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Author Topic: Ideas for DG-III story  (Read 32068 times)

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Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #50 - 02 June 2004, 10:39:42
Hehe, lookie, lookie, someone became a living legend! :)


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #51 - 02 June 2004, 10:46:13
I'll have that jackson fellow know. I can still fly my baby DG into orbit without any funky computer proggy. I may not
be perfect, but it'll get me there all the same. heck, if you let the computers run everything, there wouldn't BE a need
for a pilot. you know?

(Frespace is darn well ticked off for no good reason after that rant.)

Edit: oh, now I see what you mean by living legend. yeah, I'd like to thank dan for putting up with my insane amounts of (not so off-topic) posts. and all those little people I stepped on, and even some of those somewhat bigger people I stepped on... Oh, and doc too, he's cool. He's about 200 posts behind me, and had a jump start, but oh well.. these things happen...


5 STARS BABY!!!! The first person to legitly do it! boom shacka-lacka!



Post Edited ( 06-02-04 10:56 )


Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #52 - 02 June 2004, 10:56:48
HEhe, you got the... late-night-bad-temper-mood-swing-pissed-off-in-all-directions-of-compass-for-no-reason
thing going or do I just imagine it? :)


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #53 - 02 June 2004, 10:59:40
close, it's actually the "late-night-bad-temper-mood-swing-pissed-off-in-all-directions-of-compass-for-no-reason-
and-likes-it
" thing.



Offline Nromncr

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Reply #54 - 02 June 2004, 14:34:19
Quote
freespace2dotcom wrote:
Funny, I always thought the kiss method was "keep it simple, stupid" oh well.


Depends on who you ask.  I heard both.  Since the military that I know is prone to foul language (natural American I
like to call it), I wanted Jackson to stay in character.  Sorry if anyone is offended.

N


Offline Atom

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Reply #55 - 02 June 2004, 17:39:54
Cool. 8o



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Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #56 - 02 June 2004, 21:07:22
Bah, you have to recite the foulest words known to humans to tick me me off. that, and you have to translate it, too.

But by then the meaning behind the words are dulled and the bounce off me and stick to you, because I'm rubber and
you're glue!  

sorry. old habits from ages ago.. but seriously. I have no qualms with a bad word or two myself.



Offline Krytom

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Reply #57 - 02 June 2004, 21:54:49
Poop



Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #58 - 02 June 2004, 22:08:40
Good daymn! I did it. I'm (in the process of) uploading the whole package with the sequential sounds to act as
storyline in-flight briefing. My voice is a bit morbid, but so is the story in this case :)

See you on the Ascent thread!


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #59 - 03 June 2004, 10:16:16
AphelionHellion said:
Quote
"Descent autopilot!? I don't need no steenking descent autopilot!"

Another quote to define the character of a certain person. Hehe, I think we will nail this guy Retro Jackson's character
right down to the bottom. :) His name's about right :)

How's your story proceeding Nromncr, AphelionHellion?  You realise of course all of your stories could now be made
into orbiter sequential sound scenarios? :) And all of us contributing voices to the story, hm?


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline AphelionHellion

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Reply #60 - 03 June 2004, 11:01:30
Story? Jackson? Sound? :wonder:

*has a terminal case of ADD*

I'm afraid I haven't really been working so much as... er... not working.
Gahh! I can never finish what I start. Or intend to start! :(
Perhaps we should do some brainstorming (I hate that word but I can't think of a suitable replacement) to figure
out what part of the story we're working on? I admit I liked the "snippet exchange" we all had earlier... I wonder
though in practice how we turn that sort of thing into a coherent plot?

*types something, and promptly forgets to save it*
*needs a new PDA, and some sort of brain organizer*


< [yellow]C[/yellow]arpe [yellow]N[/yellow]octem! >

Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #61 - 03 June 2004, 11:33:25
Quote
AphelionHellion wrote:

*has a terminal case of ADD*
What's ADD? :) Me ignorant...

Quote
I'm afraid I haven't really been working so much as... er... not working.
Gahh! I can never finish what I start. Or intend to start! :(
HEy, hey relax, it was just in idea. a LOOOOONG range idea.
Quote
Perhaps we should do some brainstorming (I hate that word but I can't think of a suitable replacement) to figure
out what part of the story we're working on? I admit I liked the "snippet exchange" we all had earlier... I
wonder
though in practice how we turn that sort of thing into a coherent plot?
No idea. Never that that sort of thing before. We just let snippets pile up I guess, whenever one gets inspired. And
then at some point some other perosn will pull them all onto one coherent unit. Or just a series of stories, whatever..
the sky is the limit anyway.. not in orbiter though :)


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline McBrain

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Reply #62 - 03 June 2004, 11:51:08
Brainstorming = Brainexploration; Mind-SAR! :)


Cheers,

McBrain

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Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #63 - 03 June 2004, 19:05:37
Quote
DocHoliday wrote:
What's ADD? :) Me ignorant...

