Watch "Space Oddessy: A Voyage to the Planets" to get an idea as to the challenges the crew will face.
The ship will need a very complex computer system to remain controlable by a small crew.
Yeah, I've seen that. I was thinking a crew of eight, all of whom go down to the surface of Titan. The ship would have to perform its own stationkeeping at L1, as well as midcourse correction burns on the way to Saturn.
---------- Post added at 08:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 PM ----------
Right. PXV303 Neil Armstrong is about 50% modeled:
Things that remain to be done are pretty much just greebles and added detail. Variations on this same vessel will be used for missions to mars, and a venus orbital mission.
(this doesn't count the crew landing/return vehicle, or the refueling ship)
(PXV = Planetary Exploration Vessel, future names include Yuri Gagarin, Yang Liwei, and Alan Shepard)
---------- Post added 02-02-12 at 12:38 AM ---------- Previous post was 02-01-12 at 08:21 PM ----------
Got a script ship set at an arbitrary distance from Titan, to see how it looked.
---------- Post added at 02:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 AM ----------
Massive eye candy time, here's PXV301 'Neil Armstrong' docked to SC201 'Starling':
And Starling by itself: