thought we’d prefer to spend some of the long transfer time to Mars on thinking about that.
313/11:38:18 MMP Sure. That’s what we did. Rather than watch videotapes of the Super Bowl.
313/11:38:25 CDR [INAUDIBLE]
313/11:38:28 MSP So today I’m going to tell you what names we’ve chosen. I know we have a lot of children listening today, at schools, and I hope this will bring alive some of the history lessons you have, and you’ll be able to see how what we’re doing today, in our exploration of Mars, is really an extension of the great journeys you can read about in your texts. Phil, if you…
313/11:38:46 CDR Sure. We’ve decided to name our spacecraft after famous exploration sailing ships of the past, uh, in line with what Natalie’s just said. And I’m particularly pleased with the name we’ve given to our Mission Module — that is, the place we’re living in during the voyage — because it was from the Mission Module that we conducted our study of Venus, as we flew past that planet. And we’ve decided to name it after the sailing ship which Captain James Cook commanded to Tahiti in 1769, to watch a transit of Venus across the sun: Endeavour. Ralph…
313/11:39:17 MMP Yeah. Then there’s our Apollo, which we’ll use to return to Earth. We’ve chosen the name Discovery. That’s actually for two ships: the one Henry Hudson captained in 1610, in his search for a northwest passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and another of the ships Cook captained, when he visited Hawaii, and Alaska, and western Canada. Back to Natalie.
313/11:40:00 MSP And now the MEM, the Excursion Module which will be the first ship to land humans on the surface of Mars. We’re going to call it after a famous U.S. Navy ship, which made a prolonged and very successful exploration of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the 1870s.
313/11:40:19 CDR Yes.
313/11:40:21 MSP We’re naming our MEM Challenger.
« Last Edit: 01/28/2016 11:24 am by Ronpur50 »

Offline Archibald

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #408 on: 01/28/2016 10:25 am »
really great. By the way, was does "HOT MIKE" mean ?
Han shot first and Gwynne Shotwell !

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #409 on: 01/28/2016 10:34 am »
It was a warning that the word "hell" went out over the open microphone, so Natalie had better watch her language. 
« Last Edit: 01/28/2016 10:35 am by Ronpur50 »

Offline luke strawwalker

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #410 on: 02/01/2016 09:15 pm »
I used to have yellow ochre too, but it is gone.  I also had a terra cotta brown which looks good too.  I still have some of the paint I used for my Delta IV, I may dry brush that on the tanks.  It is really impossible to match a paint to something that changes color over time!  I just pick  a favorite photo and try to match that.

I did a whole series of paint tests to match the ET foam color, detailed in my Dr. Zooch "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle thread #2 over on The Rocketry Forum...

Here's some links to the relevant posts, with lots of pics of the results and the methods used in text...

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13260#post13260

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13266#post13266

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13268#post13268

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13271#post13271

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13431#post13431

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=16277#post16277

Enjoying the thread and KUTGW!  OL J R :)
NO plan IS the plan...

"His plan had no goals, no timeline, and no budgetary guidelines. Just maybe's, pretty speeches, and smokescreens."

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #411 on: 02/02/2016 11:39 am »
I used to have yellow ochre too, but it is gone.  I also had a terra cotta brown which looks good too.  I still have some of the paint I used for my Delta IV, I may dry brush that on the tanks.  It is really impossible to match a paint to something that changes color over time!  I just pick  a favorite photo and try to match that.

I did a whole series of paint tests to match the ET foam color, detailed in my Dr. Zooch "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle thread #2 over on The Rocketry Forum...

Here's some links to the relevant posts, with lots of pics of the results and the methods used in text...

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13260#post13260

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13266#post13266

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13268#post13268

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13271#post13271

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=13431#post13431

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?1207-Dr-Zooch-Return-To-Flight-Space-Shuttle-build-thread-2&p=16277#post16277

Enjoying the thread and KUTGW!  OL J R :)
That is awesome work! It will help me when I ever get around to building that SLS model.

