OFMM General Discussions Archive

[supersonic]

I would like to fly assembly flights, after thats done dock to the main ship and put my ship in the hands of the person flying the stack until we get to Mars. I will freight cargo and UMMUs to Mars and other stuff that may be needed at Mars.

( I would prefer to fly a DGIV or maybe an XR2.)

 

[Pablo49]

I would like to fly assembly flights, after thats done dock to the main ship and put my ship in the hands of the person flying the stack until we get to Mars. I will freight cargo and UMMUs to Mars and other stuff that may be needed at Mars.

( I would prefer to fly a DGIV or maybe an XR2.)

As stated before by Uwrumpe, we really aren't at the point to volunteer for flying missions right now. We don't even have any missions to fly yet.

Bj, I approve of you taking project manager role. :thumbup:

 

[Bloodworth]

I also approve of you as project manager, I'm kind of a noob at this.

 

[Ashaman42]

Using the ET as a rough estimation of LOX/LH2 mass/volume ratio, it has 358.69kg of propellant per cubic meter.


Alright, this is what I'm envisioning; containers like this (for ground fuel containers) would be good as semi-permanent structures. While the miner can produce smaller drums that can be used for packing fuel to orbit.

Now I am starting to think that for the 'smaller drums' we can actually use the fuel cargo supplied with UCGO. Since like ~9 of them will fill up the fuel tanks of DGIV, they should be enough. Anyway, if we had to haul them, we would have to make them fit in cargo bays and well, more hassle then I think its worth and redesigning the wheel I think.

Summary: the miner should produce UCGO fuel cargo for simplicity sake.


The larger drums (since I am assuming, alteration of Arrows hover engines to permit landing) should fill up 800,750kg of fuel with say, 5 drums.

Assuming 1.25:1 ratio for width/high large drum size and 160,150 kg for drum,

(don't mind my scribbles)
[MATH]\pi hr^2 = [/MATH](volume of container)
[MATH]2r=1.25(h)[/MATH]

[MATH]\pi h(0.625h)^2 = .39\pi h^3[/MATH]

[MATH]~.39\pi h^3 = ~446.49[/MATH] ( = (1/5)/358.69 of 800,750kg)

So the large drum should be;
h = ~7.14
r = ~4.46

Now then, I think either we can do 2 things, be realistic and set the miner (or other vessel) to have fuel containers fill as a function of time, or we can just have the oil drums set to act as UCGO fuel stations.

Yeah, probably best for the miner to make normal fuel cargos as I remembered at work that DanSteph has said that UCGO cargos must be able to fit in a 1.3m^3 box.
So for the fuel cargo to hold more fuel it would have to stay the same size and just hold a super dense fuel.

My main worry with a bigger fuel container was how to get it to orbit but if we're having the Arrow com eto us then that problem is solved.

I'll have a go at whipping up a big fuel tank mesh then, don't mind either way whether we have it fill over time or act as a fuel station, it's easy enough to canabalise the miner code.

Though wouldn't be able to directly fill the Arrow from a miner-derived tank, would have to produce many UCGO fuel containers but they take zero time to make so wouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[Urwumpe]

This would assume that we are developing a new realistic multistage Apollo like vessel capable of Mars landings and returns. I am all for it, but I think it would take more time then most is willing to wait... unless I am wrong.

Must not be a Apollo like vessel, but I would also note, that there is no suitable vehicle at all for the things we want to do. For example landing bigger modules on Mars (since we can't inflate it all), would require something along the XR5 from the available vehicles. but the XR5 is already over-sized for all the rest. We have hundreds of station building in LEO vessels or long-range cruisers, but no simple Mars lander.

If we use a XR5 in the project, we don't need anything else, this big beast can transport tons to Mars, land large modules and could also be overloaded with UCGO cargo. We would just fly once...and then have nothing to do in space anymore - simply because a XR5 could carry enough cargo to build the first mars base in one, maximal two landings.

I would rather have something more specialized for such tasks, for the fun of it.

About mission windows, while I get they are limiting, what if we dont really go for the 'most fuel efficient manner.' If the stack or any other ship has enough Delta V supply to get to a planet at the most direct, fastest and least efficient possible methods, why not cut out the months of wait and launch imminently? -so long as you have it in the delta V budget of course.

Yes, that is why it is called window. The limit of the window is your dV budget, but the required dV approaches the speed of light between the windows.

I already calculated it into my statement, when I said that there is a phase for some weeks, where we can haul cargo to Mars or back. We don't need to launch just one mission per season, but these missions would then be flying in parallel and arrive closely stacked.

Who's delegating? If anyone doesn't mind, I volunteer be the project manager for this and delegate sub-portions of the project.

Fine, then do it and take the whole responsibility for the project. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The buck stops at your desk now.

