1/24 Apollo/Saturn V (enlarged 1/48 Greelt et al version)

[Algebraist]

Dear all

Next for the model is the instrument unit (which is not included in the original download or updates). So I had already made an IU outer for the 1/48 model (see an earlier post) so I enlarged this to 1/24 scale. I glued the four strip to black sugar paper for stiffness



Because the model is stackable AND to be displayed horizontally "expanded" I needed to make the IU stiff enough so that it would stay circular when both on its edge or its side. So I eventually did 8 layers of sugar paper to make the IU.

I also wanted an "inner" to the IU. So I looked at lots of pictures on the internet then used this book



to find how all the section went together. Finally using powerpoint I made the photos look like drawing (a bit-ish)



I have sent the files to legal01 (for the 1/48 model).

I find the real IU very interesting. Here is a nice NASA picture of the IU's being manufactured



So I thought these would be fitting pictures with Gunter and wernher



If anyone is interested here are a couple of videos about the IU





Finally the IU is strong enough to keep its shape (these photos may remind some of you of the IU at KSC



So here is the IU on the stack



Current model height 3.71 m (12 ft 2 in)

Next up is the LM adapter

Regards

Kevin

[luke strawwalker]

Originally Posted by Algebraist

What a terrific post Luke. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. I have learned a lot from it. Very much enjoyed and appreciated.

I did not know that the Soviet "space shuttle"actually was launched.

Regards

Kevin

Oh yes... The Buran orbiter is a fascinating story in itself, though Chertok's books only touch on Energia and mention Buran as an afterthought... (though they are VERY good and an enthralling read, despite being four 400+ page volumes! I just finished them a couple months ago...)

Basically, the Soviets did the math and figured out that the Space Shuttle, as NASA was "selling" it to Congress and the White House, was a sham... The shuttle-related "Mathematica study" in the 70's had said much the same thing, calling into question the assumptions upon which all the "cost savings" of the shuttle were based upon... and shooting them full of holes which were completely valid and proven true years later. Of course that's NOT what NASA wanted to hear, nor the "space state" Senators in Congress, nor a rather space-disinterested President (Nixon, and then Ford) who mainly wanted to distance themselves from the Kennedy-esque "moon race" and the Apollo/Saturn hardware it spawned... The Soviets, it turned out, could add just as well as the Mathematica team, as they had been tinkering with various "mini-shuttle" designs of their own over the years and even flew some "sub-scale" unmanned test vehicles as "proof of concept" testbeds... (successfully I might add). The Mathematica study basically *proved* that the "assumptions" NASA was making to justify the shuttle was a sham, equivalent to "stacking the deck" and would NOT work out in the "real world". NASA didn't care because by then the shuttle would be a fait accompli-- already built and flying, so no need to "justify" building it then... NASA "sold" the shuttle based on ridiculously high flight rates (at one time, over 70 flights PER YEAR-- that's MORE than one per week, about 1 every five days!), ridiculously low estimates of "turnaround time" and refurbishment effort required after every flight, and ridiculously low recurring costs (for expendables like the External Tank, and refurbishing SRB's and the orbiters themselves). The Mathematica study correctly pointed out that, even in the most rosy or ambitious projection of space launch requirements for commercial, military, and NASA satellites and space probes, that there simply were NOT enough payloads to justify even a fraction of the number of launches NASA was proposing for the shuttle, therefore those launches would NOT be needed, or would be flying "empty" and thus "no paying cargo" to defray costs. Even if you figured in the "servicing missions" planned for shuttle, sending up crews to repair/refurbish satellites either in-orbit or capture them and return them to Earth in the shuttle payload bay for repair/refurbishment on the ground, then re-launching them in the shuttle back to orbit, it was STILL only a small fraction of NASA's proposed flight rates. Without those high flight rates to amortize costs over a huge number of flights, the expenses for the shuttle would multiply many times over when flying a more *REALISTIC* number of flights (which is *exactly* what happened). They also based costs for things like the External Tank based on these overly-optimistic flight rates, as well as SRB refurbishment between flights; so the actual costs ballooned by as many times proportionally as their over-estimated flight rates compared to actual flight rates. Refurbishment costs and required turn-around times of the shuttle system between flights was also VASTLY underestimated, which of course made such ridiculously high flight rates completely unfeasible anyway. Even NASA had to "reign in" such ridiculous flight rates and reduced their estimates from upwards of 70 flights per year in the early days of the shuttle program to 50 flights per year (once per week basically) to about 25-30 flights per year (which they said with a straight face... ). Even these "low estimates" were completely unfeasible, but it "sounded good" and it's what they went with to justify shuttle in Congress and the government.

