Author Topic: Modelling Mars (Read 226776 times)

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #380 on:** 07/20/2015 04:43 pm »

I remember going to the hobby shop 30 years ago this week to spend my birthday money on this 1/144th scale Revell model of the Ares. It was full of inaccuracies, using the Block 1 Apollo instead of the Block IV. And it used the old S-IVB stage instead of the Ares Mission Module. I would have to wait 10 years before accurate replacement parts were made of resin.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #381 on:** 07/29/2015 12:46 pm »

My grandparents went to Florida back in 1970 when we lived in Illinois. They brought this back, which I still have and is very well worn.

And below that is the one they would have brought back in this timeline.

ohaithere01 · « **Reply #382 on:** 08/07/2015 08:24 pm »

Okay, so i was re-reading Voyage and i saw this. Did they make the F-1A's to run on LH2 instead of RP-1? If so, would they have less thrust than standard F-1s?

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #383 on:** 08/07/2015 08:35 pm »

Hum, oh boy, these things are what I live for! If I can't find another reference to this, I would assume it to be an error. There are several, the Dana having two rookie flights is one of them, and issues with the timeline. But there seem to be more in the Ares section than anywhere else.

I will look tonight to see if I see anything else.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #384 on:** 08/08/2015 02:13 am »

OK, I have reviewed the book, and found this passage, from after the Saturn VB accident:

"Dana was speaking, in his thin, frail voice. Udet drew a little more upright in his chair.
“At 6.6 seconds before launch, the Saturn’s kerosene-fueled F-1A main engines were ignited in sequence and run up to full thrust, while the entire structure was still bolted to the launchpad. The thrust of the main engines pushed the Saturn assembly upward, against the restraint exerted by the pin-down bolts anchoring it to the pad. When the Solid Rocket Boosters’ restraining bolts were explosively released the stack’s ‘stretch’ was suddenly relieved…”"

There are more saying the MS-1C uses RP-1.

The F1-A used kerosene then, so that reference is an error.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #385 on:** 08/17/2015 08:46 pm »

At a mission elapsed time of +150 Days, Ares is only 24 days from passing Venus to pick up speed to get to Mars.

The ship looks very tiny in space, all alone in the dark........

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #386 on:** 08/18/2015 10:10 pm »

I found an old photo of the sign by the gate at Kennedy Space Center.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #387 on:** 08/23/2015 02:04 pm »

I missed this update by a few days.

"The subprobe had been ejected twenty-three days ago, from a compartment at the base of the Mission Module, and had been pushed onto a slowly diverging orbit. Ares was missing Venus by a few thousand miles; the probe, pushed ahead of Ares, was supposed to impact the planet directly, a few minutes before the closest approach of the main craft. The probe would hit in the middle of the dayside, in an upland region called Ishtar Terra.
The probe was contained within its aeroshell deceleration module, a deep, streamlined pie dish. Its TV cameras couldn’t see out of the aeroshell, but there was a radio-transparent window at the top, so the probe could talk to Ares."

The probe in my photo is an actual Pioneer Venus Probe, just deformed a bit to make it look different. A small rectangular hatch is open on the rear of the Mission Module in the background.

Edit: Replaced Probe

mike robel · « **Reply #388 on:** 08/24/2015 12:19 am »

Sure looks lonely out there.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #389 on:** 08/26/2015 01:53 pm »

I wasn't satisfied with the probe release picture, so I found a probe and angle I liked better. Photo replaced.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #390 on:** 08/28/2015 07:58 pm »

With the Venus Flyby approaching, the crew today deployed the Science Pallet. Insert of the pallet being worked on in the VAB.

