Project Heavy Metal

[Salun]

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

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

Then that race has already been won! Never, Absolutely never have I seen such a fantastic ship design or concept both in real life and any fiction yet! You have won the aeronautics modeling probe prize !

 

[James.Denholm]

The good thing about competition is, of course, that it encourages innovation and, well, awesomeness on the part of all parties involved. Not saying that these creations wouldn't be incredible anyway, of course. You get what I'm trying to say.

Coolhand... That. Looks. Awesome. Though I must say, I was wondering who that fellow in the window was ever since the shots in the XR2 thread. :lol:

A small note, however: On the tri-render of the ship, I note that the reflections seem to stop in a rather sudden manner on the join at the end of the fore-section. Of course, it is known that the surface begins to curve at that point, and it's always possible that such an area is a different material or something... But it just looks... wrong, for some reason. Maybe it's just me and my retarded eyes, but was that sudden end to the reflections intended?

 

[Sky Captain]

This is absolutely awesome. When I will take off for the first time with this ship I will play Heavy Metal louder than hell:thumbup:

This is certainly going to be among my favorite spacecraft.

:hail:

 

[autopilotman]

Flyable Hugh Laurie?

The idea makes me rofl. If I could model, I'd probably be sorely tempted to do that now.

we need a ummu of him :lol:

 

[Izack]

I think we've found Orbiter's most epic pair.

As to a space race, it doesn't seem likely. What's the incentive? No matter what, both spacecraft will be used (I'm not planning on uninstalling the Arrow for this )

Hands down though, this would win a competition for aesthetic appeal. And if Doug's coding it, I know it will be just as stupendous under the hood as it is on the outside. :tiphat:

PS: If someone makes an UMMU Hugh Laurie, I'd be delighted to plow him into the lunar regolith with this ship.

 

[mc_]

XR5 will look like a Shuttle PB near this thing :thumbup:

 

[Sky Captain]

I think we will need a longer runway to safely fly this baby from. The landing/takeoff speed for something so large and heavy will be very high.

 

[Richy]

Looks great!

Do you intend to include different classes? Say First Class (Luxury-Liner Cabins with artificial gravity) Second Class (Just "Trains-Cabins" + ag) Third Class (no ag).

 

[Pilot7893]

We may also need some sort of Interplanetary airport for this thing. Hanaba base of the future?:hmm:

 

[Evil_Onyx]

Very cool craft Coolhand, your skills seem to be unmatched.

Sky Captain

I think we will need a longer runway to safely fly this baby from. The landing/takeoff speed for something so large and heavy will be very high.

I think this would need to use hover thrusters for any landing or takeoff, as i cant see many runways capable been extended to take the roll out need for something that size.

 

[Zachstar]

The issue is anything from the future with high ISP engines is going to have exhaust that likely eats into concrete like a knife through butter. I agree with the need for hover thrusters and pads made of some reinforced future material that can be hammered with such energy.

 

[Coolhand]

Doug! well that would be pretty cool.

I'll try and cover some of the questions here... sorry for not answering anyone specifically but you know who you are

this whole concept anticipates there would be new, large facilities, both in space and on the ground to handle increased space traffic of the future - the iss would be a little redundant with monsters like this around. current runways and airports too small. to accomodate smaller facilities it could compensate with hover engines. though it perhaps can't take off with them alone but they assist low speed flight. the thrusters would enable a shorter takeoff and perhaps open up more runways if it doesn't melt them too much but it would mean that you could use the standard orbiter runways.

it could glide at high speed, and perhaps glide-land at a high speed on a specially prepared, very large runway. How fast would you have to fly to land as a pure glider on earth, at sea level with no fuel is an interesting question.

For how long it takes to get to mars, surely depends on where it is in relation to earth, if we're in alignment between it and the sun its what, 60 million miles?

I'm going to really simplify it here, i'm sure someone can fill in the gaps and double check the maths here, i think this is about right. but lets assume they're both static relative to each other in simplified space when they're about 60million km apart, so to get there in a week we'd need to travel at an average speed of 400,000 kmh which i think means accellerating at 1g for about 3 hours to get up to speed and burning half our fuel perhaps. then we can deploy the centrifuge and coast to mars. perhaps it could get there in a few days if it burns longer... ya know, whatever really, i'm sure you'll be able to edit the values to whatever you want anyway I'm just basing this around 'getting there in a week'.

perhaps a lower accelleration would be desirable, and more plausible - less heat to deal with for a start. perhaps even a boost phase for a longer time which allows the centrifuge to be deployed at the same time. I imagine this is something you'll be able to experiment with. with maybe a breaking limit for the centrifuge.. so it breaks down if its deployed and you push the spacecraft past so much g could be set.

possibly you might takeoff with a low fuel load, swing past the moon on the way and meet up with a helium 3 / naquadriah / altea magic tea platform to tank up. anything like that would slow you down which sorta goes against the concept, but perhaps if you're being thrifty like a budget spaceline who has bought some second hand, you could accomodate more passengers like that, takeoff with less fuel more passengers or cargo weight and tank up in space... maybe you would need to do that to reach mars at its furthest point with enough supplies to last the journey.

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.

You might even carry livestock, in which case you'd have to be really careful:lol:

anyway, just some thoughts really.

