Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks" (Read 373685 times)

Gortef · **Reply #340 on:** January 03, 2012, 05:54:26 am

Quote from: LordMelvin on January 02, 2012, 11:22:15 am

<shatner>

These... are the voyages of the Star Ship Dekker... Its five year mission:... to seek out new life forms down at the pub... and shag the living daylights out of them...

</shatner>

You know I kind of like that

Sushi · **Reply #341 on:** January 04, 2012, 09:41:47 pm

My latest challenges/accomplishments (all Vanilla parts, of course):

1. Space Tourism! Load up on "passenger" parts (extra SAS modules in this case) and get into orbit and back with the passengers. As a bonus feat, I landed my rocket within a mile or so of the launchpad: once around the planet and back to the parking lot.

2. Reusable vehicle! Get into orbit and back without jettisoning ANYTHING! I present the Tantalus Mk1, with which I was able to do exactly that:

Haven't tried to make a Tantalus for a moon trip yet, but I expect it would have to be pretty humungous...

newman · **Reply #342 on:** January 09, 2012, 03:39:52 am

Quote from: Sushi on January 04, 2012, 09:41:47 pm

Haven't tried to make a Tantalus for a moon trip yet, but I expect it would have to be pretty humungous...

It would. It comes to a point of TWR being really problematic to balance out. I made my own "Lunar Flyer" that gets there without any staging whatsoever. It can land on the Mun with a bit of extra fuel to spare, but it can't get back. I suppose it could be a reusable Mun Base supply / passenger vehicle, that would get refueled on the Mun after landing. But it was more about me playing with the design, the ship would never be economical or efficient. Plus, once we get atmo friction and reentry heat humongous ships that can actually land back will become problematic.

crizza · **Reply #343 on:** January 13, 2012, 05:52:55 pm

OMG, I just made my first trip to the Mun, but my attempts are pretty clumsy.
My max altitude was about 70k miles...and I was lucky to hit Mun on my way down...
But although I decelerated, I crashed into Muns surface cause I was on the dark side and didn't know the distance towards it^^

watsisname · **Reply #344 on:** January 14, 2012, 03:39:33 am

Haha, attempting to land blindly on the Munar darkside. Now that's how REAL Kerbonauts do it!

"Screw the altimeter, I can FEEL the surface!" -Jeb's last words

Herra Tohtori · **Reply #345 on:** January 14, 2012, 03:53:19 am

Challenge time!

Single-stage to the Mun and back again!

This kind of stuff is what makes KSP awesome - setting ridiculous goals, and then doing them... usually involving new and exciting failure modes.

watsisname · **Reply #346 on:** January 14, 2012, 04:08:57 am

Quote from: Herra Tohtori on January 14, 2012, 03:53:19 am

Challenge time!

Single-stage to the Mun and back again!

This kind of stuff is what makes KSP awesome - setting ridiculous goals, and then doing them... usually involving new and exciting failure modes.

Seriously though, good luck to you, sir! Post results, especially the hilarious ones!

Herra Tohtori · **Reply #347 on:** January 14, 2012, 04:42:02 am

Well, actually I don't think it would be much of a challenge if I decided to use C-7 aviation pack parts...

Stock parts, might be a tad harder. Or with Challenger parts, or with NovaPunch... I'll see what I can manage.

Herra Tohtori · **Reply #348 on:** January 14, 2012, 05:24:31 am

Well... my first attempt, at least it made it to orbit...

Jebediah approves of the design of this ship. It is made of rockets, and fuel tanks. Well it does have a bit of structure on the top. And an advanced SAS module to provide guidance via vectored main thrusters.

However, Bill and Bob were not so enthusiastic about the design flaw that exhibited itself once the craft was already at orbit - the stack prongs oscillated too much, with not enough damping, and as a result... well...

I am still in orbit. Safe return is doubtful, but I expect re-entry sequence to provide quite a bit of amusement...

crizza · **Reply #349 on:** January 14, 2012, 05:47:14 am

Quote from: watsisname on January 14, 2012, 03:39:33 am

Haha, attempting to land blindly on the Munar darkside. Now that's how REAL Kerbonauts do it!