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #412 on: 02/21/2016 05:20 pm »
This arrived in the mail 30 years ago.

I found the MEM image in a Google search. Then created the NG cover in paint! Based it on the Titanic cover of Dec 1986.
« Last Edit: 02/21/2016 09:27 pm by Ronpur50 »

Offline mike robel

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #413 on: 02/21/2016 10:20 pm »
Way Cool Ron!

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #414 on: 02/21/2016 10:51 pm »
Thanks, Mike.
My favorite model kit.  The model was used during the news conference when the crew was announced.  It has decals for Iowa and Challenger.  I would do a Monogram box, but they always used artwork, not photos. 

"Friday, August 17, 1984
LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON
The questions came drifting out of a sea of lights so intense that they seemed to bake York’s face dry.
“How does it feel to be on the crew?” “What about the guys you beat out?” “Who will be first on the surface?” “What’s it like in space?…”
The three of them — chaperoned by Joe Muldoon and Rick Llewellyn, head of NASA’s Public Affairs Office — sat on a rickety podium, with the NASA logo emblazoned behind them, and a Revell model of a Columbia MEM on the table before them. The briefing room in the Public Affairs Office was packed, and in front of their table there was what the Old Heads called a goat xxxx, an unseemly scramble of microphones and camera lenses, pushed into the faces of the astronauts."
« Last Edit: 02/21/2016 11:00 pm by Ronpur50 »

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #415 on: 02/21/2016 11:48 pm »
And of course, the map supplement from the NG issue.  Note the image of Mariner 10!
« Last Edit: 02/21/2016 11:50 pm by Ronpur50 »

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #416 on: 02/25/2016 12:01 pm »
It appears that this image from last March has been nominated for a "Turtledove Award" on Alternate History Forum.  I am quite surprised and honored.  There is a lot of amazing work over there.  Here is a link to the nominees.  And you have to be a member to vote.

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=382277

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #417 on: 02/29/2016 01:59 am »
With just a few weeks before Ares arrives in Martian orbit, an image of the first sight of the Red Planet was released by NASA.  The image was captured by the onboard camera on the MS-II stage.

You will have to enlarge the photo to see Mars.
« Last Edit: 02/29/2016 02:00 am by Ronpur50 »

Offline AlexA

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #418 on: 02/29/2016 01:28 pm »
I am trying to keep documents in the era, so to speak, so I roughed up this graphic to show the layout of the Ares launch vehicle. 

And after I drew this up, I realized I forgot the Orbital Maneuvering Module for my model.

IIRC One difference between the Ares Mission Module and Skylab is that the oxygen tank was a 'solar storm shelter' on the MM (instead of for waste). This begs the question of what to do with solid waste on a long-duration mission?
I suspect on-board storage wouldn't be practical, so some sort of waste airlock? I guess you'd want to give waste some impulse to avoid it following you to Mars!
How does the DRM deal with this issue?

Offline Ronpur50

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Re: Modelling Mars
« Reply #419 on: 02/29/2016 02:54 pm »
I found this paragraph:
"The Mission Module was based on the design of the Skylabs, which had been in use for more than a decade. Such was the lifting capacity of the Saturn VB that the Mission Module had been delivered to Earth orbit “dry” — carrying no fuel — and with interior partitions and equipment already fitted. The crew occupied what had been the hydrogen tank, all forty-eight feet of it, with its domed ceiling and floor. Hidden under the floor was the lox tank, much smaller, a cramped, squashed sphere. The lox tank was used to hold stores, and with its thicker walls it would serve as the crew’s storm shelter — shielding them from solar flares, if any blew up in the course of the mission."

So, yes, it was a storm shelter, but also used for storage, so it could very well have had been used for everything. 

I would have imagine that the waste would have been compressed, or dried and just stored.  I can't find any info on what Baxter's real idea was on this important detail.

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