The Soviets did the same calculations that the Mathematica Study team did, using their excellent (if outsider) knowledge of the US space program and information gained from intelligence sources and "open sources" in the media and academia and industry to get "the real picture" of the shuttle, and what they saw frightened them. They immediately dismissed the rationale of the shuttle "saving money" as some sort of ruse-- the type the Politburo typically used as "disinformation" to its perceived foreign adversaries... (like they were "cranking out missiles like sausages" and "they never participated in the Moon Race" and other such claims). Anyway, assuming that the purported "money saving" reusable strategy given as the reason for building the shuttle was a craftily-created ruse by NASA and the US government and military, (particularly since NASA had to "team up" with the Air Force in order to get enough funding to build the shuttle) they set out to discover the "real reason" why the shuttle was being built.

Mystislav Keldysh, head of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and his team (who advised the Politburo on space matters and were deeply involved in coordinating space efforts and consulting with the Soviet leadership and the Soviet space program design bureaus, basically as close to "planning" the Soviet space program as they got) investigated the possible uses of the shuttle and came to a frightening possibility, that fit closely with the proposed capabilities that the shuttle system was being designed to achieve... IF a shuttle were launched on a southerly trajectory over the South Pole into a polar orbit, it could arrive over the heart of Soviet territory within 45 minutes after launch. Using its payload bay as a "bomb bay" and carrying a number of hypersonic reentry vehicles (small gliders like they had been experimenting with) it could release a volley of hydrogen bombs in maneuverable reentry vehicles (MARV's) that would be capable of entry into the atmosphere and striking Soviet targets minutes after their launch from the shuttle... and coming in from the SOUTH, opposite their main missile detection defense radars and other installations, it would essentially cut their detection and response time to the point it was effectively a surprise attack first strike type weapon system. (The Soviets had already tried to develop just such a system-- in fact that was what the Proton rocket was originally being developed for, their "Fractional-Orbital Bombardment System" (or "FOBS", designed to launch a missile over the SOUTH pole instead of the north pole, to fly in from the south, and circumvent flying over the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line of radars designed to detect a Soviet attack on the US and provide warning for a counterstrike missile launch... FOBS was abandoned at the time and the Proton rocket, which was to be based in silos in the southern USSR, was repurposed into a powerful space-launch vehicle... but FOBS would eventually be developed as a capability of the SS-18 "Satan" missile, IIRC-- a number of them were "repurposed" to that role, or made "dual capable" if desired...)