 

[River Crab]

Also, as to avoid this forum turning into an imageboard, I'm going to add this:

The concept of a "Space Race" between Doug and Dan is preposterous. You think they could have a head-to-head, Cold War-style competition, what with Dan never seeming to come out (busy with FS Passengers and RL), and both Doug and Steve always active?
That's like saying there's an "Asian Space Race" going on. They all have their own space initiatives, but they're not at war.

Anyway, looks awesome!
Since there's a limit to how much RInc your launch site would be from Mars' plane, special facilities make sense. An artificial island like Wideawake would be plausible, right?

Livestock? Are you planning to breed cows on mars? :lol: I'd expect a producing colony to be vegetarian, since you save about 10% energy by being primary consumers. Plus the smell. Although you might be able to use the methane as fuel... :hmm: Just musings...

And I can safely assume that anyone who asks for an escape system will be shot immediately? :lol:
THE CAPTAIN STAYS WITH HIS SHIP!

---------- Post added at 19:08 ---------- Previous post was at 19:03 ----------

"Naquadriah"
You know your Stargate, huh? :lol:

 

[Pilot7893]

Quick question, is this going to have a VC? I know all the other XR planes (save the XR5) have had VCs, and the one on the XR2 was fantastic, even if it was static.

 

[Zachstar]

I think the "Getting there in a week" would be standard regardless of alignment. The issue with meeting up with some sort of "Fuel depot" is that takes time and when your craft isn't on the ground boarding people paying good money. Its costing you money.

The engines I am thinking of would basically be fusion product reactors that operate close to the theoretical limit of fusion ISP. So even if it takes more fuel. It ought to not take that much more fuel to achieve runs even at max separation tho that might be pushing the 1 week theory a bit.

 

[dbeachy1]

i think this is about right. but lets assume they're both static relative to each other in simplified space when they're about 60million km apart, so to get there in a week we'd need to travel at an average speed of 400,000 kmh which i think means accellerating at 1g for about 3 hours to get up to speed and burning half our fuel perhaps. then we can deploy the centrifuge and coast to mars. perhaps it could get there in a few days if it burns longer... ya know, whatever really, i'm sure you'll be able to edit the values to whatever you want anyway I'm just basing this around 'getting there in a week'.

"Accelerating for 3 hours at one G" -- I love the idea! That would also make for some interesting flying, having to calculate your burn times that far in advance to ensure a timely arrival, particularly for a short hop to the moon. :thumbup:

Plus a large payload bay and a dorsal docking port, I hope. Does it really have enough wing area to glide on Earth??

 

[Xyon]

The concept of a "Space Race" between Doug and Dan is preposterous. You think they could have a head-to-head, Cold War-style competition, what with Dan never seeming to come out (busy with FS Passengers and RL), and both Doug and Steve always active?
That's like saying there's an "Asian Space Race" going on. They all have their own space initiatives, but they're not at war.

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

On a lighter, more topic-related note, awesome post, coolhand. I didn't ask any questions but it answered a few I had anyway

 

[Coolhand]

I think the "Getting there in a week" would be standard regardless of alignment. The issue with meeting up with some sort of "Fuel depot" is that takes time and when your craft isn't on the ground boarding people paying good money. Its costing you money.

The engines I am thinking of would basically be fusion product reactors that operate close to the theoretical limit of fusion ISP. So even if it takes more fuel. It ought to not take that much more fuel to achieve runs even at max separation tho that might be pushing the 1 week theory a bit.

you'd be able to fit it with any engines you want i guess... right doug? doesn't change the fact that its a lot quicker to get there than it is at other times.

It's a bit like flying from london to rome, or flying from london to sydney. you'd expect that your ticket would cost more and it would take more time if you wanted to go to sydney, you have rent that bit of aircraft for a longer time in a sense. but thats looking at it purely logistically i guess - you need more consumables and the passengers are using, putting wear and tear on the ship for a longer time.

alternatively, it might cost more to go at the shortest times as people would prefer to only spend a week or a few days each way so although it costs the spaceline less, its desirable to spend as little time as possible on the voyage and people would pay a premium for that.

so you could support a 1 price ticket that way, people pay more at peak times which subsidises the longer journeys, but you should always be looking to get people there as quickly & economically as possible. if you could make 2 or 3 mars runs per week at the shortest time and one run at the farthest point, i think you'd do that and sell more tickets at peak time, rather than offer a fixed timetable at all times which means you're running your ship 1/4 the speed it could go. but yes, i think 1 ticket price is possible if you can make enough money on the short journeys.

glide on Earth??

i'm sure it'll glide to a certain speed anything will glide if its going fast enough. A variable geometry wing or wings might be the ideal solution, but it might not be necessary if you accept a high touchdown speed and a long runway. i really can't say what those numbers might be however.

 

[Zachstar]

I like the ticket price idea. Of course during windows it would cost more due to the need to really haul butt and back. But that would then mean that your previous depot idea would work you may need to take on extra fuel for out of window flights as your burn times will be longer even for 2 week cruises. But that would allow "Must have within the month" cargo and people flights possible.

---------- Post added at 07:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:18 PM ----------

"Accelerating for 3 hours at one G" -- I love the idea! That would also make for some interesting flying, having to calculate your burn times that far in advance to ensure a timely arrival, particularly for a short hop to the moon. :thumbup:

Plus a large payload bay and a dorsal docking port, I hope. Does it really have enough wing area to glide on Earth??

Has anyone tried this with IMFD?