Rocketry Stages in an edited tech tree

[Yitzi]

I'm runnibng SMAX with the XP patch. I'll get around to applying Yitzi's patch eventually, when he's finished with the bugs and any additional programming changes come from players' wish lists.

That might be a while; currently it seems to have no bugs that aren't in the XP patch, though, so feel free to switch now.  (Currently the changes come some from bug fixing, but mostly from my own wish list.)

[Buster's Uncle]

First Test Flight of Orion Space Capsule Delayed to December

It's still pork-barrel with a terrible name...

[gwillybj]

Thanks for the input and enlightenment. I thought some on this over the weekend and ended up dropping the space program names altogether. Now I have:
Light Rocketry: RocketL: Missile Chassis and Conventional Payload
Heavy Rocketry: RocketH: Planet Buster
Low Orbital Flight: OrbitLo: Sky Hydroponics Lab, Orbital Power Transmitter, Salvage Unity Fusion Core
High Orbital Flight: OrbitHi: Plasma Shard, The Living Refinery, Launch Solar Shade

[Impaler]

If your going for 'realism' then the whole Moon-race set of vehicles Mercury/Gemini/Apollo are 1 tech level, they were after all make back-2-back with all the same underlying technology in them, they were just progressively BIGGER, not different in any technological sense.  They are all just liquid-fueled expendable rockets, likewise the Soyuz and everything else used since with the sole exception of the Shuttle and Buran.  And these were an unsafe over-reach to try to get to a full space-plane, an avenue which is looking less and less practical as expendables continue to dominate.

Their are fundamental limitations on how much acceleration a chemical powered vehicle can provide and on Earth they just BARELY reach orbit, Chinron's higher gravity likely makes it impossible for such a vehicle to reach orbit at all.  So I've always considered this to be the 'Sub-Orbital' tech, you have replicated today's tech at that point.

The true Orbital tech is probably something that combines a semi-reusable vehicle with a propulsion system based on Fusion or some other beyond chemical system.  At this point your tech is equal to what was used to build the Unity itself, though obviously you don't have the resource base to create your own.

P.S.  Buster your spot on with the 'Orion/MPCV' but I have less issue with the capsule (the nation dose need a capsule of some kind if it is to have a manned space program) then with the SLS, which is an unmitigated boondoggle, I predict it will be the American Buran, flown once and then mothballed forever.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes, congress has borked the SLS even worse.  We need the $#@!ing politicians to step the $#@! off NASA.

I feel like a peevish jerk when I point it out, but Buster is my niece.