Ochre-Quicksilver
by Whoop_whoop_pull_up
uploaded 2020-08-12
29 downloads /
3
points
VAB
stock+DLC ship
#Mercury #Redstone #mercury-redstone

Description

This suborbital spacecraft consists of a manned Quicksilver capsule launched atop a single-stage Ochre rocket.

The Ochre isn’t anywhere even close to capable of putting a capsule into orbit, but it’s plenty sufficient for a short suborbital hop.

A stock rocket called Ochre-Quicksilver. Built with 76 of the finest parts, its root part is Tube1.

Just as the Globus-Quicksilver is my KSP recreation of Mercury-Atlas, the Ochre-Quicksilver stands in for Mercury-Redstone, the craft that put the first two U.S. astronauts (Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom) into space on suborbital flights. Lacking the Atlas booster’s stage-and-a-half configuration, the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle was considerably easier to build in KSP than the larger orbital rocket, and I’d already worked out the fiddly escape tower and interstage/retropack configuration when building the Globus-Quicksilver, eliminating the need for me to take a craft at them this time round.

The ersatz shroud mostly-encasing the Ochre’s Reliant engine was made by attaching a T-12 tube to the bottom node of the Reliant and then offsetting it upwards until its upper edge just met the lower rim of the wide upper attachey part of the Reliant.

As the Ochre isn’t capable of putting the Quicksilver capsule into orbit, retrofire is optional (one could even fire the retropack while facing prograde to lengthen the suborbital hop), but the real-life Mercury-Redstone flights carried and used them despite their not actually being needed (disclaimer: I asked the question on the linked page), so I left them in (and fired them near apoapsis in the mission shown in the linked photo album) for an added touch of realism.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.10.1.

Details

  • Type: VAB
  • Class: ship
  • Part Count: 76
  • Pure Stock
  • KSP: 1.10.1
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