dnbattley

Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/dnbattley/EVE-Ascender

Well I didn't want the first submission to be a physics-abusing design, but in the interests of keeping this fun challenge bumped I present "The Eve Lawn Dart" at 573kg. It is not just possible, but relatively easy to reduce this already very low weight further, but this would be at the expense of such "extras" as: protecting the Kerbal from heating, a solar panel for topping up the battery, and having to fight the flight characteristics without fins Summary details below: Slightly longer mission report: http://www.imgur.com/a/5bqnIwJ

I'm assuming that Kraken drives are disallowed? Nice challenge though: I haven't looked at Eve in a while...

This rule does seem to permit this.

For science! I did some testing, and you are right about the rotation having an adverse impact on the aero model, however the offset alone works, producing an almost negligible drag impact, thus: Both (otherwise identical) vessels have achieved an approximately equal height However, the offset decoupler successfully clears the nose cone away from the impact zone even at moderate speeds. You are right that there are other ways of gaming the aero model, however, I did not incorporate these into this "A-B" experiment

While it might ruin your aesthetic sensibilities, I'm pretty sure that simply offsetting and rotating the decoupler, then offsetting and rotating the nose cone "back into place" won't adversely affect the aerodynamic model and would achieve the effect you are looking for...

Avid engineers within the community may already be aware of the famous 19th Century opus that is 507 Mechanical Movements by Henry T. Brown; others in the community may not yet have seen this resource, nor become aware of its potential value in designing their own creations. The goal of this community challenge is to build up examples of all of these movements, making videos and other resources available to the community at large, using KSP as the medium. As a community project we should be able to create some - perhaps even all - of these movements - though some (such as pulleys etc.) may require a certain amount of... ingenuity. Some ground rules: 1. The movement should translate a force from a powered device to an unpowered device: e.g. a motor through to an unpowered motor. That the output is powered solely by the mechanical movement and not directly is a given, and this should be made obvious in any submission. 2. We are aiming to use stock parts only for this challenge: visual mods etc. are fine. Obviously DLC is permitted, though not obligatory. 3. Electricity hacks are permitted (though use of clamps should generally negate any need for this). Other hacks, such as reducing gravity, may be used if absolutely necessary, but are discouraged. 4. For compatibility, I suggest 1.7.1 be the minimum version used (this is, I believe, when self-interaction was added), and generally the newest version available should be preferred. 5. Videos are preferred, but not essential. 6. Craft files should be made available if possible. The best examples of movements will be put here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 141 161 181 201 221 241 261 281 301 321 341 361 381 401 421 441 461 481 501 501 503 504 505 506 507 As an example, here is my take on movement #27

It would be lovely if the pressure sensor or temperature gauges could somehow be used in conjunction with a KAL action group in "stock"

You certainly can, and what a great submission it is too! A platinum award to you sir, and I'll update the leaderboard accordingly.

Good question: given the nerfing I am now happy if they are used in this challenge.

I like this. We are, of course, completely hijacking OPs original challenge, but I like to think of these as evolutionary improvements...

[update] Ah yes, some simple min maxing using those parts gets me 9k dV into orbit... Should be good enough for just about anything!

One thing I've just noticed is that there are some loopholes in the rules as I specified them: the 1.25m part filter includes some... odd... choices, such as the Engine Cluster Adaptor Tank, and the Mastodon Engine. A quick test flight with these can relatively easily get over 6k (and quite possible far more, if I can optimise further) dV into LKO, from which *should* make Pol and/or Bop a viable target(s) to return from.

Very good indeed! If this can't inspire more applicants then I don't know what can: I am certainly feeling that I need to have another look at this...

Impressive fuel efficiency! My solution used an orbit-to-ground-to-orbit rendezvous in EVA to ensure I had enough dV in the bank for the return trip, which added an interesting addition to the challenge.