Excalibur

As far as I can tell any kind of Eve landing and return mission is impossible with a single launch and stock parts. I've created a modified install of KSP where all parts have 1.7x the mass and 5x the drag so I can simulate Eve lift-offs from Kerbin. With just a Mk1 pod, T400 fuel tank and an T45 engine you can only reach 2.4km! Looks like this mod will be the way to go!

I may be on to something here. I've gone through all the rocket parts and increased their masses and drag values by factors of 1.7x and 5x respectively. In a simple test, the ship with normal parts reached just under 10km before MECO. With 'Eve-sim' parts the same ship only reached 2.4km in altitude before it's engine burned out. The only problem with this method for testing lander designs is that Kerbin's atmosphere is only 70% of the thickness of Eve's, so you'll still have to add at least another 30% margin-of-error into your designs. If anyone's interested I'll zip and dropbox the parts.

95km is quite a bit better than the 30km I've managed, hats off to you! I'm going to keep the challenge name as it is, as this mission is the ultimate goal and probably the hardest thing you can do in KSP right now. However, I'll keep records of whom gets the highest altitude, and what kinds of orbits anyone manages to enter. That way we can keep track of how close kerbalkind is coming to achieving the goal. Also I'd like to actively encourage people to share ideas and details of their failures (or successes) so we can all learn a bit more about efficient rocket design, because really this is all about efficiency. I never calculate delta-v budgets (only use the Engineer plugin for guidance) so my rockets probably aren't as efficient as they can be. I've thought about using a large cluster of SRBs in the first stage of the lander to 'punch' through the atmosphere as soon as possible, though the weight penalties are huge. I'm actually thinking about making a modded 'stock' KSP where all parts have 1.7x the mass and 5x the drag so we can more accurately test designs in Kerbin's atmosphere. Obviously it won't be completely accurate due to Eve's atmosphere being deeper. Looking forward to seeing pictures of your designs! EDIT: In fact I'm creating the Eve parts right now. If anyone is interested I'll post the dropbox link. Just to clarify, those figures are correct yes? (1.7G & 5atm).

The Single Launch Eve Landing and Return Mission If you are the kind of kerbal whom enjoys pain, anguish and multiple failures then this sir/madam is the challenge for you! Background This begins with a sad, sad tale of loss. Jeb, Bill and Bob were orbiting closely to Eve, waiting for the transfer window home. After a few weeks they were beginning to get rather bored and Jeb decided to liven things up a little. He took Bill outside along with his favourite pie dish. They then proceeded to enjoy a game of orbital frisbee. Now frisbee in a zero-g vacuum ain't easy, and it wasn't long before a devilishly fast right-hander from Jeb sent his beloved dish hurtling away from Bob in just such a manner that it de-orbited, eventually landing unscathed on the purple plains below. Mission & Rules YOU have been tasked by Jeb to get down to the surface of Eve and bring his pie dish back home, to Kerbin. His pies just haven't been the same since; he's lost that famous grin. Bring back the dish! Only stock parts. Use of MechJeb is fine, though extra kudos for it's non-use. Only a SINGLE launch allowed. No EVA rendezvous, the risk of losing the pie dish again is too great. To make this already hard-as-nails challenge a little easier, you may land anywhere on Eve. We'll just say you were rather fortunate on landing right next to Jeb's dish. GOOD LUCK!

Anyone put this mod to good use and used it for interplanetary missions yet? I've been struggling to make a stock single-launch Eve return mission but I'm beginning to think it just isn't possible (for me at least). I think I'm about to give up on that and I think this mod will enable an Eve return!

Gilly and Bop have been broken since the first experimentals. I'm sure Squad will issue a hotfix to sort it out in the near future. @ Basbr: The number of times I've forgotten things and realised wayyy too late. When I first got to Tylo in X1 I entered my terminal descent phase and realised my lander had no legs... Also on Duna the gravity is just such that you'd be able to get back in using the jetpack!

