KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 35
• Mods: 1
• KSP: 1.11.0

Mods

• Bluedog DB

The Mercury program’s flights took place over the course of two years between May 1961 and May 1963 with six successful manned flights. However as early as 1960 there were more loftier goals set for Mercury and ways to extend the program and its technologies. This began with additional suborbital flights planned for the Redstone both because they weren’t sure how ready the man-rated Atlas would be and how long it would take to test and train the astronauts on the Mercury spaceflight. The additional Redstone flights were cancelled and after two sub-orbital missions they moved ahead to using the Atlas. There were also plans to potentially use the Jupiter-C for more extended sub-orbital missions with two unmanned flights to test out the plan but these were cancelled due to budget issues. Lastly there were additional Mercury-Atlas missions planned to keep testing the endurance of astronauts including a three-day mission but were cancelled in favor of reaching those goals with the Gemini program.

One proposal was to add a tiny one-man laboratory module to a Mercury-Atlas flight which would blurred the line between space capsule and space station. It would allow for limited experimentation and exposure of an astronaut to a free-floating environment, goals which weren’t achieved until the Gemini and Apollo programs. The Mercury’s side-hatch actually made such a proposal relatively easy with two ideas to allow access to the laboratory module. The first one would involve a pressurized inflatable tunnel attached to the side-hatch of both the capsule and module which the astronaut would have to crawl through which would be jettisoned along with the capsule upon re-entry. The second more complicated solution involved a hinge that turn the capsule 180 degrees to line the side hatch with the module allowing for a much shorter trip for the astronaut.

Such an ambitious proposal would require an upper stage for the Atlas to accommodate the much larger payload which was something unnecessary for the original Mercury program’s flights. The Centaur’s development was still in its infancy and its operational future was still uncertain. The Vega upper stage was designed as a stop-gap measure which could perform some of the functions as the Centaur. It was briefly suggested for the Mercury lab module but after information sharing with the military it was determine the upcoming Agena would serve the same purpose and the Vega was cancelled.

The proposal was updated to use the Agena-A and then the Agena-B with a planned launch sometime in 1964 but was ultimately rejected in favor of continuing with the Gemini program and NASA wouldn’t see an orbital laboratory until the launch of Skylab in May 1973 which came almost 2 years after the first orbital laboratory with Salyut 1.

This ship is a what-if scenario if the Atlas-Vega hadn’t been cancelled and was used to launch a Mercury one-man laboratory mission with a Mercury capsule. Unfortunately I don’t have a way to simulate with the inflatable tunnel or hinge proposals but the kerbonaut can be transferred between the two all the same.

The Bossart is an approximation of the Atlas-D rocket as also used on the man-rated Atlas LV-3-B launch vehicle. It is a stage-and-a-half design with the booster skirt and its engines decoupled with approximately 30 seconds left in the stage burn. The heavy payload will cause a significant and lengthy drop in the TWR (thrust-to-weight) ratio causing the time-to-apogee to drop all the way down to 18 seconds before it recovers and starts to rise again.

The Vejur is an approximation of Vega stage which either completes the ascent and stabilizes the orbit or simply stabilizes the orbit depending on your approach. I have kept it attached to the rest of payload that’ll allow you to make changes to your orbit in the same vein as the Leo Vinci attached to the Belle Target Vehicle. However keep in mind that the Hermes capsules’ retro pack is optimized for a relatively low orbit to effectively allow the capsule to re-enter the atmosphere.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.11.0.