Beat dem Ruskies to the moon! 2 D11 -P's and a D12 -3 Cluster will do it.

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Daddyisabar

Oddroc scum. Mindsimmer.
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The President said we will get a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade, not two or three men. So why don't we get there quicker by just sending one man, can't let the Reds win again. With a cluster of 2 D11-P's and a D12-3 we have the power to do it boys and girls. The scale guys couldn't quite place this one; a Mercury Redstone on steroids is what I called it. Super-secret, labeled MR 171 - a big number to confuse the Commies. Don't name them in order like the Krauts did early on with their U-Boats, letting the Allies know how many they built. This is the sixties man - you have to be real smart to beat the Red menace. The scale guys were confused by the oxidizer tank going into the center core, unlike their Titan III E models they brought out. I said all I could tell them was the boosters were solid fuel and the rocket fuel used in the center portion was very environmentally unfriendly. A little bit Redstone, a little bit Titan, and a little bit Saturn V. With the old school paint job it was a real over 50 fantasy job and definitely not soft on Communism.

Actually the story starts when my old rocket buddy just had foot surgery and was taking some big time pain meds. He wanted to go down to Apogee Components but didn't feel like driving, so I drove him down to the Danger Zone. He is a loyal customer so the folks at Apogee treated him right, letting him pick through a pile of tubes and nose cones that had been rejected as not up to quality standards. Like a dirty little child living in the burning trash heaps outside Cairo Egypt, I dove into the trash area a picked out some real useable stuff. In the end I scored some awesome 2.6 tubing and pointy nosecones. With some incomplete plastic parts from an estate (Merc Redstone capsule - Saturn V,) a galvanized nail for top the tower, some model railroad corrugated scale sheet stock, centering rings cut from the back of an art paper pad and soaked with CA, a stuffer tube made from Yellow Estes motor spacers and left over 25mm AT grain casing tubes all glued together, a high power igniter tube launch lug and lots of electrical tape, I was ready to launch. For the first time I would use black labeled motors, D11-P's the LHS was very happy to finally sell, but no black label liquor was allowed.

As you can see in photo #2 the Pad Fuhrer put me way at the back and moved the large crowd back. He called heads up and announced over the PA this could be the first and last time you would see this rocket fly. The Rocket Gods must have approved as just as the launch card came up the winds calmed almost to 0. All three motors lit and with awesome F 34ish power the hefty two pound bird went skyward, nice and straight, ejected fine and chutes out. My brand new TLP Mylar chute on the capsule didn’t fully pop so of course the tower broke off, but it was a clean break and OK’d by the scale guys. With all the children running mad with excitement to the touch down spot I was not able to recover the galvanized nail I had epoxied to the tower that also popped off, but I still have a box of those. The 5 minute epoxy just did not get a good bond with the red plastic. . Maybe with one of those fancy new E12’s in the core we can reach the moon.

Now if I could just get these darn photos to save clockwise and import in. What ever happened to film, fixer, and cropping with scissors and sticking them on with cellophane tape? With that technology we went to the moon and won the cold war!


PC020064.jpgPC020065.jpgPC020066.jpg
 
That is really nice design. Yup, we would have beat them to the moon with that rocket. Good job!
 
Ya know your pics are MUCH nicer if you turn them the correct way up before you post them... it's not hard to do... just about every picture management program has a feature to turn the pics right side up...

Later! OL JR :)
 
Ya know your pics are MUCH nicer if you turn them the correct way up before you post them... it's not hard to do... just about every picture management program has a feature to turn the pics right side up...

Later! OL JR :)

I be turnin' em right side up but they don't seem to import that way. Sorry I beez crimpin' your neck.
 
rotated the first,cropped & resized a bit srry dems big pictures :).
rex

PC020064edit.jpg
 
Very nice... kinda reminds me of the proposal I saw recently on NSF about a rocket using the Navaho missile boosters on either side... funny thing was, the boosters were taller than the core... sorta looked like the Buck Rogers Thunderfighter...

THAT'll put the skeer in 'em...

Later! OL JR :)
 
Ah ,that`s better ,now we can see what we`re dealing with ,and ...HOT DAMN that`s a beautiful looking rocket ,love the design !!!!!!!!!