The US itself fed "fuel to the fire" of this Soviet perception of the "real" purpose of the shuttle... NASA didn't have the money to develop the shuttle by themselves; they were forced to team up with the Air Force, who had LONG held dreams of flying their own "blue-suit" space program-- first with the "Dyna-Soar" space plane project of the early 60's, which was cancelled and replaced by the "Manned Orbiting Laboratory" program (MOL), which was to use military variants of the Gemini spacecraft mated to a Titan-diameter (10 feet) "lab" module equipped with cameras ("Dorian") and other signals intelligence sensors and such, launched into orbit on a Titan III-M booster rocket-- essentially a "manned spy satellite". MOL too was cancelled, despite already having started its own astronaut program and training for MOL flights, and flying a test model of the spacecraft (which now sits in the Air Force Museum space wing at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio). The Air Force, stymied at every turn in their efforts to build a "space force", were only too willing to team up with NASA on a "sexy spaceplane", reviving and exceeding their wildest dreams of what "Dyna-Soar" would have been capable of... BUT they had a few "stipulations"-- it would have to be capable of "polar launches" (ostensibly launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, since it juts out into the Pacific and it's the only launch site in the continental US that can launch into polar orbits, since spent rocket stages or SRB's can safely drop into the Pacific Ocean off the western shores of Baja California, and western Central and South America-- true "polar launches" cannot be flown out of Cape Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center, well, not without flying a VERY fuel-burning inefficient "dogleg trajectory" to the east and then turning south, so that spent rocket stages or SRB's (or debris if the rocket were to blow up) didn't crash down on Cuba, the Caribbean island nations, or the nations of eastern South America-- Cape Canaveral and KSC are only capable of "equatorial orbit launches" due east, or northerly along the eastern seaboard of the US for "high inclination" launches like to ISS, which is in a higher inclination orbit due to the fact that the Soviet cosmodrome at Baikonur cannot launch space vehicles into less than a 52 degree inclination orbit (and KSC 28.5 degrees IIRC). The higher the inclination the more fuel required to achieve orbit for a given payload mass). The Air Force indeed got funding and built their own launch pad for the shuttle at "Space Launch Complex-6" (SLC-6) at Vandenberg specifically for *military* shuttle missions into polar orbit. The Air Force also required the HUGE payload bay (15x60 feet) to accommodate their massive spy-sats envisioned for the future, and also required "once around" single-orbit mission capabilities, which drove the shuttle design from the "fluffy" straight-winged conventional airplane design using a metallic "hot structures" type heat shield, to the much larger delta-winged orbiter (which was too heavy and therefore generated too much reentry heat for "hot structures" type metallic heat shields to cope with, requiring the switch to covering the shuttle's belly with thousands of extremely fragile glass-foam tiles... decisions that would have a PROFOUND effect on history and the lives of 13 American and 1 Israeli astronaut). The "once around" mission profile would have a shuttle launch out of Vandenberg, fly over the South Pole, open its payload bay and overfly Soviet territory, performing its "secret mission", close its payload bay, retro-burn and reenter somewhere over the North Pole, and fly down to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base and its long lakebed runways (where the first shuttle missions landed until the completion of the shuttle runways at Kennedy Space Center a couple years into the shuttle program). The problem was, the Earth continues to turn during the 90 minutes of this "single orbit" mission, which means that the launch and landing sites have moved nearly 1,500 miles toward the east during this 90 minutes, requiring a lot of "cross range" to fly from the orbital trajectory and reentry point to where the landing site WILL be by the time the shuttle is actually landing...hence the change to the delta-winged orbiter. All this led the Soviets to believe that their conclusions were correct, and that the shuttle was being developed with a "first strike" capability in mind...

Hence, it became *essential* that the Soviets develop their OWN shuttle system to answer this US "capability"... Thus "Buran" (snowstorm) was born... It would need a large booster to launch it, and thus "Energia" was born, but unlike the shuttle, it was designed in mind as a "stand alone" launcher (an idea which NASA would not pursue until the late 80's or early 90's with their "big dumb booster" and "Shuttle-C" plans for an unmanned shuttle-derived launch system, neither of which got approved or funded). The Soviets designed their system with all LIQUID rocket engines/boosters, planning them to eventually be reusable (landing the 4 Zenit "LRB's" or "liquid rocket boosters" horizontally under parachutes on special landing legs after the launch for recovery and reuse-- though this was never actually done). The core would use four hydrogen/oxygen burning high performance engines and be non-reusable (though later designs for the "Uragan" (hurricane) launcher did envision a totally-reusable system where the core itself had shuttle-type wings capable of reentry and automated landing on a runway). The shuttle orbiter "Buran" itself was designed very similar to the US version (but with notable differences-- despite the outward shape (determined by aerodynamics and flight requirements) it is NOT a "clone" of the US shuttle-- the shape is due to the fact that math is the same, whether performed by US or Soviet engineers and scientists), but unlike the US version which VERY PURPOSEFULLY *REQUIRED* the presence of astronauts on board to land the shuttle (thus *insuring* that the manned space program *would* continue, despite calls from people like Walter Mondale and William Proxmire to END manned spaceflight after Apollo, since the shuttle was designed so it could NOT fly without an astronaut to land it), the Soviet Buran was designed to fly completely unmanned and autonomously, and land under autopilot, which is exactly how it flew on its one and only test flight mission. Energia flew twice-- the first time with the Soviet "Polyus" (Polar) space battle station-- their answer to the US "Star Wars" missile defense program, which due to a programming error fired its rocket engines while pointing backwards and instead of inserting itself into orbit, reentered and burned up over the Pacific Ocean after launch, and flew the second time to launch Buran into orbit. Buran, unlike the US shuttles, had no "main engines" on its aft end-- only a pair of "OMS" engines in a rounded pod to provide a short burn to insert it into orbit, raise or lower its orbit or change orbital planes, and provide the retro-rocket burn for reentry into Earth's atmosphere at the end of the mission... Buran was originally designed to be fitted with jet engines so it could be FLOWN from the factory to Baikonur under its own power, and even possibly fitted with "fold out" jet engines to make "go arounds" possible in the event of a missed landing (a capability the US shuttle never had; once it reentered the atmosphere and started to glide, it was COMMITTED to a landing; a missed landing meant a crash-landing-- there were no "go arounds" possible). These plans were abandoned however due to the difficulties and drawbacks (weight) of the system, and the Buran ended up being ferried on the back of a specially-refitted Bison bomber, much like the US shuttle on its 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft... (unlike the US 747 SCA, however, the Soviet Bison bomber also carried the Energia cores from the factories near Moscow to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, since they were too large to carry through the rail system... they were mounted atop the Bison bomber *backwards* with a special round nose-cone fairing over their engines, and the tear-drop shaped ogive nosecone of the core stage acting as a drag-reducing tail cone on the core... quite ingenious...)

