You know... with all those color named missions, you have a serious flaw... They are going to paint it in multiple colors and going to have a national pride movement forcing aestetics on the crafts. Which means a large loss of fuel getting literally tons of paint into space. Which is why NASA stopped painting their booster rockets.
I'd do something involving the top 3rd of Africa (I'm not up for the small details or doing story write ups so someone can take this one)... Basically the opposite of the elite, small forces most countries use. The idea is to set up a relay style chain of space stations to the moon. The first being in orbit above the Sahara where my launch pads are.
The main goal of station 1 is to be an oribital launch pad to build station number 2. Station2 to build stuff for station 3 and so on. Ships that get in orbit are largely ment to stay there and be used as parts for the stations and the craft going inbetween them. Crews are minimal and intended as grunt labor for building the station. Controls are much simplified and intended to be operable by someone with minimal education or intelligence to the point of trained monkey tapping buttons to keep the pictures in the crosshairs. Once in orbit the cargo ships (that got up their by booster rockets) are get close to the station at which point they will be brought inside and scrapped for parts. Parts for both the station itself and the craft to move between the stations while in orbit. Once orbital craft are mobile we can use some of them to fetch the launched pods and cut down on active rockets to get to the station being on the crafts. Thus letting us get more fuel in orbit without wasting time changing the basic lauch craft design too much. Parts for the reentry pods are taken up an average of enough to make 1 pod every 6 flights 1 pod comes down for every 8-10 ships up. This seeming overstock of parts is because only around 80 percent of the ships are successfully put in space by design... Splash downs are in the Atlantic.
The numbers average better in reality however (most of the time)... expedable, low skill labour and mass production have their draw backs... however the ultimately the plan is to make 4-5 stations that get closer and closer to the moon until it becomes possible to drop as much material on the moon in cushioned contains as possible. While every one else is worried about getting their and putting a flag in some random crater we will spam space with stuff until we have the ability to build a colony and keep enough supplies coming so that even if the firs 2-5 moon stations fail we will have enough material to build the next one and intigrate the quality parts that all the other countries wasted time on while we were colonizing the moon.
A ground based remote system takes up most of the computing power and command and control (Station 1 eventually being a near equal). The stations have constant signals controlling/moniurting them from the ground and the lower numbered stations. Most important highly trained works and scientists will be in these to locations until the conditions are good enough that its worth sending them there... also accidences and screw up are far less likely to take out anyone improtant. Docking and orbital rockets are what most of the computational shipboard computers are for. All tech is modular and anything that can freeze is on the outside of the cargo shuttles and the scuba like life support is worn for the few hours they take to get into orbit and into the station bays.
Stations themselves wll contain a large hydroponics section that is a dumping ground for water from waste and the dehumidifiers that are pnuematically send water through the station toward the center. The filtration systems are among are most ungraded and reaserached tech as clever plans the grunt labor personal are part of the resource hauling. On the side away from the Eath, and both sides in Stations 2 and up a large flat planel of a lanch pd will be placed. Around the Hydronics and critical systems will be the crew quarters followed by ware housing and then docking bays. Solar power is also handy as it can not only help with the station power, but the ground based HQ and the rest of the country.
Prior to being sent up the the crew with be quarentined and fattened up during training for 3 months. Anyone a with plague that isn't cured by the end of the first month is stuck redoing that month with a different group, booted from the program, or tranfered to another operation As the crew is trained, healed, and fattened up will be better prepared for when they go on low rations once in orbit... the terrible conditions most of this dictationship grew up in will serve them well as the lackluster rations will be of negligable concern as it is not so bad without the normal plagues and miserable weather. Also the weight will be burned off by work and the exercise they do on station (which is all geared towards power generation (threadmills and pshing the bars connected to the spinning poles kind of thing). No matter how bad the conditions start off on the stations, it won't be long before they are better than many of the villages in my domain. As an added bonus the tech developed this way can be given to the populous and those smart enough to be grunts will be familar with most of the tech involved.Idiot proofing testing can be conducted using live idiots and I'll look better for giving out the stuff... unless it is very, very badly designed. At which point the designers are spending field time wilth the grunts in space... nothing like self preservation to inspire engineering compitance.
