Rocketry Stages in an edited tech tree

[gwillybj]

This is a little light-weight diversion: a question of aesthetics that doesn't affect gameplay.

In my edited tech tree, I have four stages of rocketry:

Basic Rocketry, Mercury, 3, 1, 0, 0, DocAir, MilAlg, 000000000
-> gives Missile chassis and Conventional Payload

Advanced Rocketry, Gemini, 4, 1, 0, 0, EnvEcon, Mercury, 000000000
-> gives Planet Buster

Orbital Flight, Apollo, 0, 0, 4, 3, Algor, Gemini, 000000000
-> gives Geosynchronous Survey Pod, Sky Hydroponics Lab, Orbital Power Transmitter, and Salvage Unity Fusion Core.

Space Flight, Orion, 0, 4, 5, 3, Apollo, SupLube, 000000000
-> gives The Living Refinery, Plasma Shard (13), and Solar Shade.

I've "tested" them and they work well as placed in the tech sequence, not coming clustered; there is some time between them.

The question: Do my choices for short names, wanting to use some U.S. space programs, make sense (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Orion), or are there others that fit better, taking the advancements into account?

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.

[Geo]

I'm missing the missile launcher weapon somewhere...

I consider Synthetic Fossil Fuels as the 'basic rocketry' tech in SMAC(X).

[Buster's Uncle]

Orion is probably not going to happen, and is a poorly-chosen name, besides...

[Dio]

According to the color coding in the .pcx files, all of the original spaceflight techs were explore techs. In addition, the "orbital spaceflight" tech was originally called satellite reconnaissance. Lastly, are their any specific voice blurbs you plan to use for these techs?

[gwillybj]

I'm missing the missile launcher weapon somewhere...
I consider Synthetic Fossil Fuels as the 'basic rocketry' tech in SMAC(X).

Unchanged from unedited SMAX: Synthetic Fossil Fuels gives the Missile Launcher, which I consider to be like the Katyusha or Nebelwerfer mobile artillery pieces, not rockets in the sense of a heavier chassis requiring static launch facilities.

Orion is probably not going to happen, and is a poorly-chosen name, besides...

I had a difficult time finding a suitable name for this, and went with Orion after reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Space_Programs, which does say, "The Orion capsule has been rebadged as the MPCV for deep space missions." MPCV is kind of boring, but not unusable.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's only a congressional pork-barrel project at this point.

[gwillybj]

According to the color coding in the .pcx files, all of the original spaceflight techs were explore techs. In addition, the "orbital spaceflight" tech was originally called satellite reconnaissance. Lastly, are their any specific voice blurbs you plan to use for these techs?

I've reclassified and recolored them for my needs: Basic and Advanced Rocketry are Conquer, because they give weapons; Orbital and Space Flight are Build, because they give satellites.
At this point I ignore the blurbs, with voiceovers set to fade.

[Ford_Prefect]

You should use orion for an orion drive tech. :-D

[Buster's Uncle]

You should use orion for an orion drive tech. :-D

QFT!

[gwillybj]

You should use orion for an orion drive tech. :-D

Expand? I'm open to any suggestions.

[Buster's Uncle]

Orion is a space propulsion concept older than you or I - set the ship on top of a very thick inverted metal plate and set off a nuke underneath.  More nukes in flight as necessary.

Terrible name for a capsule, then.  He's suggesting justifying using the Orion name with the nuke propulsion.  -Forgive if I'm telling you stuff you know, or answering the wrong question.

[JarlWolf]

What about Soyuz, Sputnik, or Vostok?   

On a more serious note, including Soviet/Russian terminology would be good; my country did after all START the space race and we were the first of mankind out there. Not to mention the first space station..

The Chinese aren't to be discounted either in this too I think; we have Yang who is Chinese and Zhakorov who is Russian, and especially on good old  wouldn't allow all the scientific names to be purely American, now would he 

[Geo]

... my country did after all START the space race...

Germany! :doitnow,:
 

[gwillybj]

What about Soyuz, Sputnik, or Vostok?   

I'm open to any ideas. I need four names for the stages (Basic Rocketry, Adv. Rocketry, Orbital Flight, Space Flight); the first two don't have to be manned, since they are just rockets (Conventional and Planet Buster).
I'm familiar with Sputnik and Soyuz. What is Vostok?

[Geo]

What is Vostok?

You don't recognize Joeri Gagarin's home during his tours around Earth???!!

(BUncle, we need an :eek: smilie)