trepidine

I completely agree! Having dust kick up when you're landing on the mun, or anywhere, would be awesome.

I plan on answering that very question tomorrow while I'm watching Kerbalkon! Haven't been able to play since I made the post. Need to change my account settings too so I get notifications, that's why the delay in response. Thanks for the interest! I'll edit my post to include payload info, thinking of taking off mechjeb too so more people will be interested, doesn't need it to fly anyway.

Check out mine, post #73 on this thread. Similar to yours but mine looks larger and I went with the more powerful SRB's. It's balanced nicely, holds flight path just fine using SAS.

Surprisingly easy to fly shuttle I made for deploying communication satellites. There are four simple com satellites in the cargo bay. Built in spaceplane hanger. I start the grav turn gradually around 4km and shoot for a apoapsis of 80-90km. I'm usually about 45 degrees @ around 25km. Once you're in space RCS makes it easier to maneuver though it's not needed if you lower throttle just a little. If you go for a circular orbit around 85km, there should be extra fuel left in main tank when you dump it. (there's more than enough to make a circular orbit with it but I want it to re-enter) The extra fuel is there if you need it for lifting a heavier load. I dump the main tank when my periapsis is around 40km, and finish circularizing with RCS, so the tank re-enters. On re-entry, keep that nose pointed prograde or you may be in for a kerbal experience. Let me know what you think. Disclaimer: I was inspired to make this after watching Scott Manley's latest episode of Interstellar. Minor similarity with some design aspects. My shuttle is larger and uses more powerful engines, standard tail, etc. I did use a couple action groups, check the description in spaceplane hanger. The action groups aren't needed to help stability during flight or to fly the craft, just for convenience. (turning off reaction wheels when docked, opening cargo bay w/lights, etc.) Mods used: B9 KW Mechjeb (not needed to fly, I use for telemetry) Recommended Max Payload to LKO: 6.85 tons. With this much weight, the craft pitches up a bit at the very end of the SRB burn, happens for about two seconds then you jettison the SRB's and it's completely stable again. At 6.85 tons you use almost all the rocket fuel getting to and establishing orbit at ~79km. Could probably lift 7 tons if you're a daring kerbanaut and go for minimum LKO. Craft File Imgur Gallery I added pix to the gallery of the max payload test flight.