 

[supersonic]

I vote Bj as the project manager.

 

[Urwumpe]

I vote Bj as the project manager.

Who says that this job is democratically elected? Who shouts too loud gets the job, and all that comes with it: Gastritis, loss of hair, meetings, ties and even more meetings. And you'll realize how much time passed, when your young daughter tells you the next time you see her that she'll get married.

Is always like that in spaceflight. If you are no convinced alpha (fe)male, don't even think about the job. You are only doing this as long as you swim on top of the wave, and for doing this job, you need to be convinced that you are the only person who can do it.

 

[Izack]

Who says that this job is democratically elected? Who shouts too loud gets the job, and all that comes with it: Gastritis, loss of hair, meetings, ties and even more meetings. And you'll realize how much time passed, when your young daughter tells you the next time you see her that she'll get married.

Is always like that in spaceflight. If you are no convinced alpha (fe)male, don't even think about the job. You are only doing this as long as you swim on top of the wave, and for doing this job, you need to be convinced that you are the only person who can do it.

:blink:
It's just a bunch of guys on the Internet playing in a simulator!

 

[Bj]

Who says that this job is democratically elected? Who shouts too loud gets the job, and all that comes with it: Gastritis, loss of hair, meetings, ties and even more meetings. And you'll realize how much time passed, when your young daughter tells you the next time you see her that she'll get married.

Is always like that in spaceflight. If you are no convinced alpha (fe)male, don't even think about the job. You are only doing this as long as you swim on top of the wave, and for doing this job, you need to be convinced that you are the only person who can do it.

I volunteered because noone else has. If you want to do it, your more than welcome. Same goes with anyone else...

@anyone else, thanks for the support guys.

 

[Urwumpe]

Who finds humor in my post, may keep it.

 

[Bj]

Who finds humor in my post, may keep it.

Funny guy :lol:

Reminds me of a project with, I think Oracle where I volunteered to lead the group project. You would have thought I learned from that but...
Anyway my teammates would write code poorly, inefficiently, or not at all. Ended up re-writing/redoing almost everything. At least I recieved an A...

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, I have no time doing the program lead job, but maybe some smaller projects could be done. But first we need a good WPB.

 

[Bj]

Alright, this is going to turn into one huge project!

Reviewing this entire thread, this is what I am seeing;

• Assembly missions
• Scientific expeditions (to fill the void between launch windows)
• lots of cargo hauling Earth - Marsa
• More 'ground crew' than actual pilots-which is good, because when you look at the airport, many more ground crew than pilots...

We will need to have;

• Many Earth to LEO launches carrying parts of MSS and cargo.
• MSS & a cargo hauler transferred to Mars
• Landings on Mars to setup bases and begin fuel and resource production.
• Transfers of cargo from the martian surface to Cape.

General Mission plan:

1. Build MSS (and cargo hauler if applicable.)
2. Transfer MSS and hauler to Mars orbit
3. Land hauler and crew on Martian surface.
4. Begin building habitation area.
5. Begin building propellant resource collection
   1. Fuel up hauler/vehicles if applicable
6. Start resource/cargo production
7. When Mars-Earth launch window approaches, launch cargo/resources to Earth
8. If crew is getting rotated, they ride along with the cargo containers.

Seems there is also a few that might want to manage as well, so I have broken the project down into specialized 4 parts.

We will need Cargo Manager, Launch Manager, Ground Manager and a MSS Manager.

Responsibilities;

• Cargo Manager
  • Manages Miner and the miners productions (cargo)
  • Manages cargo placement & storage
  • Manages cargo hauler (limited to sub orbital flights only)
• Launch Manager
  • Manages any vehicle launching to, or returning from space.
  • Manages launch equipment
• Ground Expedition Manager
  • Manages all vehicles, equipment and UMMU on the ground at any time.
  • Designs habitual base camps for UMMU
  • Responsible for the exploration of Mars and locating resources.
• MSS Manager
  • Manages orbital vehicle construction, position, location and maintenance.
  • Manages Earth to Mars voyages

This is how the managers will work all together;

​

The Cargo manager (CM) tells the Launch Manager (LM) the space and weight for cargo transfers which the LM will have to figure ways of achieving that goal.

The LM tells the MSS manager (MM) how much cargo will be transferred to the MSS where the MM will be responsible for its storage on MSS and transfer to Earth.

The Ground Manager (GM) will explore the planet, looking for resources and tells the CM where resource locations are. GM tells the LM when ships will be ready for transfers.

The LM will have to find ways to comply with the requests from the ground and cargo managers.


People can multi-task (ie they can perform multiple roles, like ground manager, then one of the guys on the ground actually doing the work.


This takes care of; 1. what is the point, and 2. what we are going to do on Mars during the long launch windows.