I too have really gotten into clusters ,great fun.

Cheers

Paul T
 
I'm pretty sure I'd be awfully smelly going all the way to the moon and back in a Mercury capsule. . .
 
First, awesome job and great looking rocket.

This reminds me of HBO's miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. In the first episode a few unnamed NASA officials are trying to figure out how to get a man to the moon quickly and they propose to just send him there and continue to send supplies until they can figure out a way to get him back safely. I'm not knocking your design, but it seems that this would fit those parameters nicely. There is nothing wrong with a sleek little capsule on a huge rocket.
 
Well, that and the Mercury was basically falling apart after 24 hours in space... You'd probably be dead before you got 2/3 of the way TO the moon in a Mercury capsule, let alone go there and back...

Now, thing is, there WERE SERIOUS proposals for "Gemini around the moon" to beat Apollo and ensure that the US beat the Russians... the Apollo was really cutting edge technology in SO many ways-- boosters, capsule, navigation, propulsion, structures, communications, rendezvous, docking, etc... and there were more than a few folks that thought that perhaps we'd get beaten by the Russians by a matter of weeks or months in the end and it'd all be for naught... or we might bump up against unforeseen difficulties that would make it impossible to make the deadline or beat the Russians, or get it all to work together at all...

Folks thought that with the proper combination and modification of the existing Gemini hardware, systems, and the Titan rockets and propulsion systems, that a trip around the moon would be possible in a shorter period of time... and that with a stripped down open-air (well, open-SPACE, unpressurized) lander, the lunar landing could be attempted at least a year, maybe two, sooner than it was planned to occur under the Apollo program.

Thing was, NASA was 100% invested in Apollo, and simply didn't have the money or manpower to divert to modifying Gemini for the lunar mission... plus, Gemini would DEFINITELY be at the knife's edge of what it was capable of, and if there was a problem... well, someone would have a VERY bad day. Plus, surely the politicians would say, if Gemini made it to the moon first, "well, we've done it, we don't need Apollo now... lets cancel it and blow the money on stupid stuff"... which in the end they did anyway...

The lunar Gemini would have had an escape tower installed virtually identical to the Mercury tower, only enlarged to be capable of pulling the Gemini free from a much larger rocket... (Titan III-C or Titan III-M) Since the Gemini was basically just an enlarged version of Mercury, their outer mould lines would have been virtually indistiguishable with the tower installed...

Then of course there was "Big G"... a 9 man Gemini capsule with a small payload bay... designed to service space stations in the 70's... (back when Apollo Applications was going to be putting up a half-dozen or more Skylabs and various other types of missions requiring long-term presence in space). Of course this was a direct competitor to the shuttle, and so thus was eliminated from consideration.

I've posted some of this stuff in the Scale section under my "NASA Study Summaries" headings... lots of different proposals that didn't get built, and some of them were REALLY cool... Got a bunch more that I hope to start summarizing soon... still doing research for the time being...

Later! OL JR :)
 
I witnessed this first hand. The rocket is awesome, it is unbelievable that it was made from scrap.

The pad fuhrer was indeed prepared for disaster.

The flight was perfect.
 
If the Cosmonauts can hold their breath long enough to suit the Party then the Astronauts can hold their bowels long enough to suit the President! And this is a new and improved Mercury capsule meant for deep space, it has a service module and maybe even a zero G honey pot.
 
So when does construction begin on the full scale version? I'm sure you will find plenty of volunteers to take the first ride....assuming that you wouldn’t want to.
 
So when does construction begin on the full scale version? I'm sure you will find plenty of volunteers to take the first ride....assuming that you wouldn’t want to.

I'm sure you would have the Right Stuff but my guess is that the plans have been lost and we do not have the skilled machinists around to get the job done. Now maybe if we outsourced it to the CHI-COMMS or to India we could be looking at big profits.
 
A little bit Redstone, a little bit Titan, and a little bit Saturn V.
Nice, I love it! :clap: (But where are the wings? :neener:)

Not to hijack your thread, but I would like to thank you for providing the inspiration to finally finish my forlorn half-built Mercury Redstone. :D Except thanks to you, I've decided to build it as a super-Mercury Redstone. (I'm thinking maybe Mercury Artemis? ;)) The now fin-arealess Redstone part is BT-55, with a transition to a BT-60 solid rocket booster with Saturn 1B style fins-- and there may be a couple extra thingies stuck on the side. :p Look for the thread soon!
 
