Author Topic: Apollo Direct (Read 10241 times)

mike robel · « **on:** 09/28/2014 03:00 pm »

Came across on the site, some information on Apollo Direct Ascent to the Moon. So naturally, I had to start one.

Here are some early shots/mock ups.

I decided to use the 1:144 Revell Saturn V shipping mount for the S-II anf a 1:72 Dragon J-2 for the main engine. There will be two additional engines using 1:144 J-2's.

Here is the descent stage from 3inch plastic tubing, a 1:72 Dragon SM for scale, and the J-2.

The next two show the Descent stage with the engine assembly temporarily inserted.

And finally, the 1:72 MEM next to the descent stage for more scale.

mike robel · « **Reply #1 on:** 09/28/2014 03:14 pm »

Here's the thread that started me on this.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28870.0

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #2 on:** 09/30/2014 02:28 am »

S-II Shipping mount! Now I know why that piece was like that!
Can't wait to see this done!

mike robel · « **Reply #3 on:** 09/30/2014 02:57 am »

Yeah. So I could use it here.

mike robel · « **Reply #4 on:** 10/03/2014 01:39 am »

Okay, got my 1/72 Real Space Models Apollo CSM today, so did a mock up with a paper shroud and lots of tape.

I will send my shroud off to Shapeways this weekend and have them grow me one.

Just some different angles. The last one shows Apollo Direct towering over the LEM

mike robel · « **Reply #5 on:** 10/03/2014 02:06 am »

And another with the S-IVB and Apollo CSM

mike robel · « **Reply #6 on:** 10/08/2014 01:41 am »

I ordered the 3D printed shroud today. Hopefully it prints OK. It passed the preliminary checks. Its only a simple open cone, so I can't think there is any real trouble with it.

Here's a view of it in the drawing program I am using.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #7 on:** 10/09/2014 02:21 am »

Nice! This might be an option to do those nosecones on the Ares ETs!

mike robel · « **Reply #8 on:** 10/09/2014 02:48 am »

I have that drawn in 3D. I'm waiting for this to come back before I send it off. Although it is pretty simple, too. And it will look good on my 33 Foot Skylab II and the nose on my Saturn ID

mike robel · « **Reply #9 on:** 11/03/2014 11:57 pm »

My 3D printed shroud should arrive on 14 NOV. This spurred me to do some work of adding the landing struts, mounting the engines, and beginning painting of the CSM.

mike robel · « **Reply #10 on:** 11/04/2014 12:02 am »

Close up of engines.

With a 1/72 BPC on top, looking like it migt have looked waiting to be hosted to te Saturn C-8 Stack.

Next to The Apollo mounted on the SLA

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #11 on:** 11/04/2014 02:28 am »

Is your Shapeways part shipping on time? I just got an email saying my MEM is delayed...

mike robel · « **Reply #12 on:** 11/04/2014 03:48 am »

Tehy've adjusted the delivery date a couple of times. Its still supposed to be due on the 14th.

mike robel · « **Reply #13 on:** 11/05/2014 09:45 pm »

My shroud is on the way from Shapeways!

Edit. I have also joined a 1/144 SIV-B with an S-IV with a Block II CSM on top to model the departure burn for the Moon and with another Apollo CSM and LES, it can sit on top of my Saturn C-8 for liftoff.

Photos soon...

mike robel · « **Reply #14 on:** 11/05/2014 10:00 pm »

Here me more photos of the 1/72 lander. I've added some of the struts and the landing radar radome.

Landing pads are from 1/72 Airfix LM. I have not fixed the lower struts and pads into position.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #15 on:** 11/06/2014 06:50 pm »

I just can't imagine how something this tall would have worked. Imagine climbing down a ladder that would be needed to get from the CM to the ground in a suit!

But your model is looking awesome!

mike robel · « **Reply #16 on:** 11/06/2014 07:07 pm »

Yeah. I'm gonna ignore that by having the thing above the surface.

I was thinking about an airlock that would lower from the thrust unit to the surface. Obviously, most equipment storage would have to be inside.

the_other_Doug · « **Reply #17 on:** 11/08/2014 05:09 am »

Quote from: Ronpur50 on 11/06/2014 06:50 pm

I just can't imagine how something this tall would have worked. Imagine climbing down a ladder that would be needed to get from the CM to the ground in a suit!

Yeah -- the total length of the Apollo Direct landing stack was about 90 feet, IIRC, which was just about the length of a Mercury-Atlas. While working on the (very) preliminary design for the landing stack, many of the engineers were coming off of design jobs in Mercury and had very fresh, and sometimes traumatic, memories of Atlas rockets blowing up when they tried to launch them with Mercury capsules on top.

I recall one quote from one of the engineers, who compared, very uneasily, the landing of the Apollo Direct stack to backing an Atlas down onto the pad. "And we were having so many problems getting them (the Atlases) to go the other way..."

There were many other issues -- how do you convince an astronaut to just sit there and let the automatic system land? The guy couldn't eyeball it while lying on his back on the couch, except via a TV camera and monitor or a periscope-like device, which the astronauts were dead-set against. Before the Direct and EOR approaches were canceled, the best plan seemed to have been to adapt the crew hatch into a porch-like affair where the command pilot would crawl out, affix his controls, and strap in with his legs hanging off the edge, from whence to eyeball his craft to a landing! (I would've hated to see a 7-plus fps landing in that configuration -- you could have broken the hatch!)

But yeah -- as a model of an historic might-have-been, it *is* looking good! Keep posting updates, please.

-Doug (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Proponent · « **Reply #18 on:** 11/08/2014 11:12 am »

I've seen some artwork from that era showing what would now be called a dual-axis lander. In other words, you do most of the braking in the traditional near-vertical orientation and then, near the surface, shut down the main engine and rotate 90°, then finally land in a horizontal attitude on small engines.

the_other_Doug · « **Reply #19 on:** 11/08/2014 12:43 pm »

Yes, I've seen the horizontal landing concept, too. The issue with that concept, which I believe I read Caldwell Johnson (one of Max Faget's most trusted engineers) say about it, was that once you got down on your side, "how're you gonna get back up? Your engine that can get you back up is pointed the wrong way." There were all sorts of ideas tossed out, including setting up a crude crane system to jack the whole thing up to a vertical position in preparation for take-off -- the sticking point being that if you couldn't raise the stack up after landing, you weren't lifting off. (Read, somewhere in the Historical Spaceflight forum, about the largest off-vertical angle the LM could support and still lift off successfully.)

The thinking about lunar landing was really free-form and basic in the early days. But that just gives us some really fun things to model! I'd also love to see modeling of LSR, with a small, non-returnable landing craft (like, for example, the Pilgrim Project Mercury capsule lander) sitting on the surface next to a pre-landed hab module. With maybe a second hab module coming in to land a little ways from the first. The "just get him there" option as described in the "Spider" episode of "From the Earth to the Moon"... but done right, not the silly-looking Gemini-atop-a-LM-descent-stage shown in the movie "Countdown".

I just wish my modeling skills (and my available time to devote to it) had not atrophied once I got out of my teens. Also, that I had not developed this nasty allergy to paint and glue fumes right around when I got out of my teens. Otherwise, I would have liked to have continued my modeling to the present day. Unfortunately, all I can do is sit back and watch the masters at work... but y'all do it up right, and it's good to see.

-Doug (With my shield, not yet upon it)