Project Heavy Metal

[Coolhand]

"Of course during windows it would cost more due to the need to really haul butt and back"

I'm not sure how that would work out, i think from an operating costs point of view, any way you work it, per journey it would cost more for the longer route, not cost more for the shorter one... i guess you're assuming that fuel costs are the biggest concern? So you're thinking of saving fuel on short haul flights? well, yeah thats all stuff you can exeriment with i suppose. if you have a fuel that costs so much per unit, perhaps as the director of a spaceline you'd have to balance these concerns out, depends how expensive your fuel is, is it cheaper to take more time and more food and save some gas.

and refueling at any point would be undesirable of course, thats just a suggestion....if its helium 3 fusion powered however, it might be cheaper to gas up in lunar orbit of course and that might be fun to do.

 

[Zachstar]

Thinking more about wear and tear but who knows what 100 years in tech will bring!

 

[Coolhand]

I guess i'm thinking about it like todays sea ships, if they can go maximum speed, they will. airliners, concorde or even slower aircraft still have a cruising speed pretty close to their maximum speed. turnaround times are all important in those industries as it surely will be in space... hopefully the ship would be made well enough to take that abuse as our present day technology allows ships engines and aircraft fuselages to run for an economically viable time before replacement or maintenance.

if you were really worried about stressing airframe and engines perhaps you'd run the engines at lower power for longer and achieve the same effect and still get there quickly. either way, most of the time you're coasting so wear and tear is cumulative, centrifuge bearings, life support systems, food dispensers, toilet flush handles and all the other systems that are needed to keep people happy all require constant maintenance.

maybe you'll wear the engines out quicker, or stress the frame to the point that its no longer economically feasible to fix, but if it works out that you can earn x billion credits in 20 years and toss the spacecraft on the junk heap, or earn the same in 10 but kill the craft 10 years earlier, most business people would choose the latter and just buy a new one... which they'd have to do in 20 years, but if everything is designed and built right, they'd have less money that way.

anyway, dorsal docking port.... i mocked up a quick ring stating with docking cluster just to illustrate. Doug i remember you wanted one of these in the XR2 but you didn't get one because it would involve changing the design too much... a ship this big could have one anywhere.

 

[Zachstar]

Absolutely AMAZING work there man. When I think of future space I think 50 years from now. Fusion rockets pushing modules about the solar systems. Does the job but beauty is lacking. This reminds me of something out of "Wall E" A luxary liner of beauty and function.

Heck you might need OGLA to show this thing off with all its beauty!

You are right about the 10 years new craft part. By then most construction will likely be done by colonies of extremely small robots and even nanomachines anyway. New designs will be perfect right from the start. And likely a good way to enact repars anyway. Being able to buy every decade means being able to adapt to customer needs and changes.

 

[jedidia]

Has anyone tried this with IMFD?

I have done flights in IMFD that had burns taking days, and thrust was much (MUCH) lower. At one G acceleration, you reach escape velocity pretty fast. From there, your trajectory will just straighten out (well, more or less). You will need a mid-course correction (but seriously, I never had an interplanetary flight that wouldn't have needed one), but IMFD is fully able to handle a three hour burn, provided you reach escape velocity in reasonably short time.

On another note, that bird looks fantastic. A really great design I could have easily imagined to find in one of my spaceflight books under "future concepts". If Doug will indeed be doing the coding this will be easily on par with the XR2.

 

[Zachstar]

I figured you needed to do 2 burns. It makes sense anyway. You can wait a bit to do some checks on the engines before entering a burn where if things go wrong a rescue ship has mere hours at most to depart towards you.

 

[T.Neo]

Coolhand, have you considered a water landing/takeoff for this spacecraft? It's perhaps a bit retro and a tad unconventional for spaceplanes, but it would make more sense than launching from a large runway IMO.

A land launch would then be more practical on a body such as Mars or the Moon, where the gravity is lower and the hover engines can be used.

 

[Sky Captain]

Yea water takeoff/landing might be good idea. At least you will not need to build new runway after each takeoff. Also if something goes wrong on takeoff you will always have enough runway to come to stop safely. With smartly chosen launch site even if at some point during ascent to orbit happens some serious failure you will have runway to land. Heck 70 % of Earth surface can be your runway if something goes wrong.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Yeah but what about that glide speed? This thing is pretty big, and hitting the water at that speed, even at a low vertical speed, would have to be harsh. Wouldn't you risk damaging the thing? Unless you build the underside out of battleship armor.

 

[T.Neo]

Unless you build the underside out of battleship armor.

Or out of the stuff the engines are made of?

It has to withstand the stresses of reentry anyway... :hmm:

 

[River Crab]

... I fail to see the relevance, significance, or indeed any sense behind these paragraphs.

@Salun Its somewhat like a competing system to the Arrow Freighter. Maybe a few years ahead. A space race sort of thing.

Anyway, what I was going to say...