Ha that's the opposite of the second picture I posted above! @ Banbite

Nice mission booly, I like the way you presented your images and the cube-like rocket. Your landing back at KSC reminds me of when I once threw an aircraft together to visit KSC 2. I landed at the runway site with 0.1l of fuel left, I kid you not! The only thing about your mission is that I'm sure using a Munar slingshot for interplanetary maneuvers is actually detrimental. Scott Manley (he knows his orbital maths) did some calculations during the experimentals to prove the point after Tosh suggested using the Mun to get to other planets. I'd link you to the post but it's a testers only area. From what I understand you're better off burning deeper in Kerbin's gravity well to take advantage of the Oberth Effect. Find the optimum ejection angle from Kerbin orbit and just burn like crazy, avoiding Mun and Minmus. In 0.17x1 Moho's orbital distance was about half what it is now (1.5-1.8Mm) so I used to slingshot around Eve to slow down and change planes - slingshots are really rewarding when you pull them off!

As you can see Moho was much more difficult to get to in 0.17x1. It orbited the Sun between 1.5 and 1.8 Mm. Shame as I miss the challenge, you could just get there with chemical rockets (before the NTR was introduced).

Try that from Eve. I haven't heard of anyone who's done that yet.

I'll gladly share design/flight tips if you think you're struggling -Gamah, or anyone else for that matter.

Landed on Moho

That's why I used two launches and two headings; one launched east and the other west. Used MechJeb to set into reasonably accurate orbits then trimmed them down with RCS burns. Getting them within a couple of hundred metres isn't actually too difficult if you have a little patience, it's the actual collision that causes a pain. Finding the closest approach requires analysing video frame-by-frame since the closing speeds involved are so high. Fun challenge though!

The scope I borrowed had an auto-tracking gimbal to account for the Earth's rotation. It also had a go-to function that would point it at the point of interest at will. Only thing was it required precise GPS co-ordinates which I didn't have access to. Alas even with rough lat/long I'd gleaned from map data it wasn't precise enough to work. Manually pointing it took a ton of patience and on the highest magnification it would slide out of view within a minute or so. May have to see if he's still got it...

I nearly managed to do this a few months ago as part of the Ultimate Orbital Intercept challenge. Can't find it now, think it got lost during the forum move. Here's a pretty lame YouTube video I made of the attempts.

A few years ago I borrowed a 6-inch reflector off of one of my father's friends. Even in the light-pollution infested north of England I could see the four Gallilean moons and some of the cloud bands. I could have sworn I saw the Great Red Spot too but wasn't 100% sure on that one. I'll never forget it, looking at an object so vast yet so far away.

Completely agree with you - I think too many recent games are too easy. Once finished they leave your memory pretty quickly with no sense of accomplishment. As long as a game doesn't have goals that are actually and truthfully impossible then I don't mind how difficult they get. The number of friends I know whom have become addicted to Demon/Dark Souls due to the difficulty... I only spent $10 back in the day for this game - I'd happily have paid $100 (roughly the price of BF3 + Premium) for it. In fact I think I've spent way more hours in KSP than Battlefield, and I've got over 100 hours logged online in that game.

