Atkara

@Tyko, I don't think he wants to place refueling infrastructure in interplanetary space. He's talking about hopping from planet to planet.

Take a look at https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/. Play around with it.

Reminds me when I did mine. Couldn't justify having an atmosphere and not really using it, having Kerbonauts climb down a 50-60m+ long ladder under 1.7g, or the clutter previous "lander"-style designs left at launch. Just getting it done wasn't enough -it had to be done my way. Yeah. You start getting such weird thoughts, as you play more

What did I do... took a brief look at sandbox, then started a career for a step-by-step learning process. Then I made a small rocket.

If it's still in orbit, it's not going anywhere. Send a drone with a claw on the next transfer window and bring it back. Or anytime, as milestone missions don't expire.

Don't mistake my humor for me, issuing a "challenge". I only told you what's going on. Believe me, I faced that situation time and time again. And I was lucky enough to have designed landers with detachable side-thrusters, which meant I could put the core of a lander in the mk3 cargohold of a spaceplane and land it down to KSC. Like this: I don't remember where this lander arrived from, as I was sending exploration expeditions pretty much everywhere. If it wasn't for the "return a craft from the surface of the 'x' body" requirement, this lander and others would still be in service. It's also the reason why I chose to bring back the orbital stage of the Eve extraction vehicle I posted earlier in the thread.

Next contract coming up: Return a vessel from the surface of Eve Don't get me wrong, I've had mining contracts (mine and haul x units of ore from Eve and put them in orbit around Gilly, that kind of thing) that I simply ignored. The money wasn't worth the effort. On-surface contracts though, absolutely -I had infrastructure down there anyway

First thing I noticed on that lander can, back when it was still a blog post, was the cargo bay. Needless to say I stopped everything noteworthy (and lander-related) I was doing at the time and waited -patiently

Good job. If this was on career though -and I believe it is: *checks mission control... Eve exploration milestone still not met.* It was at this moment Reinhart knew: he had to go grab the pod he got Jeb from, and land it on Kerbin. Safely Been there myself. And given that I focus on re-usability, bringing back perfectly good landers from all over the solar system to do just that... silly -I know- but if you're on career and want that milestone out of the way through legit means, you have to go get that pod.

Never played around with RSS myself. The backstory maybe pointing out at a mass exodus, which shouldn't be done with SSTOs (in other words, craft hauling sections they could've filled with people, instead of fuel) but I understand people may find this challenge interesting

Refueling keeps your craft as big as they really have to be. I don't see anything wrong with that. Reminds me of a couple of dialog lines in "2010: The year we make contact": -What happened to the American bravery? -What happened to the Russian common sense?

Did a bunch of mini landers with ants, last week

Like you said, it has the highest efficiency in a vacuum, not at sea level. However, by the time the launch vehicle reaches 10km altitude, the Rhino is already operating at ~85-90% efficiency. So you add side-boosters, better suited for atmospheric operation and when it gets to 10-15km, you stage and let it go. Like this for example: And if you are taking it to space anyway, why not install proper guidance & RCS and use it as a transfer vehicle? That's obviously one way of using it. The rest, I think they fall into the category Gargamel described

May they serve you well

It always is Did some extra work on it today (just a hover engine swap really) and gained 140+m/s in the process. Kept both craft up though, in case anyone liked the extra kick more.

I thought so -had to make sure though. I try my hand at it every now and then

What exactly are you after?

Propably a radial decoupler on the body, with a long I-Beam attached to it. Then, you offset the whole thing on whatever you'll have next, to minimize torque. How you get it to splash down on Laythe... if it can't glide, you'll have to go for the heat shield/parachutes combo.

Had an interesting chat with Hotel26 earlier today about "exotic" landers. This got me into thinking and after some hours of tinkering, testing and tinkering some more: It's stable, right out of the box -no fuel juggling required, nothing.

I wouldn't be opposed to it, if they made it a difficulty option and there were some things you had to do on the Mun first, before "unlocking" it, so to say...

I don't think I'd ever be a Super Madlad, as I deploy infrastructure which keeps my designs (mostly) on the sensible side -and I don't intend to change that. But I certainly place myself at the early Madlad stages, as far as Eve goes

From within the facilities of Kerbostar Enterprises, a new craft emerges... Building upon the lessons of the past, looking into the future... Could this be the answer? Could this be "the one"? Only time will tell. But even if it's not, I like it

It's facing forward. Precisely. And I don't want to have the chair facing up

The docking port is there as a control point. It has half the mass of an OKTO2 so, I picked that instead. After all, it's not as if like the Kerbal on the seat will ever do anything more complex than pro/retrograde hold. Did some final touches in the meantime: I think I'm happy with it now

Yup. Such a craft would have to be a spaceplane, landing on high elevation terrain (>7 km), it would have to be able to go at least suborbital on it's own fuel reserves and... here I am, spoiling it all