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The KSP Interstellar Proxima Centauri Challenge


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Yeah, the speed number is from the Ctrl-F3 menu, which apparently is not to be trusted.  I just reloaded the game to a point prior to Proxima Centauri SOI and the number is crazier.

http://imgur.com/Lpy9g5z

"Highest Speed Achieved: 53,991,013,762m/s"

The orbit number visible in the screenshot is better, 1027339.7m/s.  I'll update with that, though I wonder "orbit of what?"  The DeltaV is from MechJeb, and Kerbal Engineer mostly agreed.

Edited by superdavekerman
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I had quite a bit of fuel left when I arrived.  Not sure if that's a bug with the reactor window, as it's reporting zero usage and zero days left, but the reactor should still be generating its fusion maintenance charge.

http://imgur.com/NeOnp5a

Our kerbals had just woke up from deep freeze at this point, and discovered that Bill forgot to attach the thrusters to the capsule, so I had to de-orbit the entire ship to land. Oops.

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13 minutes ago, fenderzilla said:

Do we have to use realism overhaul parts or just RSS?

You could optionally realism overhaul parts but mainly for launch and decent. For traveling to the star you going to need Interstellar Equipment.

What is important is that you install the Constellation which requires RSS

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Just now, FreeThinker said:

You could optionally realism overhaul parts but mainly for launch and decent. For traveling to the star you going to need Interstellar Equipment.

What is important is that you install the Constellation which requires RSS

Of course. I wasn't about to try an interstellar journey with chemical drives.

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46 minutes ago, fenderzilla said:

Of course. I wasn't about to try an interstellar journey with chemical drives.

Yes but a bit of antimatter can make your life easier as well. You don't have to get into orbit old school

Edited by FreeThinker
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  • 3 weeks later...

WOOT! This challenge was truly challenging! Completing it was a great way to tie together everything I learned about the Interstellar mod over the past several 100 hours of playing with it in sandbox. I just finished this using a SSTO Space plane carrier without FTL or reactionless drives!

Stats for posterity. 

total launch mass
4,123t
total launch cost $1,236,987,000
total launch part count 68
interstellar vessel dry mass 1,550t
interstellar vessel wet mass 4,123t
interstellar vessel part count 68
interstellar vessel cost $1,236,987,000
total travel time
69y 91d  
maximum achieved speed 4,164,000 m/s
deltaV 10,165,752

All the gory details are in the album, along with extensive captions. If people are more interested in this I can post the craft file and/or edit the raw video down, maybe post it in flight reports. It was around 4 hours of time flying the mission, so that's a bit of editing.

As far as I know (please correct me if wrong) the first Single Stage to Proxima Centauri Space Plane, The SSTP "BoatyMcBoatFace." All the credit goes to FreeThinker and everyone who's contributed to the mod and all its dependencies, and nurtured this awesome community.

(Don't know why all pics aren't showing up in preview, click on album to view all through completion)

With a little more engineering and better flying, I'm confident I can round trip from the runway to Proxima and back, but maybe not as quickly. If allowed to refuel at proxima it should be close to doable with a setup similar to this, replacing the lander in the cargo bay with some ISRU equipment. Might even be done in the same time round trip than it took me to go one way. I think it might even be possible to land on Proxima Centauri B and return to the Space Center without refueling if you were clever about it. Totally unconfirmed at this point.

Also worth noting, if you ease the restriction on not using the quantum vacuum plasma thruster (not sure if that's part of the challenge or not) you could use this ship to go to Proxima Centauri in a few years tops. Replace the fusion pellet fuel with a black hole drive and as many radiators as you can fit into a flyable airframe. Your effective range and top speed is now only limited by how much Hydrogen or Helium fuel you bring to feed the black hole. Just a thought.

Edited by proteasome
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  • 2 weeks later...

@proteasome Very impressive. Your certainly got things right and managed to create the fastest trip to date and got there using an SSTO . Besides vessel development the hardest part is getting in orbit of proxima centauri which you managed to pull of excellent. Now the question remains, could you pull of a rendezvous? Return your kerbal back home. You are allowed to use reaction-less  propulsion +SQR for this.

Edited by FreeThinker
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On 3-4-2017 at 11:23 PM, proteasome said:

As far as I know (please correct me if wrong) the first Single Stage to Proxima Centauri Space Plane, The SSTP "BoatyMcBoatFace." All the credit goes to FreeThinker and everyone who's contributed to the mod and all its dependencies, and nurtured this awesome community

I have to correct you here,  to make this challenge possible I think it is fair to say the half of the credit falls to @AndrewDrawsPrettyPictures for his Constellations planet pack, for without this challenge would not be possible.

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12 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

@proteasome Very impressive. Your certainly got things right and managed to create the fastest trip to date and got there using an SSTO . Besides vessel development the hardest part is getting in orbit of proxima centauri which you managed to pull of excellent. Now the question remains, could you pull of a rendezvous? Return your kerbal back home. You are allowed to use reaction-less  propulsion +SQR for this.

I'll try the return trip with a reactionless SSTO design. Thanks for the shoutout.

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  • 1 month later...

@proteasome Notice with the latest release of KSPI-E it is now feasible to use pure antimatter propulsion for interstellar travel which has received huge boost in power x20) and antimatter storage economics (>1000). In theory, is should allow you to achieve very high proportion of the speed of light, making trips to Alpha centauri possible of less than 10 years.

Edited by FreeThinker
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  • 6 months later...
On 18-12-2017 at 4:00 AM, 0something0 said:

@Jim123Dude, this challenge is 7 month old. Perhaps you could create a new thread for the challenge?

Well it is true we now have new methods of reaching the stars but the original premise still holds, it is hard to reach Proxima Centauri. Besides that, the number of people that took it can still be counted on one hand.

Edited by FreeThinker
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33 minutes ago, RexPowerColt said:

Is there any way to run RSS Constellations in KSP 1.3.1 without the solar system bugging? I get visual glitches by doing so and that makes the game unplayable. RSS Constelllations mod thread doesn't give any solutions, so if you have any pease let me know.

No, it is not possible. The RSS Constellations thread clearly indicates that it is only compatible with 1.2.2.

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  • 3 months later...
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

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