I had forgotten to build and attach the pallet until a few days ago. By placing it in this location, it would not be seen in any of my previous photos.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #391 on:** 09/01/2015 12:49 pm »

September 1, 1985. 165 days since launch. Ares was approaching Venus for it's fly by. This would give the craft the needed velocity to make it to Mars, with the fuel on board.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #392 on:** 09/08/2015 04:27 pm »

Mission Elapsed Time [Day/Hr:Min:Sec] Plus 171/13:24:02 (Sept 8, 1985)
“Sixty minutes to pericenter,” Stone said.
All three members of the crew were in the Mission Module’s science platform. At the heart of this little octagonal chamber, lined with its banks of switches and displays, they were strapped into harnesses and had their feet hooked into stirrups.
Above York’s head there was a small science viewport. A brilliant, shifting white light beat down over her face, flooding the fluorescents.
She could see the upper half of a fat, pale, gibbous disc.
My God. That’s Venus.
To her naked eye, the dayside of the planet was glaring white — much brighter than Earth, from a similar distance — and it washed out the stars. Of the thin slice of nightside she could see nothing at all.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #393 on:** 09/08/2015 04:36 pm »

The plan was for Ares to skim around behind the dark side of the planet. The slingshot would twist the ship’s trajectory through thirty degrees, and Ares would be hugely accelerated. As Ares had crawled, unpowered, around the sun, it had drawn only a little way ahead of Earth; so Ares was passing between Venus and Earth. The cluster would pass into the shadow of Venus, but it would never be out of Earth’s line of sight.
The members of the crew had their assignments for the Venus encounter phase: Stone was monitoring the cluster’s trajectory, Gershon was to follow the atmospheric-entry subprobe Ares had released, and York was operating the Mission Module’s sensor pallet.
In one of the video monitors she had an image of the cloud tops in ultraviolet light. It showed a wealth of blue-gray detail invisible to the naked eye: cloud structures that swept around the planet, complex bows and cells that distorted and stretched out along the planet’s lines of latitude. The whole thing, in its computer-generated false colors, looked almost Earthlike.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #394 on:** 09/08/2015 04:39 pm »

York returned to her station. “The TV mosaics have started,” she reported. “And the planetary strip photography. Everything’s nominal on the pallet.”
“Pericenter,” Stone said abruptly. “How about that. Mission elapsed time one seventy-one days, fourteen hours, twenty-four minutes.” He checked his displays. “It’s the eighth of September 1985, and here we are at Venus, guys. Distance to the surface three thousand, one hundred, fifty-five miles and change. We’ve come a hundred and seven million miles from Earth, and we’re within fifty miles of the nominal trajectory. Damn fine shooting.”

mike robel · « **Reply #395 on:** 09/08/2015 07:36 pm »

Damn Fine Shooting!!!

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #396 on:** 10/05/2015 03:14 am »

After seeing The Martian, I have decided to take a look at my next Mars model. This will be based on one of Von Braun's mission plans from 1969. Keeping it in universe with "Voyage", I will portray it as Hans Udet's original plan to use the NERVA to fly a mission to Mars.

I am assuming it would take 3 Saturn VB launches to place the fueled NERVA tugs in orbit with one to launch the Mission Module and MEM. The Mission Module will be the same as what was flown in 1985-86. The crew would follow on a Saturn 1B launch, and not a shuttle as was the Von Braun plan.

I may make this model a smaller scale than the 1/144th Ares I already have built. Maybe a desktop model that sat on Udet's desk at Marshall!

I also drew up a plan that uses 4 NERVA tugs.

mike robel · « **Reply #397 on:** 10/05/2015 07:32 pm »

The Boeing IMIS used 5 Nerva stages. 3 to leave, 1 for MOI and one to return to earth. Cross fed.

Someplace I have the launch campaign.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #398 on:** 10/06/2015 02:33 am »

I have read in this thread here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29798.0
about the differences in the plans. Boeing's used the nuclear tugs designed for lunar missions, while the Von Braun used tugs designed for a Mars mission. That is why Boeing used more. I have to re-read some sections of Voyage to figure out what Udet's plan was, I assume it was Von Braun's.

It also looks like they would have needed fuel lofted as well. The shuttle was part of that plan to take fuel and provisions to the ship.

Archibald · « **Reply #399 on:** 10/06/2015 07:39 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.