"Outer Space on a Budget", Episode 1 of Cheapo Space Program
16Hello and welcome to Cheapo Space Program, my new KSP series where we try to build an entire space program on the back of one rather modest type of rocket. Because we could only afford one rocket designer and we fired him right after he built this for us! :)
The idea is simple: you can only have one kind of rocket booster. You can put whatever payload on top of that rocket that you like, including additional stages, but it all has to lift into orbit on the same booster rocket. It's sort of like a cross between a Campaign Mode and a Scenario.
This is also a game the folks at home can play, with the craft files and instructions here:
http://lizardboys.com/Cheapo_Space_Program.zip
It's the Cheapo Space Program home game! Can you get to Duna? Can you get to Jool? If you make a Youtube video of your own Cheapo Space Program, let me know in the comments and I will link to it! :)
*******TONBOIV HAS TAKEN THE CHEAPO SPACE PROGRAM CHALLENGE!**********
Check out TonboIV's first Cheapo video!
http://youtu.be/3wGbdj2RqUk
TonboIV's channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TonboIV
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The Cheapo Space Program idea was inspired by the Soviet/Russian space program and my thoughts on alternate ways they could have gotten to the moon ahead of the U.S. (or after). In the Soviet space program, the Sputnik satellites (and several other families of satellites and probes), the Vostok capsule, the Voskhod capsule, and the Soyuz, all launched on a close variant of the R-7 rocket, which was the first rocket to send a satellite in space, and the first rocket to put a man in orbit, as well as being the first intercontinental ballistic missile (though it was never deployed operationally
for that.)
(Correction to the text document in the zip file, the Salyut stations were launched on a Proton, not an R-7)
I have always thought, by assembling modular rocket parts in orbit, couldn't they have built a moon ship? Granted the payload capacity of the R-7 was miniscule compared to the Saturn, but still I think it might have been possible given enough skill at orbital rendezvous and enough rocket launches. Rather than this, they attempted to build a Saturn-sized rocket, the N-1, which blew up several times before they called it quits.
While no one is going to try to build a moon rocket out of Soyuz-sized bits these days (unfortunately!), we can simulate it in Kerbal Space Program! :) Thrills, chills, kerbal deaths and hilarity will ensue! :)
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The "RULEZ" of Cheapo Space Program:
The rules are simple: you can make any modification to the rocket except the following.
1. You cannot change the number or capacity of the fuel tanks in the booster. You can however add any additional stages above it that you wish.
2. You cannot change the number or type of rocket engines in the first stages. You can however add whatever you want to additional stages above it.
3. You cannot alter the staging or arrangement of the fuel tanks or engines in the rocket booster (the first three stages).
4. You CAN make any other changes to the booster that are not for added thrust or fuel capacity. You CAN add or subtract RCS tanks and thrusters as
you see fit. You CAN add any other equipment you want to the booster stages, so long as they do not add thrust (RCS is exempt from this, since its
intended purpose is to add maneuverability, not thrust per se.)
5. You can put anything whatsoever as the payload stage, including additional fuel and engines, so long as the engines do not operate at the
same time as the engines in the booster, and so long as the fuel in the payload stage is not accessible to the booster.
6. (I forgot to put this into the zip file), you either have to deorbit your own junk or leave it in space and take your chances. The rockets in the zip file have a separate computer brain on board the booster to help you with getting rid of your junk, assuming you leave some fuel in the booster to deorbit with.
Music: Junkyard Tribe by Kevin MacLeod