I'd do something involving the top 3rd of Africa (I'm not up for the small details or doing story write ups so someone can take this one)... Basically the opposite of the elite, small forces most countries use. The idea is to set up a relay style chain of space stations to the moon. The first being in orbit above the Sahara where my launch pads are.
The main goal of station 1 is to be an oribital launch pad to build station number 2. Station2 to build stuff for station 3 and so on. Ships that get in orbit are largely ment to stay there and be used as parts for the stations and the craft going inbetween them. Crews are minimal and intended as grunt labor for building the station. Controls are much simplified and intended to be operable by someone with minimal education or intelligence to the point of trained monkey tapping buttons to keep the pictures in the crosshairs. Once in orbit the cargo ships (that got up their by booster rockets) are get close to the station at which point they will be brought inside and scrapped for parts. Parts for both the station itself and the craft to move between the stations while in orbit. Once orbital craft are mobile we can use some of them to fetch the launched pods and cut down on active rockets to get to the station being on the crafts. Thus letting us get more fuel in orbit without wasting time changing the basic lauch craft design too much. Parts for the reentry pods are taken up an average of enough to make 1 pod every 6 flights 1 pod comes down for every 8-10 ships up. This seeming overstock of parts is because only around 80 percent of the ships are successfully put in space by design... Splash downs are in the Atlantic.
The numbers average better in reality however (most of the time)... expedable, low skill labour and mass production have their draw backs... however the ultimately the plan is to make 4-5 stations that get closer and closer to the moon until it becomes possible to drop as much material on the moon in cushioned contains as possible. While every one else is worried about getting their and putting a flag in some random crater we will spam space with stuff until we have the ability to build a colony and keep enough supplies coming so that even if the firs 2-5 moon stations fail we will have enough material to build the next one and intigrate the quality parts that all the other countries wasted time on while we were colonizing the moon.
A ground based remote system takes up most of the computing power and command and control (Station 1 eventually being a near equal). The stations have constant signals controlling/moniurting them from the ground and the lower numbered stations. Most important highly trained works and scientists will be in these to locations until the conditions are good enough that its worth sending them there... also accidences and screw up are far less likely to take out anyone improtant. Docking and orbital rockets are what most of the computational shipboard computers are for. All tech is modular and anything that can freeze is on the outside of the cargo shuttles and the scuba like life support is worn for the few hours they take to get into orbit and into the station bays.
Stations themselves wll contain a large hydroponics section that is a dumping ground for water from waste and the dehumidifiers that are pnuematically send water through the station toward the center. The filtration systems are among are most ungraded and reaserached tech as clever plans the grunt labor personal are part of the resource hauling. On the side away from the Eath, and both sides in Stations 2 and up a large flat planel of a lanch pd will be placed. Around the Hydronics and critical systems will be the crew quarters followed by ware housing and then docking bays. Solar power is also handy as it can not only help with the station power, but the ground based HQ and the rest of the country.
Prior to being sent up the the crew with be quarentined and fattened up during training for 3 months. Anyone a with plague that isn't cured by the end of the first month is stuck redoing that month with a different group, booted from the program, or tranfered to another operation As the crew is trained, healed, and fattened up will be better prepared for when they go on low rations once in orbit... the terrible conditions most of this dictationship grew up in will serve them well as the lackluster rations will be of negligable concern as it is not so bad without the normal plagues and miserable weather. Also the weight will be burned off by work and the exercise they do on station (which is all geared towards power generation (threadmills and pshing the bars connected to the spinning poles kind of thing). No matter how bad the conditions start off on the stations, it won't be long before they are better than many of the villages in my domain. As an added bonus the tech developed this way can be given to the populous and those smart enough to be grunts will be familar with most of the tech involved.Idiot proofing testing can be conducted using live idiots and I'll look better for giving out the stuff... unless it is very, very badly designed. At which point the designers are spending field time wilth the grunts in space... nothing like self preservation to inspire engineering compitance.