Good source for NASA equipment?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Suppose that NASA has an effectively unlimited budget as of June 21st 1969. We're talking war mobilization levels. Berlin Airlift to the moon. To take the best advantage of this resource, all you need to do is have people living on the moon, and the more the better.

What's a good sourcebook to build off of?

Head over to Encyclopedia Astronautica, and spend some time there.

I can make some guesses about what would be done, but there's a problem to tackle first. The Cold War is going strong. The Soviets' moon programme is not in great shape, but that's mostly because it's been underfunded; it can get better with money. Both sides are going to be taking risks with rockets that are very vulnerable to sabotage. How do you keep a war from breaking out when a rocket blows up and someone decides it wasn't an accident?

There's also going to be plenty of spying, lots of loons coming out of the woodwork with wacky ideas for spaceflight, and lots of strange cultural effects as religions and social movements claim that magic is their heritage, or the work of $ENEMY.

Now, back at the rocketry, the obvious strategy is that of the Manhattan project. Take every credible means of achieving the goal and invest in them on a large scale. Some of them will fail, some will succeed, and there's no way to tell which, so you do them all in parallel.

So you order a load more Saturn Vs and Apollo spacecraft, right now. You build another two or three copies of Launch Complex 39, and all the associated equipment - VABs, Crawlers, the works - so that you can boost your launch rate. You start recruiting and training all the people you need to do that. That was the first week's planning, and it provides hardware from 6 to 18 months from now - your first six months of operations will be done with the existing Apollo hardware, because that's already being built, and you can't speed it up that much without sacrificing quality. You need that quality, because this is all pretty marginal.

Now you look at the plausible ways to improve what you have, and set a serious design project underway for lunar habitat modules. You fund the F-1A, the J-2S, the LM Truck, and everything else that looks credible. That was week 2, covering the window from 18 months to three years away.

By this time, the aerospace and rocket companies will be hammering on your door with lots of new ideas. Look at these with some care. You're going to fund several of them, but the manufacturers will try harder if they know they're in a real competition, so you have to throw out some.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Head over to Encyclopedia Astronautica, and spend some time there.

I can make some guesses about what would be done, but there's a problem to tackle first. The Cold War is going strong. The Soviets' moon programme is not in great shape, but that's mostly because it's been underfunded; it can get better with money. Both sides are going to be taking risks with rockets that are very vulnerable to sabotage. How do you keep a war from breaking out when a rocket blows up and someone decides it wasn't an accident?

There's also going to be plenty of spying, lots of loons coming out of the woodwork with wacky ideas for spaceflight, and lots of strange cultural effects as religions and social movements claim that magic is their heritage, or the work of $ENEMY.

Now, back at the rocketry, the obvious strategy is that of the Manhattan project. Take every credible means of achieving the goal and invest in them on a large scale. Some of them will fail, some will succeed, and there's no way to tell which, so you do them all in parallel.

So you order a load more Saturn Vs and Apollo spacecraft, right now. You build another two or three copies of Launch Complex 39, and all the associated equipment - VABs, Crawlers, the works - so that you can boost your launch rate. You start recruiting and training all the people you need to do that. That was the first week's planning, and it provides hardware from 6 to 18 months from now - your first six months of operations will be done with the existing Apollo hardware, because that's already being built, and you can't speed it up that much without sacrificing quality. You need that quality, because this is all pretty marginal.

Now you look at the plausible ways to improve what you have, and set a serious design project underway for lunar habitat modules. You fund the F-1A, the J-2S, the LM Truck, and everything else that looks credible. That was week 2, covering the window from 18 months to three years away.

By this time, the aerospace and rocket companies will be hammering on your door with lots of new ideas. Look at these with some care. You're going to fund several of them, but the manufacturers will try harder if they know they're in a real competition, so you have to throw out some.

I like the way you think. This game is probably going to feature a good deal of player-driven history building because there aren't any historic secrets other than what the Soviets and the Chinese are up to. Not sure what to do with the Soviets yet. I want Europe to have some power, possibly to the point of them having a moon base (maybe shared with Japan), but that might be more ridiculous than having Magic be real.

One thing magic as I've ruled it can do is produce arbitrary-length carbon nanotubes, although developing that will be tough.

I'm going to start putting together a timeline....

Magery occurs naturally in 1/19654 births. There is no pattern other than this.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

I like the way you think.

It seemed clear that the first part of the build-up has to be done with mundane technology, because you don't have the products of magic in any quantity yet.

I want Europe to have some power, possibly to the point of them having a moon base (maybe shared with Japan), but that might be more ridiculous than having Magic be real.

To get that, you need ELDO to work better as an organisation than it did historically. And then you need to give them a McGuffin. Stonehenge working as a launch site that enchants the rocket, or something like that.

One thing magic as I've ruled it can do is produce arbitrary-length carbon nanotubes, although developing that will be tough.

Well, that makes a space elevator conceivable. But it also makes very light and strong fuel tanks and combustion chambers; it has all kinds of uses.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

To get that, you need ELDO to work better as an organisation than it did historically. And then you need to give them a McGuffin. Stonehenge working as a launch site that enchants the rocket, or something like that.

Stonehenge is pretty far north. If you need something that combines low latitude, European territorial control, and cosmos related mysticism, I'd posit a Mayan site in Belize.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Stonehenge is pretty far north. If you need something that combines low latitude, European territorial control, and cosmos related mysticism, I'd posit a Mayan site in Belize.

Now we know why the French really chose Kourou -- proximity to Devil's Island.