Addition, silly!
Quote
Aphellion wrote:
Story? Jackson? Sound?

He just couldn't ADD them together! hehe.



Post Edited ( 06-03-04 19:07 )


Offline AphelionHellion

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Reply #64 - 03 June 2004, 20:29:37
Haha. Well, it's true that I'm not very good with math :)
ADD = Attention Deficit Disorder
It was sort of a joke, sorta serious. I do wonder if I have it, on occas

Hey, look, a bird! :)


I actually like this "free form" idea for coming up with new "chapters". Sorta like decentralized file sharing ('cept no
one's trying to shut us down). "Organic".

< [yellow]C[/yellow]arpe [yellow]N[/yellow]octem! >

Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #65 - 03 June 2004, 20:35:42
Quote
AphelionHellion wrote:
Haha. Well, it's true that I'm not very good with math :)
ADD = Attention Deficit Disorder
It was sort of a joke, sorta serious. I do wonder if I have it, on occas

Hey, look, a bird! :)

I actually like this "free form" idea for coming up with new "chapters". Sorta like decentralized
file sharing ('cept no
one's trying to shut us down). "Organic".

What? I'm sorry.. I wasn't paying attention. ;)

Seriously though. nobody can stay focused on anything forever. I have a hard time on my school work because I don't
study because it's so damn boring



Post Edited ( 06-03-04 20:37 )


Offline MattNW

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Reply #66 - 04 June 2004, 02:29:26
A little more serious story. Something I wrote to post in the AVSIM, BFU, Miscellaneous PIREP forum using Orbiter for
a story line and tying it in with the characters I use there. Had to put it on hold because a hard drive crash wiped
out all my screenshots.

This is only an excerpt from the whole story which is at present 23 pages long. Background is a bush pilot with past
astronaut training finally gets the call from NASA to resupply a permanent base on the Moon. This is a special mission
to deliver important parts and technicians to the base. The excerpt takes place on the flight down from Alaska to
Florida where the pilot is explaining the development of the Moon base and space ships used in Orbiter to his step
son. Note that this was written back before the DG III so it pertains to thed older version and is still in it's first
writing. I have a lot of refinements to make yet.



Quote
We boarded the Orbit (I took that name as a good omen) Airlines flight 219 that afternoon. Linda and I
settled in for the long flight down to Florida while Trevor with much groaning and stalling eventually started in on
some school work. I was impressed by the skill of the captain. Fairbanks wasn't a small airport but the Boeing 737
was a huge plane. I would have been nervous trying to take off from a minimal length runway like this especially
covered with snow but our captain did a perfect job, pulling the plane up with plenty of runway left and we climbed
smoothly to our cruising altitude. The flight was a comfortable one. The air was calm and stable and the big jet was
like sitting in the Ritz after a few months of pushing tiny bouncy bush planes all around Alaska. I plugged my headset
in and relaxed to some tunes. About an hour into the flight Trevor shut the book he was working on and tapped me
on the shoulder to get my attention.

"What's up pal." I asked. I'd almost been asleep.

"I gotta do a report for school and it has to include information from an expert. I started to do it on wildlife
management and was going to talk to Ranger Mike but I decided last night to do it on the history of space flight
instead."

Why wasn't I surprised at this development.

"Have you checked the internet and library?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll do that down in Florida but I still have to do the part where I talk to an expert. I have the stuff about
Mercury, Apollo and the early days of the Space Shuttle but I wanted to get you to tell about the Space Planes and
Orbital ships."

"Well actually I first trained for the Space Shuttle. It's been since then that NASA developed the space planes and
other stuff. Most of it after I had retired from the Air Force."

"But you do know about the space planes don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't be going on this mission."

It wasn't like I had a lot to do in the next few hours. I put my headphones up and gave Trevor my full attention.