"Screw the altimeter, I can FEEL the surface!" -Jeb's last words

THe altimeter showed me the distance to Kerbin....and I was too lazy to calculate, so I fired the engines at the last possible moment and I realy flinched as the rocket suddenly landed quite spectacular...with a big bang

And they realy should add something like heat during reentry, cause on another mission my Kerbonauts plummeted into the atmosphere with around 3000ms and the shute simply decided to leave to capsule...

Herra Tohtori · **Reply #350 on:** January 14, 2012, 05:53:59 am

The saga continues...

De-orbit burn completed, descending into lower atmosphere, plenty of fuel in reserve.

Somehow, Bill and Bob are not re-assured by this.

Thrusters engaged for the final braking and touchdown.

They produce an impressive amount of water vapour. Jebediah comments how the obscured visibility was never a problem before, going up.

Vertical speed killed. Jebediah comments: "Hey guys this might actually work!"

Note: Landing on an incline is not recommended.

Mission Control was quite astonished, but not as much as Bill and Bob. Jebediah just wants to do it again as soon as possible.

Bill and Bob are insisting, however, that future vehicles be fitted with at least one decoupler and parachute for the capsule. Kerbal Space Control is currently debating whether this idea has merit.

...aaand yeah heat management has not been taken into consideration. At all.

Nuke · **Reply #351 on:** January 14, 2012, 06:35:15 am

ive been doing a lot of ships with more powerful non-gimballed engines with only a couple small gimballed engines for stabilization. it seems to work quite well. better now that we can link tanks so they run out of fuel at the same time.

Rodo · **Reply #352 on:** January 14, 2012, 09:14:24 am

haha look at that they survived!
well no matter what, you must admit the capsule is quite resilient (if you follow the direction printed on the side that says: "this side up").

Herra Tohtori · **Reply #353 on:** January 18, 2012, 01:40:25 pm

I made a video about going to Mun, using a revised version of my Juturn V design.

pecenipicek · **Reply #354 on:** January 31, 2012, 08:28:30 am

whoopsie daisy... the travel back from Mun, well, kinda failed

LordMelvin · **Reply #355 on:** January 31, 2012, 10:49:42 am

Quote from: pecenipicek on January 31, 2012, 08:28:30 am

whoopsie daisy... the travel back from Mun, well, kinda failed
[snip]

And did they ever return?
No, they never returned
And their fate is still unknown...

newman · **Reply #356 on:** January 31, 2012, 11:20:42 am

Here's my super convoluted Munship-1. Amazingly enough, it worked! The goal was to get to the Mun, no staging whatsoever (well, any sort of decoupler used in the construction is fine as long as it isn't used to decouple anything at any point). For the purposes of this I imagined it's a reusable resupply craft for some sort of a Mun base, so it doesn't need to be able to get back on a single tank. Anyway, here's the short sequence illustrating the trip:

Made good time, too - I usually take a bit over 8 hours, from launchpad to Mun surface.

Sushi · **Reply #357 on:** February 11, 2012, 11:20:12 pm

I see yours and raise you a version using all stock parts:

On the pad:

Final approach:

Close enough.

This took me quite a few tries to get right. I had so many rockets die just a few seconds of fuel short of a safe landing.

newman · **Reply #358 on:** February 12, 2012, 07:14:15 am

Congrats, that couldn't have been easy to pull off. While I've done several Mun return trips using stock only, I kinda prefer using mods - the stock only selection is poor to say the least, kinda kills all the fun. They're going to give us more stock parts eventually, but till then I'm using mods.

Dragon · **Reply #359 on:** February 14, 2012, 06:52:59 am

I also prefer mods, they have some amazing parts (I really love Down Under retro-rockets, and have recently found a whole pack of such small radial boosters).
KW Challenger part pack is another great resource. I've used it to punt the capsule into Kerbabl (that's the sun) orbit with solid boosters only.

This is the monster that did this.

Another ship of mine, single liquid stage and (not shown) two sets of SRBs, one reusable (they have large parachutes on top, I never found if they actually survive).
It's a general purpose orbital deployment system for small payloads.

The same ship, on a launchpad. Kubble Space Telescope is hidden inside the fairing.

News:

Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks" (Read 373685 times)

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