Of course the Soviet Union collapsed a few short years later; even by the time Buran and Energia flew, it was unaffordable and basically obsolete-- the Soviets had no money to design/build payloads that required it or its capabilities, and no money to fly missions necessary to justify it. SO, it was mothballed and never flown again... one sat complete and "ready to fly" on its horizontal-integration fixture in the old N-1 MIK for years, "abandoned in place" until a roof collapse in an unusually heavy blizzard destroyed it in the late 90's (IIRC). A Buran sits in Gorky Park near Moscow, and several other plywood mock-ups and wind-tunnel test models (or remains of them) have been found, including one rotting out near a fence of the Moscow International Airport, IIRC... One was moved to Germany as someone mentioned... It's really a shame... Like N-1, it was a victim of circumstances beyond control, but at least Energia/Buran proved the Soviet technology was AT LEAST equivalent to the US, despite being "different" (some might argue "inferior", but that's incorrect-- the Soviets (and now Russians) are STILL capable of doing some things the US has NEVER been able to do, or never developed the capability or technology to do-- things like automated rendezvous and docking, or operational refueling of spacecraft in space (both things that have routinely been done by their "Progress" space tankers since the late 70's or early 80's, when they were developed to refuel and carry supplies up to their later Salyut space stations and then their Mir space station, and which even now the ISS is TOTALLY dependent upon to remain in orbit-- The US never developed such a system capable of refueling the ESSENTIAL reboost engines in the Russian Service Module (Zarya) that provides propulsion for the ISS to keep it from reentering the atmosphere... and of course that was one of the reasons why the US "Freedom" space station was never developed-- after spending BILLIONS and many years in a number of redesigns of the SSF (Space Station Freedom) program, it would have cost billions and years more to develop a US service/propulsion module and operational refueling capabilities to support the station, because it was technology the US had never developed).

But, that's another story...

Later! OL J R

[luke strawwalker]

Originally Posted by Algebraist

Dear all

Next for the model is the instrument unit (which is not included in the original download or updates). So I had already made an IU outer for the 1/48 model (see an earlier post) so I enlarged this to 1/24 scale. I glued the four strip to black sugar paper for stiffness

Attachment 353778

Because the model is stackable AND to be displayed horizontally "expanded" I needed to make the IU stiff enough so that it would stay circular when both on its edge or its side. So I eventually did 8 layers of sugar paper to make the IU.

I also wanted an "inner" to the IU. So I looked at lots of pictures on the internet then used this book



to find how all the section went together. Finally using powerpoint I made the photos look like drawing (a bit-ish)

Attachment 353779

I have sent the files to legal01 (for the 1/48 model).