"Since you know about the early days of space flight I'll hit that lightly and give you the rest of the story. After
proving we could send people into space and get them back safely as well as visit a neighboring satellite NASA
decided the next step in exploration was to establish a more permanent residence. This was the International Space
Station (ISS). To build this they needed something that could carry a large payload and was also reusable. A space
going truck kind of like my Caravan. This was the Space Shuttle. It was just the tool they needed and flew many
flights with a perfect safety record until Challenger blew up in the 80s. That grounded the shuttle fleet until a fix was
engineered and implemented. Years after that however another problem developed when the orbiter Columbia
disintegrated on reentry.

It was clear by then that the shuttle fleet was getting old and a new means of transportation was needed.
Unfortunately there were funding problems and economic times were much bleaker than during the early days. There
just wasn't enough money in the budget for a new space vehicle so they struggled on with the existing Space
Shuttle. During those flights however an experiment was carried into orbit that would change the face of modern
space exploration. A small company called Space Tech Incorporated was trying out a new technology in
microprocessors. Their innovation was the creation of semiconductors in hard vacuum. On Earth it was a difficult
task. The equipment and facilities required made research in this field cost prohibitive. With this in mind the board of
directors of Space Tech scheduled an experiment to fly on a shuttle mission where this technology would be tried in
the near perfect natural vacuum of space. Extra cost would be almost nothing since the conditions already existed
for just this sort of technology. The experiment was such a success, yielding a semiconductor so pure that
microprocessor manufacture would be turned on it's collective ear if only a way could be designed to mass produce
them in space. Space Tech approached a couple other computer hardware and component manufacturers and they
formed a group who planned to fund a module on the ISS to test the feasibility of the new technology.

The module was built and orbited a couple years later and proved the concept admirably. The only problem with
manufacturing microprocessors in space was the cost of launching the raw materials to the facility. Finished
microprocessors were small and easy to transport but the bulky raw materials were a different matter and most of
those resided on the wrong side of the gravity well. To ship heavy materials up for manufacture into light easily
transported products was the exact opposite of what was needed so Space Tech went in search of a new source of
the raw materials for their manufacturing. The answer was the Moon. There the needed ores were in abundance and
easily mined and there also were the perfect conditions for the new manufacturing method. Space Tech approached
NASA with a proposal for funding if NASA would engineer the necessary transport to and from the proposed facility.

 With a large influx of funding NASA went to work with the same fervor that prevailed during the Mercury through
Apollo days and immediately decided that the shuttle concept was too unwieldy and had safety issues so they pulled
plans for a space plane called the X-21 out of mothballs and set to work building it to replace the old shuttle fleet as
the "pickup truck". With adequate funding the pace of innovation went fast and furious. Most of the space craft were
already on the drawing boards and many potential problems solved years before. In fact in a couple cases the
available technology outpaced the production of space craft. NASA had been operating without funding for so long
that some of the designs had to be reworked to take advantage of innovations and advances that the original
designers had never dreamed of.

With the ease of conventional flight into space came an expanded interest in commercial space exploitation.
Companies who had looked on with doubts became believers when they saw the first production run from Brighton
Beach Manufacturing. Microprocessors of such complexity and integration that if they could be manufactured in bulk
would revolutionize the computer industry. Space Tech was well on the way to becoming a leader in the manufacture
of these components. A full sized production line was set up on Luna and workers hired and trained. Shipments were
planned at first for every six months when a small fleet of the newly designed space craft were dispatched to rotate
workers to and from the complex and carry it's wares to the markets back home.

The X-21 was the first but not the only transport to come of this renewed interest in space utilization. If the X-21 was
the pickup truck then the Shuttle A was the eighteen wheeler. Purpose built in space the Shuttle A was never
intended to touch the atmosphere. It's place was hauling goods and workers from Earth orbit to the Moon and back.
The Shuttle itself was only a module with quarters for a command crew (tractor trailer with sleeper?) that was
attached to cargo and fuel pods for the transport. When a shipment was complete then the module would be
attached to similar pods on the other end of the 200,000+ mile assembly line and the resulting contraption would
make the return trip.

Another ship to come from this era was the Delta Glider. This vehicle is the "passenger van of space". With minimal
payload capacity the DG Mk4 was intended as a cheap transport for injured or sick workers from ISS to KSC or to take
needed specialists up into orbit where they would board a Shuttle A for the flight to Luna. The DG Mk4 proved so
successful that an improved version called DG II or GSNDO is just now being phased in and the old Mk4s phased out.
The DG is perfect for the job of flying from Earth to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

With a truck and a passenger van only a sedan was needed or maybe a better description would be a VW Beetle.
This is the little Personnel Transport Vehicle (PTV). This little gem is simply a cockpit and engine. The passenger is
expected to stay seated for whatever length the mission is, usually only a couple hours or at most two or three days.
This is space transport at it's simplest. The drawback of course is passenger comfort and no payload capacity other
than one human and the needed consumables. The advantages however are very high thrust to weight. A PTV
although never used for it could conceivably launch from Earth orbit to Luna but at considerable cost of comfort to the
passenger who would be stuck in the tiny cockpit for the entire trip.