You need hover for Mars landing anyway (keep in mind that Mars has about 0.376g), so if you're going to try to soft-land on water with hover, you might just be better with a hovering runway landing; I imagine the hover thrust on water would cause a lot of technical problems. :idk: However, I suggest the hover be angled away from the underside to avoid damage from solid/liquid debris kick-up. You might lose the benefit of the lift from atmosphere compressing underneath, though. :idk:
Also, assuming the same gear would be used for Mars landing, a control that depressurizes/pressurizes the tyres might be cool. :idk: And for reentry: Ballutes? :idk:
I don't know anything.

Also, only a true master "whips up" a station so fast just for one shot, and thinks nothing of it.
:speakcool:hand woot!

 

[T.Neo]

By this point in time i don't think passengers would be exposed to any extreme forces, you might be ferrying the elderly, children, pregnant women for example, anyone who might get on a public transport, airliner or ferry or whatever today. not limited to physically fit trained astronauts in their prime. and passengers should be warned and restrained prior to manuvering.

Aren't pregnant women advised to avoid flying if possible?

 

[Coolhand]

yeah, probably.

As for a water landing, let me know how you get on with that.

:thumbup:
and please let that be the last large celebrity photo... has anyone given him a payrise yet?

anyway regarding the posters apparently discussing some sort of partisan rivalry between addon developers or members in regards to particular addon or dev... I don't think anything could really be further from the truth.

We should show respect for everyones work i think most people agree with that, I'm sure all the addon devs do. its not the same as xbox vs playstation, or halo vs having a life or any of that crap. Nobody is aggressively marketing to a demographic and attempting to whip them up into some sort of feverish brand loyalty

Here, for this sim its just not necessary or welcome or even productive, infact quite the opposite. I think most people who like the DGIV, also like the XR1 & XR2, and fly them all and whatever else they like. It's boring flying the same ship all the time.

At the end of the day the XR2 has no more value than a DGIV or vice versa or any addon which has had a similar amount of time and care put into it. They're both labours of love and ultimately they're just parts of the orbiter experience, neither diminishes the other. So each time a new ship is added it just expands and improves that experience. I'd like to see whole fleets roaming the solar system, all types of craft as we have different aircraft today and then you can enjoy them all, whether you choose to fly them or not.

Better for me if someone else makes them really, then i can just sit back and enjoy. :lol:

 

[Mandella]

has anyone given him a payrise yet?

I believe he just retired, actually. I mean, what was he going to do to top that anyway?

One topic, this is going to be an awesome addon. Can't wait to go cruising!

 

[Zachstar]

Agreed water is out of the question.. On top of that the high isp of the engines would cause large amounts of water to flash evaporate not only is that an concern in RL but in Orbiter it would be a pain to do right.

The reason you have any chance of using a runway at all is because it perhaps can be reinforced with a future material that can be hit with particles at extreme energy.

 

[Pilot7893]

Here's an idea I had. Considering this ship is +100 years from now, it might work.
A giant tower structure, with platforms attached to the outside. There are arrestor cables on the platforms, like on an aircraft carrier, and the ships use these cables combined with hover thrusters to slow their decent and land on a much smaller space. Of course, if the hover thrusters are powerful enough (which I doubt), they could just do a full VTOL landing on the pad. It depends on if the ship is more like a cruise ship or an airliner. If it's like a ship, we only need to make the tower accommodate 3 to 5 of these ships, at most.
I dunno, I'm trying to think of something original. Maybe I can try to find a picture to explain.

 

[Coolhand]

I think there's a couple of big differences between this, which takes off conventionally almost and a vertical takeoff system.

in this mode the time any single part of a runway is cooked for is minimal, downward thrust is also spread out over many engines - probably 6 or 8 hover engines and a lot of the thrust is coming out the back of the ship and parallel to the runway.

Its different to a vertical takeoff system, perhaps for a conventional stack which concentrates all its energy on one small point and keeps it there for a time until the rocket is clear.

Dont try this at home, but you can run a flame over your hand and not damage yourself if you do it quickly enough, but hold it in the flame for just a second and you burn. the difference is the amount of radiation you're concentrating on a particular area... spread out the radiation and its harmless.

So by keeping exposure time short on a given area you might not actually do too much damage, and by spreading the energy out over a larger area you also reduce the effects.

so, say to takeoff you accellerate normally,then bring up the hover engines and rotate... on landing you can cut them as soon as you touchdown so again exposure is minimal.

 

[Hielor]

so, say to takeoff you accellerate normally,then bring up the hover engines and rotate... on landing you can cut them as soon as you touchdown so again exposure is minimal.

This is pretty much exactly how I get the DGex off the ground from KSC. Just barely makes it.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

As soon as you had explained what the transforming midsection was (in the other thread), I thought it was a really cool idea. It's a pretty efficient use of space, getting a centrifuge in there and still having a way to give the craft an aerodynamic shape. It reminds me of something you'd see in an anime. The Japanese come up with some pretty cool mechanical designs. And, well, so do you! Nice work.

 

[Izack]

Is it possible to see a short animation of the centrifuge? It looks a tad too complex to comprehend from just pictures.