Question Hi-res White ET for Shuttle

[HadleyDreamer]

Hello everyone, I'm a long-time reader but a new poster. If memory serves, there was an addon a few years ago that included a Hi-res white External Tank (as used on STS-1 and STS-2). Does anyone remember this or know the whereabouts of that addon? It was more detailed than the white ET that comes with Orbiter Fleet.

I just like the look of the white tank. I'll pay the payload penalty and extra cost to paint the tank, since I'm not spending real money like NASA .

Thanks and Happy New Year to all Orbiter fans.

 

[DaveS]

Are you talking about this one:

If so, then it's long gone.

 

[HadleyDreamer]

DaveS:

Thanks, it is good to know that I am not completely senile.

Did you create that addon? Or do you know who did? It was a fine piece of work. If nothing of the sort is currently available, I might try my hand at creating something, but my skills with meshes and textures is limited, to put it mildly. I would like to contact the maker of the previous one before I do anything.

Thanks again for your response.

 

[DaveS]

DaveS:

Thanks, it is good to know that I am not completely senile.

Did you create that addon? Or do you know who did? It was a fine piece of work. If nothing of the sort is currently available, I might try my hand at creating something, but my skills with meshes and textures is limited, to put it mildly. I would like to contact the maker of the previous one before I do anything.

Thanks again for your response.

Well, it's most definitely lost as I was the original creator. That ET was just one of several ETs in a pack(STS-1, STS-3 and STS-6). I'm currently working a new more accurate ET based on several official schematics. For now it represents ET-120 which originally was manifested to fly on STS-114 but was later reassigned to STS-121 and then to STS-120.

As all the ETs share the same Outer Moldline(OML), it's easy to reconfigure ETs once a baseline model has been created.

 

[Andy44]

What happened? Hard drive crash?

 

[DaveS]

What happened? Hard drive crash?

Well, mostly erased by later progress on new more accurate baseline ETs as I kept getting better data and understood things better.

 

[T.Neo]

Would a texture for a white ET not be as simple as a quick colour edit in GIMP or Photoshop?

 

[HadleyDreamer]

Historical ETs

DaveS:

Well, it's a shame that older model was lost, but I'm sure your new work will be beautiful.

You've now prompted my curiosity, so I'm going to go back in my files to see what I can find about the differences between the original ET, the Lightweight ET, and the Super-Lightweight ET. As you say, the outer mold lines will be the same. I think the transition from original tank to LWT involved some lighter structural components, but also the deletion of some piping that was considered redundant. The weight savings on the SLWT came largely from the use of an Aluminum-Lithium alloy. Well, enough chatter - I have some research to do! Thanks again and good luck with your projects.