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markusglanzer In reply to YumonStudios [2016-05-05 08:50:23 +0000 UTC]

No, I didn't.
It's got a regular chemical rocket . The blue glowy-things are in essence your regular sci-fi doodads, which - in the original are (probably) gas-discharge counters. Now since this is a big, manned space-opera version of the actual tiny probe, I figured they should be something else, since the original instruments wouldn't make much sense in their up-scaled form (also the craft being an impactor wouldn't either ). I'd worry more about the pd guns tho.

The actual visible upgrade from Luna / Lunik 1 to Luna / Lunik 2 is the primary pylon/antenna, which contains some radiator-fins that the first version didn't. That's why the flavortext I added spoke of "guidance and temperature control system improvements"

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YumonStudios In reply to markusglanzer [2016-05-07 08:52:56 +0000 UTC]

Why did you base it off Luna? That's quite possibly the worst platform you could base it off

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markusglanzer In reply to YumonStudios [2016-05-07 09:26:10 +0000 UTC]

yeah, but I love the tiny spherical probes.
Also it's an exercise in establishing a sound design lineage - my plan is to iterate over historical probes and craft until I reach present day. (I did a little Exomars 'sketch' here )

That's a big problem I have with your regular sci-fi design - there just isn't a sound explanation how a real iterative process would reach constructions and configurations like that. Now it's pretty unlikely that the proverbial wheel would be re-invented every single time, a new design is needed.
To my knowledge, the only complete fictional design-lineage to be established can be seen at the starfleet museum , which has it's own problems and is incomplete as well as incompatible with a lot of designs.

Ultimately, I'd like to see what final far-future designs I would come up with, using this process, instead of just throwing interesting shapes together.

I omitted Vanguard because of it's wonky 90° antennae setup, as well as Sputnik because of it's lack in surface detail, so my points of entry moved to Luna or Pioneer, and I just always preferred the looks of Soviet space craft, but I currently have a Pioneer 1 in the works too.

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YumonStudios In reply to markusglanzer [2016-05-07 10:06:48 +0000 UTC]

Real life space probes don't though. The closest is standardized spacecraft buses, which are pointless if you need to scale things up (and also need to be updated once in a while).

A more realistic one would be a low-cost space probe collection using Mariner-derived space probes, which had far more capability while still being light and cheap. Only problem is lack of usage after the initial reconnaissance of the solar system, but a good enough robotic program (sans space shuttle, which promoted bigger probes) might be able to do a "discovery program" using certain basic spacecraft buses- which could also lead into the "better, faster, cheaper" era. You also likely want to add a lander probe bus (possibly off Surveyor) and a larger probe bus (possibly off the Viking Orbiters)

Luna is just too limited.

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