This also shows that station assembly/dissassembly will never cease, also quite a lot of ground operations for production and what have you.




---------------(dev caps)---------------

Now for the grand finale: since we have a miner that can be placed anywhere and start producing cargo it is a little unrealistic and boring after a while. Especially since the ground explorers can drive in any direction and say, 'eh dig here'. So lets turn it up a bit.

There are several systems we need to make;

• UCGO sample drill vehicle that will drive around and pickup samples and analyze them for traces of material.
  • This will not be a function of time or something where you can be in the same place, and just keep sampling until you hit something. This will be a function of location. Meaning that you actually have to find deposits on the planet to drill for.
  • When you find a deposit, and start mining for it, there will be a limited amount of resources before you have emptied that deposit. Then you have to move on.
  • Resources will depend on your location so the ground crew will have to hunt for them.
    • This helps us a little bit. (being it gives us more jobs and it is not dependent scenario to scenario.) This means that someones UMMU can start driving E while another drives N, at the same time. The manager has to figure roughts for the drivers to take... As long as they park in the same spot as they started, then many scenario swapping will be avoided.
• This sample drill vehicle and other adjustments will have to be collectively integrated together, without the ability for users to just open a config file and 'find' resource deposits (makes it fun this way).
• We will also need the UCGO cargo textures and possibly meshes made for the various types of materials found on the periodic table.

Big project but I think its doable and will be fun too. :thumbup:
Thoughts?

 

[Columbia42]

Awesome! Count me in! :thumbup:

 

[Linguofreak]

(Also, I think it is far too soon for that question. It would be better to ask it again, when we know which missions are planned. Maybe all people want to fly the same mission, but nobody another less prestigious one.)

But that was kind of the point: Find out what kind of missions people *want* to fly, design a program around that, and leave the boring stuff that nobody wants to do out, or schedule a few missions for the people that want to do it.

If more people want to do interplanetary flights than assembly flights, schedule a long-term program with lots of interplanetary flights starting with the spacecraft already assembled in orbit. If more people want to do assembly flights than interplanetary flights, do fewer (maybe even one) interplanetary flights with several assembly missions per flight.

 

[Wolfer]

BJ, I like your plan, but permit me to do a suggestion. If we decide not to rotate the crew, we can make the MSS into the sole habitat for the Earth-Mars transfer. Then once at Mars, we separate the propulsion system from the MSS, refuel it and send it and some resources back to Earth where we refuel it again, attach some cargo to it and send it back to Mars to resupply the base and the MSS. Then we repeat the operation.

 

[Bj]

BJ, I like your plan, but permit me to do a suggestion. If we decide not to rotate the crew, we can make the MSS into the sole habitat for the Earth-Mars transfer. Then once at Mars, we separate the propulsion system from the MSS, refuel it and send it and some resources back to Earth where we refuel it again, attach some cargo to it and send it back to Mars to resupply the base and the MSS. Then we repeat the operation.

Very good idea, that way much more cargo can be transferred between Earth-Mars. Actually, if the flight is short enough, we can even use the [nomedia="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4488"]Inflatable Space Rescue Unit for UCGO[/nomedia]as our UMMU transportation between Mars-Earth.

 

[Urwumpe]

But that was kind of the point: Find out what kind of missions people *want* to fly, design a program around that, and leave the boring stuff that nobody wants to do out, or schedule a few missions for the people that want to do it.

If more people want to do interplanetary flights than assembly flights, schedule a long-term program with lots of interplanetary flights starting with the spacecraft already assembled in orbit. If more people want to do assembly flights than interplanetary flights, do fewer (maybe even one) interplanetary flights with several assembly missions per flight.

Yes, but that doesn't work out, once you try to play the missions. You need to have a concept, and then assign the people by skills and preferences into it. Otherwise, you will get a pretty boring program, and the people will divide into two groups:

• Those who are constantly stressed because they opted to fly missions that are too hard for their skills, without chances to downgrade, since the poll was used for deciding the mission shape.
• Those who are not having room to improve their skills because they are assigned only to easy missions, and never have to learn do something better.

I think opinion polls are nice, but irrelevant for planning such things. You would need to apply some filtering and own experience yourself in the planning anyway.

Also, the poll is pretty useless since it is the first time we do something like that. Nobody has any experience with such missions and does not know yet how it will develop.

 

[Ashaman42]

I havn't installed it yet but what about using something like this for the sciency bit

[nomedia="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3265"]Atmospheric Data MFD v0.2[/nomedia]

It's an addon that collect atmospheric conditions for a vessel and can be operated remotely.

I imagine a series of probes could be dropped into the Martian atmosphere.

Will install later and see how comprehensive it is.

 

[HR_Oso]

I always thought about something like this for a Mars landing...