I'm glad I can be of inspiration to all those building less than sane custom rockets. As for the winged one I am still waiting on Santa to deliver some motors for the P-61 and a perfect winter flying day. There is nothing wrong with super scale fantasy as long as you can come up with a good story for the scale guys. It is also a good way to get rid of old parts or make parts from that long crashed rocket fly again. Just keep the CG a caliber above the CP and act a bit nervous at the launch to keep up the scare.
 
Daddy....this is AWESOME!! your builds are fun to read! just neat ideas and funny as hell to read (Krauts, Chi Com etc.....just a hoot!)
 
I'm sure you would have the Right Stuff but my guess is that the plans have been lost and we do not have the skilled machinists around to get the job done. Now maybe if we outsourced it to the CHI-COMMS or to India we could be looking at big profits.

Sounds like my Dad... always talking about the "Red Chinese"... LOL:) Rather antiquated term since they now make half the stuff in the country, or so it seems anyway...

Later! OL JR :)
 
I'm glad I can be of inspiration to all those building less than sane custom rockets. As for the winged one I am still waiting on Santa to deliver some motors for the P-61 and a perfect winter flying day. There is nothing wrong with super scale fantasy as long as you can come up with a good story for the scale guys. It is also a good way to get rid of old parts or make parts from that long crashed rocket fly again. Just keep the CG a caliber above the CP and act a bit nervous at the launch to keep up the scare.

Hey, I just downloaded some stuff on a "Winged Gemini" in the past couple days... I'll end up summarizing it on the Scale section eventually...

There's a TON of "what if" stuff that I've posted over there... check it out if you haven't... search for "NASA Study Summaries"... Most of that stuff I find via links on NSF forums... funny enough, someone linked back here to the "No Joy in Mudville" thread where I posted a bunch of stuff on shuttle replacement options that had been looked at for the SDLV... I had to laugh, because I got that stuff from NSF, and someone posted it BACK to NSF from here...

If you've never seen the "Mercury-Atlas-Vega", look it up on encyclopedia astronautica... it would have been a Mercury capsule mounted on top of a Vega rocket stage (a stage NASA was working on which basically duplicated the size/capabilities of the Agena, which was an Air Force stage developed for their "Corona" spysats... the AF finally let NASA in on the secret and they canceled Vega (which was being designed/built out of JSC IIRC) and allowed NASA to buy Agenas for use as upper stages on Thor and Atlas for various probes and stuff... So basically, think of an Atlas-Agena with a Mercury capsule on top... would have given them manuevering capability in orbit, and the ability to do Agena burns and raise the orbit, even do rendezvous with the Mercury capsule (if you had the navigational stuff you needed, which they didn't... but hey, if you're writing your own alternate history, go for it!)

Later! OL JR :)
 
Daddy....this is AWESOME!! your builds are fun to read! just neat ideas and funny as hell to read (Krauts, Chi Com etc.....just a hoot!)

Thanks. Just an old fart trying to make launching a model rocket feel like you are a kid again.

We will need nothing short of another Sputnik moment to get us to rally around the battle cry of BEAT DEM CHI-COMMS TO MARS!
 
Hey, I just downloaded some stuff on a "Winged Gemini" in the past couple days... I'll end up summarizing it on the Scale section eventually...

There's a TON of "what if" stuff that I've posted over there... check it out if you haven't... search for "NASA Study Summaries"... Most of that stuff I find via links on NSF forums... funny enough, someone linked back here to the "No Joy in Mudville" thread where I posted a bunch of stuff on shuttle replacement options that had been looked at for the SDLV... I had to laugh, because I got that stuff from NSF, and someone posted it BACK to NSF from here...