I find the real IU very interesting. Here is a nice NASA picture of the IU's being manufactured



So I thought these would be fitting pictures with Gunter and wernher

Attachment 353780 Attachment 353781

If anyone is interested here are a couple of videos about the IU





Finally the IU is strong enough to keep its shape (these photos may remind some of you of the IU at KSC

Attachment 353782 Attachment 353783

So here is the IU on the stack

Attachment 353784

Current model height 3.71 m (12 ft 2 in)

Next up is the LM adapter

Regards

Kevin

That looks terrific!!!

I probably have some pics of the IU on the Saturn V displayed at Johnson Space Center in Houston (and possibly pics of the ones at Huntsville, Alabama and Kennedy Space Center in Florida as well) if you need them...

Later and KUTGW!!! OL J R

[Algebraist]

Thanks for the nice comments Luke. Much appreciated.

Tremendous post on the story of the Soviet shuttle. Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for writing it.

Really looking forward to getting yours (and everyone else) recommended reads. But first my deadline is very fast approaching

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Dear all

So next up is the LM adaptor.

So this was a few parts and straightforward. The only thing is the parts are huge. Each quarter panel just fits onto one piece of A3 paper. Here they are below



The length of a seam is the longest in the model. It is also the last of the "mega" parts. Things shrink down to "big" after this. In fact the diameter of the narrow end of the LM adaptor is (for the first time on the model) smaller than the largest diameter on the 1/48 model. So a real "moment" in the build

Running the last long bead of glue made me think of the maths of "beads of fluids" and so I thought you might like this video



Incredibly the maths to solve that problem of predicting how the "fluid" moves depending on just on the speed of the belt is connected to the maths that was used toeventually solve how to make this persons hair



But I digress (and the clock is ticking). So the LM adaptor is finished



And here it is on the stack (but difficult to fit in shot again due to size)



Current model height 4.09 m (13 ft 5 in)

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Dear all

So as time started to run out I started the SM towards the end of stage three (doing bits whilst other bits were drying.

So here was what I had managed before getting to the SM



Actually looking back to the last stage three post I noticed I put a picture of the SM rather than the thrust structure. So here is the picture that should have been in that post



Anyway back to the SM. I am really enjoying this part of the build. I just like what has been made 3D (though I have had some problems with the instructions being for the experienced builder). I am not 100% sure I have done everything as the designer intended.

So here is the main body and the engine in various states of construction







So now just the outside details of the engines and the two half circles (the purpose of which have just left my mind for now)

I am currently working on these and here is where I have got up to with them



Hopefully another update soon

Regards

Kevin

[mhvink]

Hi Kevin,

Those half-circles are known as Scimitar antennas used for VHF communications between the Command/Service module and Earth.

Keep up the awesome work.

Mike

[luke strawwalker]

Originally Posted by Algebraist

Dear all

So next up is the LM adaptor.

So this was a few parts and straightforward. The only thing is the parts are huge. Each quarter panel just fits onto one piece of A3 paper. Here they are below

Attachment 354015 Attachment 354016

The length of a seam is the longest in the model. It is also the last of the "mega" parts. Things shrink down to "big" after this. In fact the diameter of the narrow end of the LM adaptor is (for the first time on the model) smaller than the largest diameter on the 1/48 model. So a real "moment" in the build

Running the last long bead of glue made me think of the maths of "beads of fluids" and so I thought you might like this video



Incredibly the maths to solve that problem of predicting how the "fluid" moves depending on just on the speed of the belt is connected to the maths that was used toeventually solve how to make this persons hair



But I digress (and the clock is ticking). So the LM adaptor is finished

Attachment 354017

And here it is on the stack (but difficult to fit in shot again due to size)

Attachment 354018 Attachment 354019

Current model height 4.09 m (13 ft 5 in)

Regards

Kevin

How are you holding the panels together?? Magnets??

Later and KUTGW! OL J R

[dhanners]

Loving the work so far. The finish line is in sight....

[legal01]

Looking great so far, only a few more things to finish and then its just the renovations to the house that needs to be done to fit it in!