First posting of mine. Going to show a simple, efficient, and intermediate career science mission craft for an interplanetary voyage to IKE, doing science there, and returning. The cumulative science points I gained from this mission was over 4,000. Before I get started on the craft itself, let me explain where I did all my science in this mission. Since I had just about depleted the science in the Kerbin system, I didn't do any science till I was outside the SOI of Kerbin. At each of the following places, I did every experiment/report possible* and exhaustively transmitted it all back to Kerbin.* 1. In interplanetary space (in Kerbol's SOI) 2. In Duna's SOI high orbit 3. During braking maneuver in Duna's atmosphere, 4. Inside IKE's SOI/orbit 5. On IKE's surface. *obviously I didn't do EVA reports during the braking maneuver at Duna. Also, the science gathered on IKE's surface was stored and recovered back on Kerbin's surface. It can be transmitted but I didn't want to spend the time doing it as the energy resources on the lander aren't as capable as the vessel as a whole is, I'll explain later. Mission: Interplanetary voyage to Duna's moon Ike, return to Kerbin. Science collection. Intention: Meant for intermediate players in career mode who may be struggling to get a few of those higher value tech tree items and who want to practice rendezvous, docking, and interplanetary maneuvers. The SHIP: While the craft itself is efficient, it may be cost prohibitive in the real world as at least two separate launches are required for total completion. Three launches if you intend to recover the craft on Kerbin's surface. (was not part of the original plan) My design intentions were to construct a very light, capable, and science oriented ship with simplicity and low part count in mind. I apologize in advance for not having a lot of pictures from my mission since I haven't posted missions/craft photos before. I decided to post this as the craft worked amazingly well, easy to handle, and could easily be adapted to go somewhere further than Duna as I had lots of extra fuel leftover. Thought someone might enjoy it. I'm awesome at naming crafts. (not really) Ship Parts (note: I used the same lift vehicle dubbed 'Gladius' for each craft piece, I know it was way overkill for the last piece, the VRN) IKEL: IKE Lander Launched to an orbit of 90km and used Stage 6 which is the 'skipper' engine to circularize. For simplicity i'll call that piece the 'circularizer' since i'm going to refer to it a couple times and the staging # changes and it's an essential part to both parts of the craft. Excuse the odd nosecones, it was before I had the bigger ones and this is meant as a mid-career ship. ILV: Interplanetary Launch Vessel This I launched to an orbit of around 120km so that it could rendezvous with the IKEL. After rendezvous within 200m but before docking, both craft still had their circularizer engines & fuel tanks still attached with surplus fuel. I undocked the ILV from it's circularizer and then switched to the IKEL and docked it with the now undocked ILV circularizer tank and drained it of it's surplus fuel into the circularizer tank on the IKEL. Then I docked the top of the IKEL to the ILV and disabled the crossfeed on the docking ports between the two so the NERVAs wouldn't drain my lander. During my transfer burn to Duna using the NERVA engines, whenever the NERVA fuel tanks were about half I would transfer fuel from the docked circularizer on the prograde end of the ship to the NERVA tanks to keep more mass at the rear for stability. I still had some bit of fuel left in the circularizer after the transfer burn, I eventually decoupled it and the docking ports from the center engine on the lander after some adjustment burns as I neared Duna. Highlighted here in blue is the 'circularizer' fuel tank. My current craft consisting of just the IKEL & ILV, I set my Duna periapsis for 13.5km in a CCW/retrograde/West orbit for aerobraking. I then made for Ike and established a CW/prograde/Eastern orbit of 40km. The fuel tanks in the lander should still be full at this point. I undocked the lander from the ILV and landed on IKE. Launched to an eastward orbit of 20km. (The lander was originally designed for landing at the Mun where I had to ditch the radially mounted engines and tanks during takeoff/circularization/tranfer to Kerbin.) Notice the IKEL doesn't have RCS fuel tanks so docking must be accomplished via the ILV. Switched to the ILV and set a node to rendezvous with IKEL, docked to IKEL and transferred all remaining fuel in the radially attached engines to the ILV and then jettisoned them. Escaped Ike's SOI and went to an orbit higher than Ike for my transfer burn back to Kerbin. (there was probably a more efficient way but that's what I did) After arriving at Kerbin I set periapsis to about 35km to aerobrake, then established orbit at 80km. Transferred all the fuel I could back into the lander to fill it's remaining central tank, undocked the ILV from IKEL and set it on a path to de-orbit. Now if you decided not to transmit the science from Ike, you'll have to do this next part. VRN: Vehicle Recovery Node. Since I didn't want to spend time transmitting my data while I was on IKE, I had to construct this so that I could attach parachutes to my lander when I returned to Kerbin. Docked the parachute node(?) to my lander and de-orbited. Pretty silly I know but this is KSP & it worked great and since I had plenty of spare fuel, I was able to slow my decent enough with a burn so that when the drogues fully deployed they didn't rip the docking ports apart. Then deployed radial chutes and did a Soyuz type burn before touchdown to get my rate of descent ~5m/s. Bonus: Gladius Lift vehicle, good lifter that you can build fairly early on in career. (disregard the command pod at top, it's there merely to show the subassembly non-translucent) Here are the craft files, I've included the IKEL both with all the science instruments minus the sensor array nose cone, and one with limited science instruments in case you haven't unlocked all of them yet. It has the mystery goo container and science lab jr. I've also included the Gladius Lift SUBASSEMBLY, meaning place it in the Subassemblies folder in your save. These craft files are completely stock parts. However on my mission I added the protractor mod part to my ship to make my life easier, but this mission can be accomplished without it. RIGHT-CLICK 'SAVE LINK AS' IKEL:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37890819/science%20mission/IKEL.craft IKEL(limited science instruments) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37890819/science%20mission/IKEL%20no%20science.craft ILV https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37890819/science%20mission/ILV.craft VRN https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37890819/science%20mission/VRN.craft Gladius SUBASSEMBLY https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37890819/science%20mission/Subassemblies/Gladius.craft I'm interested in what you guys think, any suggestions you may have, and any grave mistakes I've made... Again sorry for the lack of pix of all the maneuvers. Thanks.