A final manned vehicle called the Dragonfly was also developed. The Dragonfly is a space tug. Meant only to move
cargo and space station pieces around in LEO and Lunar orbit. It carries a two man crew and uses Reaction Control
System (RCS) only for flight. The Dragonfly will dock with a cargo pod or station component and using it's vectored
engines to compensate for offset thrust, push it from a station to a waiting Shuttle A or back to the station.

A number of unmanned rockets have been developed but I won't go into those since that would take quite a while to
run down. The mission I will be going on will give me a chance to fly two of the mannable vehicles. I'll launch from
KSC in a new DG II along with two technicians a copilot and one passenger and rendezvous with ISS. The parts are
presently in route on an unmanned rocket to ISS where they will have a Shuttle A pod attached and the craft readied
to take our little crew on to Luna. Once the parts are delivered I'll take a Shuttle A back to Earth orbit and the DG II
back down to KSC."

Trevor looked thoughtful for a moment and then looked directly into my eyes and asked the question I had been
expecting yet dreading to hear him ask soon.

"Is it going to be dangerous? Tell me the truth." He said loudly enough that the lady across the isle looked our
direction and then quieter,  "I know it's normal to smooth things over. Make them seem less scary to the kid but I
want to know, no I have to know for real. Is this going to be a dangerous mission?"

"When have I ever treated you like that?" I returned. He shook his head slightly but his eyes stayed glued to my
own. "I've never lied to you before and I won't lie to you now Trevor,  In space flight there's always a risk involved.
Any time you are flying on the cutting edge of technology there's a chance something will go wrong. Much less chance
of that now that we aren't sitting on top of what amounts to the contained energy of a small atomic weapon of highly
flammable material and then lighting a fire to it but even now there's always a chance of something going wrong.
Every detail of a space flight is meticulously planned in advance. We have the best equipment and most advanced
training possible. Every eventuality has been carefully thought out but there's still no guarantees. Realistically
however your mom was right in what she said back in Coldfoot. The risk is probably less on this than it is flying small
planes up in Alaska and you've flown with me enough to know what those are. If something happens there'll likely be
some warning and time before anything becomes deadly for either a rescue to be attempted or for us to fix the
problem ourselves. There's also the fact that my whereabouts are known down to the inch at all times and some of
the brightest people in the world are on the comm with me 24 hours a day to come up with a solution. In fact they've
been working for years thinking of possible problems and how solve them before they even happen. I have all that
going for me but I can't say it's perfectly safe. I hope that's a good enough answer because I can't explain it any
more clearly."

Trevor looked at me with a serious expression as if he were taking my measure and finally said, "Yeah I guess
so."


Offline freespace2dotcom

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Reply #67 - 04 June 2004, 07:17:28
oooh...  A serious story?

I love them, but they're countless times harder to write.



Offline ExoToa

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Reply #68 - 11 June 2004, 12:19:24
........       I      am     confused    ............


*Walks off pondering the orbital mechanics of cheetos*


~~ExoToa~~    Emperor of the Alitar Solar system
Supreme Govenor of Astraea and Vesta.
MY allegiance is to the ABC

Due to high temperature, your Cheese Fondue was disintegrated in atmosphere... You Cant make Nanchos!

Offline DocHoliday

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Reply #69 - 11 June 2004, 12:29:47
:) about?


~~~

"Mood is a matter of choice. I choose to have fun!" -Vidmarism No 15

Offline Atom

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Reply #70 - 11 June 2004, 13:51:58
Life?



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Offline Krytom

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Reply #71 - 11 June 2004, 16:17:37
The Universe?



Offline McBrain

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Reply #72 - 11 June 2004, 16:23:06
Fish?


Cheers,

McBrain

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In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?

Offline Krytom

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Reply #73 - 11 June 2004, 16:24:47
And
EVERYTHING
[/i][/color][/glow]



Offline McBrain

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Reply #74 - 11 June 2004, 16:29:29
Yup.


Cheers,

McBrain

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In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?