If you've never seen the "Mercury-Atlas-Vega", look it up on encyclopedia astronautica... it would have been a Mercury capsule mounted on top of a Vega rocket stage (a stage NASA was working on which basically duplicated the size/capabilities of the Agena, which was an Air Force stage developed for their "Corona" spysats... the AF finally let NASA in on the secret and they canceled Vega (which was being designed/built out of JSC IIRC) and allowed NASA to buy Agenas for use as upper stages on Thor and Atlas for various probes and stuff... So basically, think of an Atlas-Agena with a Mercury capsule on top... would have given them manuevering capability in orbit, and the ability to do Agena burns and raise the orbit, even do rendezvous with the Mercury capsule (if you had the navigational stuff you needed, which they didn't... but hey, if you're writing your own alternate history, go for it!)

Later! OL JR :)

Sounds like it is time to kit bash some Zooch kits together!
 
Well we have an advantage over the Ruskies with our more southern launch sites.

Launching from such high northern latitudes they require boosters with a much greater Delta V.

Weren’t the Chinese developing a manned space mission way back in the ‘60s?

I think it was composed of 500million Chinese “Volunteers”, one 98lbs astronaut and a very large blanket. Ta-Da-Boom.
 
I am afraid you may be right..I think we may need another Sputnik moment.
have you had a chance to fly some of your custom builds like the P-61? those builds were really great!

Thanks. Just an old fart trying to make launching a model rocket feel like you are a kid again.

We will need nothing short of another Sputnik moment to get us to rally around the battle cry of BEAT DEM CHI-COMMS TO MARS!
 
We will need nothing short of another Sputnik moment to get us to rally around the battle cry of BEAT DEM CHI-COMMS TO MARS!
We already had our second "Sputnik moment". It was on Sept 11, 2001.

That will remain reverberating for decades, with the $$ and focus on the war on terror, to the continual drown out of things like long-term REAL programs to go to Mars.

I mean, up until a little over a year and a half ago, the only way I could have seen us fully commit to go to Mars would be if the CIA somehow could convince the US Public that they had solid proof that Bin Laden was on Mars.

Financially, the optimal time to ever truly start cutting metal to build ships to go to Mars was near the end of the 1990's. The Cold War was over, and we had the money that could have been spent, if it was ever going to be spent. Well, actually, that did sort of happen, but in the form of ISS. And now the US has no means to send crews to the ISS, and in a few years (6 or so if they follow the plan like they did with killing the shuttle program) the ISS will outlive its useful life and be abandoned and de-orbited. And that will be another nail in the US manned space program's coffin, no more space stations.

Missions to a near-Earth Asteroid? REALLY? For a "shakedown test flight" (Apollo-9 or 10 style) of a spacecraft truly designed to go to Mars, for real, yeah. But for any other reason, a spacecraft design that would not be sent to Mars, with some other design supposedly to be built years later for Mars, no.

Some paranoid rabble-rousers might jump out of their shoes, but I don't see China doing anything space-wise that would cause the U.S. to suddenly jump into a solid, firm "yes we ARE really going to do it" commitment to go to Mars, that would actually truly "yes we DID it" happen.

I remember in the 1970s when we were 10 year from going to Mars. Then in the 1980's 15 years to Mars. And so on, every decade, we are another additional 5 years away from Mars.

And by that I do not count the half-baked Project "Constellation", which might as well have been named Project "Constipation". Especially since it was sort of awkwardly announced in a low-key manner about 2 weeks before the State of the Union message and was not mentioned at all in the State of the Union message (that showed the level of non-support it actually had). Also the twisted logic of going to Mars, by NOT going to Mars, but going to be Moon for 10-15 (20? 25?) years first, with hardware that was not going to be useable for Mars, made no sense to me at all. If you want to go to Mars.... then by #%$ go to MARS, don't waste time and $ on anything beyond what is needed to safely achieve that goal.

Heck, if Apollo had been scheduled to take 20-25 years, a long and slow approach like all the Mars plans of the last several years, it probably would have been cancelled half-way thru. Nixon cancelled Apollo with Saturn-V's and completed spacecraft left to be flown.

So pretty much any plan to go to Mars in the last 20-25 years, I think of the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon where Bullwinkle tries to pull a rabbit out of his hat...... Again? That trick never works.

I gave up years ago expecting to live to see us land a crew on Mars, even if I have great health and live a long time.

I'd love to see that I'm wrong.....and see it happen. :)

- George Gassaway
 
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