[simpits-tech] Mercsim Setup

[Sean Galbraith]

At 09:29 PM 1/18/03 +0000, you wrote:
>This message is mainly directed at Sean, due to his recent Apollo 
>revelations,

woo hoo, fame and notoriety!

>I was doing some thinking about the Mercury Sim today, and I think I've 
>finally settled on a layout that I like. In doing so I also managed to 
>clear a couple of hurdles (I think) that have been bugging me for a while: 
>entry/exit and display.

Yup, with you so far..... a bit of a worry when you launch and recover (so 
ingress and egress) lying on your back, but fly the rest of the mission in 
weightless conditions, with no definitive "up" :)

>With entry and exit, I couldn't really go with the original "hatch" setup 
>that the Mercury actually had, because the layout is of the Merc on its 
>"side" (so that the occupant is right-side-up instead of on their back), 
>which makes getting through the hatch into the seat very difficult. And 
>considering that this will be a public use sim, not just mine, difficult 
>is not a good idea. But then I struck upon the idea of having a section of 
>the capsule actually "roll" back, like a rolltop desk! This seems like it 
>will work well. There are a few technical problems, but all in all I think 
>I can get it to work well, and I think it pays off compared to other ways 
>of doing it.

That's a bloody good idea!  I likewise was not going to be able to use the 
hatch because I plan on having the capsule "in flight" so I can join the LM 
to the docking port, which will make transfers easier :)   But in that 
situation you'd be entering the CM through the docking tunnel from the 
LM... not realistic.

>Secondly, the display system, which will consist of a smallish screen in 
>front of the window, with the projector over the sim operator's head (sim 
>operator not to be confused with sim pilot - operator runs the sim, and 
>does things like throw in system failures. Pilot flys the thing). Two 
>poles go from the screen to the projector, those will be supporting a 
>shroud, which will secure to the sim itself, probably by Velcro, in order 
>to keep all light out of the display system.

I see mine using monitors in front of the CM pilots window, and maybe a 
duplicate in front of the other window...dunno yet, and a pair for the LM 
windows.  The sim operator, or flight controller <g> will be running vMC on 
another PC (it actually runs on a 486!)

I guess you're using Orbiter?

S.

>A small video showing the proposed operation of the door can be seen here: 
>http://www.me.mtu.edu/~bjsikkem/Door.avi - let me know what you think of 
>everything. This whole setup still needs a lot of work, but you get the 
>basic idea. Any questions on what something is, just ask.

I'll go and have a wee peek :)

Sean.