Kerbin, Mun, and back in less than 9 Hours.

[Mogadishu]

I recently thought, 'Hey, why not instead of guessing orbits, I actually do work and CALCULATE them!'. So I did. Interestingly enough, I planned from the end to the beginning. I estimated mission time to be 8-9 hours, and I was spot on. I had PLENTY of fuel after each stage, and I might\'ve even been able to complete it with one less fuel tank in the first stage.

Plan:

1. Use First and Second Stages and go straight up until apoapsis reaches 11.4 M KM.

2. Release Third Stage

3. Slow down ship once it reaches periapsis of hyperbolic lunar orbit, until speed < 100 M/S

4. Land on engines.

5. Release Fourth stage and roll it off Third stage, using slight thrusts to cuchion impact.

6. Release Fifth Stage and get into a vertical launch position.

7. Launch.

8. Reenter atmosphere.

9. DDDDDIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!! (I purposely redesigned the rocket without a parachute)

Mods used: Novapunch, Gemini (Possible 1 more obscure mod).

I will upload the ship and a copy of the plans soon.

Nearing Apoapsis of launch:

Munar Capture:

Descent:

Perfect Engine landing at <3 M/S:

Preparing for Launch:

Munar Escape at ~1.1KM/S:

Kerbin Orbit:

Reentry:

Split Second Before Death:

Total Mission Duration - 8:49:52:

HUZZAH!!!

Is this a record?

[UmbralRaptor]

It\'s about as fast as you can go with Hohmann transfers. The current (hyperbolic) record is 42 minutes, though.

[Mogadishu]

It\'s about as fast as you can go with Hohmann transfers. The current (hyperbolic) record is 42 minutes, though.

Well...

I\'m talking REALISM, as in 'NASA could do this is they wanted to', not 'Only if you have 100 Billion Dollars'. It\'s pretty overpowered, I was going for realism.

[UmbralRaptor]

Well...

I\'m talking REALISM, as in 'NASA could do this is they wanted to', not 'Only if you have 100 Billion Dollars'. It\'s pretty overpowered, I was going for realism.

Correct me if I\'m wrong, but isn\'t $100 billion the cost of the Apollo program in today\'s dollars? Also, NovaPunch is far from realistic -- part performance is comparable to stock. (Ignoring for the moment that the realism of a planet less massive than the moon with a density more than double that of osmium is questionable) Finally, I\'m fairly sure that NASA sen the Apollo missions to/from the Moon on hyperbolic trajectories. (a Hohmann transfer from ~200 km to 384,000 km looks to take ~9-10 days, and seeing as they did it in ~3...)

[Wyrm]

Apollo used a type of orbit called a trans lunar injection. It\'s not really a Hohmann, but almost one in terms of how you set it up, and the reason why it takes only three days is because the moon snatches it out of its ellipse a sizable angle before its apogee. This is where such an orbit would normally spend much of its time but for the moon. I\'m not at all surprised that it lopped off 6-7 days from the trip — the capsule would spend much of that time almost loitering.