'Weathering' Realistic Spacecraft?

[ndoyle]

So, my plan is to start scratchbuilding/kitbashing some 'realistic' spacecraft - think Attack Vector: Tactical, Discovery/Leonov, things like that. If it matters, my planned scale is 1:288/300 or so.

What sort of 'weathering' would they see? They don't get any closer to an atmosphere than LEO, but they would spend time cruising around the solar system. Wear and tear at docking points? Maintenance panels? Micrometeorite impacts? Are there any 'weathering' reference shots of the outside of, say, Mir or the ISS?

[TER-OR]

I'd work hard on fading - UV is hell. Think of dust wear, too, though I would avoid shiny, myself. Subtlety is going to be the important factor.

[ndoyle]

I'd work hard on fading - UV is hell. Think of dust wear, too, though I would avoid shiny, myself. Subtlety is going to be the important factor.

When you say 'dust wear', what are you thinking of? Accumulation of damage from lots of tiny impacts, or actual accretion of dust on the surface of the vehicle?

I wonder if static charge would make dust and crud stick to the surface of a vehicle, such as from junk-dense areas like Earth orbit, or a ring system...I've got to find some info on exactly what sort of EVA maintenance they had/have to do on Mir and the ISS!

Fading sounds reasonable - means I need to work on how to fade white/gray well.

In general, these ships would be getting most of their physical wear from junk in space on the front - departure/acceleration burns, then long coasting before an arrival/deceleration burn would lead to that, I'd think. Whatever damage picked up on a deceleration burn would be mostly on the engine nozzles and such, but that wouldn't be much; nuclear exhaust should see to that, and those engine bells are going to be burnt and worn anyway...

Also, solar panel/radiator damage, truss and module damage and repair.

"Why the crazy-quilt look? Well, a Chinese freighter wasn't needing its hab walls anymore, and it's a shame to let anything go to waste in the outer system, so..."

[TER-OR]

Surface wear/polishing from dust. I wouldn't overdo it, though.

[ndoyle]

Gotcha. I was thinking about having some sort of shielding forward for that very reason, and it'd give me a nice surface to fiddle with.

At 1:300, that would have to be pretty subtle. Maybe a slightly heavier fading of the leading surfaces, with the occasional larger dent/crater?

[Andrew Gorman]

I'd just weather them so they look good to you- they're your rockets! for actual pictures of what things look like after they have been in space for a few years look up the "long duration exposure facility" Here's a good start:
http://butdoesitfloat.com/144417/Long-D ... e-Facility

[Lt. Z0mBe]

Also, if you can get your hands on some images of the X-15 after some of its astronautic flights, they make great references. The subtle panel shading and "Carbon scoring" are real phenomena experienced by drastic temperature changes these aersoapce craft went through. The famous mach 6 flight was actually in white ablative coating, not black, garb, and it looked like hell afterwards, relatively speaking. Imagine a career spent like this, and that's where a lot of the early sci-fi modelers in TV and cinema got their references.

This will get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-15_flights

A lot of people will offhandedly say "the desert was hard on the finish" until reading about the vehicles. Those ladies were hangar kept and pampered. A film we watched in one of my CAP aerospace education classes had one of the crew chiefs talking about them. He said they were always emabarrased when they were photographed because no matter how hard they tried to clean them up, they always looked like they were randomly paneled in sandpaper. (The point of the class was about metal fatigue, btw).

I hope this helps.

Kenny

[ndoyle]

Andrew, thanks for the link to the LDEF - that's a really interesting project. That gives me a lot of color cues, as well.

Lt. ZOmBe, I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn't thought about the X-15 at all! While it won't have the same kind of weathering a non-atmospheric vehicle would suffer, some of these will most certainly be carrying shuttles or atmospheric craft of some kind (and in a potential gaming situation, suborbital or orbital spaceplaces will have to make an appearance).

On to find a 1:288 X-15...

[TER-OR]

I know NASA had a satellite designed to record the results of orbital wear, I can't remember the name, but it stayed in orbit much longer than planned.

[dizzyfugu]

I'd hit the finished kit with grinded, very soft pencil mine. With bare fingertip of a soft cotton cloth, and then rub the stuff gently from the the front to the back. It will emphasize surface details with a greyish-metallic shine and might add to the "impact" or "burnt" look. Very simple but effective, esp. on white/grey ground.

[JermaineMaxwell]

So, my plan is to start scratchbuilding/kitbashing some 'realistic' spacecraft - think Attack Vector: Tactical, Discovery/Leonov, things like that. If it matters, my planned scale is 1:288/300 or so.

What sort of 'weathering' would they see? They don't get any closer to an atmosphere than LEO, but they would spend time cruising around the solar panel system. Wear and tear at docking points? Maintenance panels? Micrometeorite impacts? Are there any 'weathering' reference shots of the outside of, say, Mir or the ISS?

They need better weather detecting systems for sure.. Lots of maintenance needs in old system which is not good at all.

[Lord Darth Beavis]

I know NASA had a satellite designed to record the results of orbital wear, I can't remember the name, but it stayed in orbit much longer than planned.

LDEF--The Long Duration Exposure Facility. It was supposed to be brought home after a year, but because of the Challenger disaster, it spent 69 months in orbit. It yielded an amazing amount of data.

[Martini_Mcfly]

I was watching "Live from Space" Friday night and while they were live broadcasting from the ISS, they would turn the camera out the observation window. When they, did you'd see lots of pits scratches and imperfections that you can bet weren't there when they installed it. Might be worth a look to get an idea. Of course a lot of what you put in will be scale dependent.

[Go Flight]

I'd work hard on fading - UV is hell. Think of dust wear, too, though I would avoid shiny, myself. Subtlety is going to be the important factor.

Agreed. Think of scale. What looks like a little smudge to you could be a smudge that's 100 scale ft. long on the model. Re: micro meteorites - they look like tiny damage in something the size of the shuttle. On the Leonov or something equal in size, they would be invisible.
Another thing to do is use "off" colors - off white, cream, ivory etc... Then you can paint a little rectangle here and there of bright white to simulate a repaired panel.
Just thinking out loud.