It's the delta-v budgets that are required. I'll use Eve as an example. Taking the information that Nova's given out about Eve, we know that it's gravity is 1.7x that of Kerbin's, whilst it's atmosphere is 5x as dense. Since it already takes about 4300m/s to achieve Kerbin orbit (with an efficient launcher) I think you'll need at least 5-6km/s of delta-v to lift off from Eve and attain orbit. To leave Kerbin's orbit you'll need about another 1000m/s and head for Eve (assuming it orbits somewhere around 6-7Mm from Sol). Being conservative, lets say you assign another 500m/s for mid-course corrections and terminal maneuvering. Because of the thick atmosphere we'll say we don't need to reserve any delta-v for braking into orbit/landing (though I'd sure want some spare just in case the parachutes I pack won't slow me enough). Once you've landed, and ascended back into Eve orbit you'll need another 1000m/s or so for a Kerbin injection burn. Again I'll assign another 500m/s or so for mid-course corrections. So here's the breakdown: ~4500m/s to reach LKO ~1000m/s for Trans-Eve injection ~500m/s mid-course correction(s) ~5500m/s to reach LEO ~1000m/s for Trans-Kerbin injection ~500m/s mid-course correction(s) That's a rough delta-v budget of 13km/s for a Kerbin->Eve->Kerbin mission. It's based on much conjecture but I'm sure if you ran the numbers my estimation wouldn't be too far off. Not impossible with stock parts (and as you rightly said we don't know what new parts we may or may not have coming our way). However that's still a huge amount of delta-v to build into a single rocket design. I imagine most people's computers will practically grind to a halt trying to launch such a behemoth. Trying to keep the whole rocket in one piece at initial lift-off is another challenge (I've found large rockets are quite inefficient in KSP largely due to the careful ascent needed). I never said it would be impossible, just close enough to it that it may as well be for many players.

Depends on the planet you want to travel to. I'd say most will be so hard they may as well be impossible to reach and return using stock parts only and a single launch.

The problem with that idea as Zool pointed out is aerobraking. The point of using an Eve gravity assist would be not to shed velocity, but to use Eve's gravity well to change your orbital parameters so that you intersect Moho's orbit after the slingshot maneuver. I think you should be able to adjust your trajectory a good deal more than 60 degrees, though that depends on your relative velocity to Eve when you enter it's SOI. Since Eve's orbit will probably be fairly close to that of Kerbin's the difference in velocity at Eve shouldn't be too great. What may further complicate matters is Moho's orbital inclination. If it's inclined quite steeply relative to the ecliptic then you'll also need to turn your gravity assist into a plane-change maneuver. Luckily the patched conics system allows for a bit of trial and error - you could quicksave upon entering Eve's SOI and then experiment with burns (reloading after every fail) until you figure out how to achieve the desired results.

The problem with going to an inferior planet (the correct technical term for a planet closer to the parent star than a reference planet) is braking once you get there. Sure, depending on where Moho gets placed you'll need only about 1-2km/s extra delta-v on top of your Kerbin orbital velocity to get into a Hohmann transfer. But when you arrive you'll need to shed a helluva lot more - anything from 4-8km/s. Therein lies the challenge. A rough guess would say the ship you launch into LKO would need about 6-10km/s delta-v to successfully achieve orbit. That's one mother of a rocket if you're using stock parts!

I still have the box for my Airtech Claw Rig. Was my favourite toy ever! I always wanted the sports car from about the same era, no pneumatics but it had a flat-10 engine I think and a fully working gearbox with 4 ratios. Also the red helicopter if anyone remembers it, that had a working cyclic pitch!

Actually I've read that sea-level Isp of NTRs is comparable to bi-propellant liquid fueled engines. Unfortunately the low TWR of NTRs compared to these liquid fueled engines does kinda preclude efficient in-atmos. use. The horrible mess they make that should discourage atmospheric use also. I'm glad you made your NERVA useless in atmosphere though, even if not strictly accurate it's a good balancing mechanic.

I love it. Lego Technic was probably my favourite toy back in the day! Not too long ago I was at a friends house and he happened to have some boxes full of the stuff. I found some caterpillar tracks and within a few minutes I'd managed to build myself an elastic-band powered tank. Because I used a worm reduction gear it had enough torque to climb almost anything grippy and a range of maybe ten meters. On the note of model engines, I used to play around with Nitro off-road R/C trucks. Eventually I ended up stripping the little engine down, smoothed over the porting for smoother fuel/air/exhaust flow and spent a good couple of hours carefully polishing the piston and cylinder head liner with Brasso metal polish. I swear throttle response and high-end RPM were vastly improved, but I didn't have a dyno on hand so I couldn't quantify the improvement. I even considered enlarging the ports for more aggressive intake timings but I subsequently read online that even a slight miscalculation in the modification could ruin the 150GBP engine, so I chickened out.