Mun and back as light as you can

[Hysterrics]

Awesome rules, just stick a bunch of lights on your craft. Go to the Mun.

[DBowman]

Nice work with all the ultralights! - lots of inspiration...

I made a 'Mercury Style' entry, kind of shooting for 'the smallest possible Apollo':

• A capsule for transfer and re-entry.
• 1960s propulsion.
• EVA Mun landing because an Apollo emergency proposal involved the Astronauts lifting from the moon in their EVA suits Lunar Escape System.
• 24.389 ton $13,777

It ended up looking like a model rocket. I'm not convinced I couldn't have done better; the winglets are needed for control while the solid boosters burn and because the bulgy fairing needs more torque than a "swivel" can provide. Putting the lander behind the CSM was awkward and didn't seem to help the mass.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Not the best weight, but still fairly light:

Looking at the other entries, its clear there is much room for improvement in slimming down the weight of the launcher; the lander itself was only 630 kg, and could have been lighter still - I didn't need quite so many batteries, and I could have gotten by with only one solar panel.

[ManEatingApe]

6 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Looking at the other entries, its clear there is much room for improvement in slimming down the weight of the launcher; the lander itself was only 630 kg, and could have been lighter still - I didn't need quite so many batteries, and I could have gotten by with only one solar panel.

How light can you go I wonder? Each OX solar panel is the equivalent of 350 electric charge units, so there's probably a sweet spot where you can run your batteries down to zero just as you touch down.

Question to other posters, is there a mod or trick that allows you to start with a Kerbal in a command chair? I've been using the low tech solution of rolling up another vehicle and walking the Kerbal over but perhaps there is a better way. 

[EvermoreAlpaca]

6 hours ago, ManEatingApe said:

How light can you go I wonder? Each OX solar panel is the equivalent of 350 electric charge units, so there's probably a sweet spot where you can run your batteries down to zero just as you touch down.

Question to other posters, is there a mod or trick that allows you to start with a Kerbal in a command chair? I've been using the low tech solution of rolling up another vehicle and walking the Kerbal over but perhaps there is a better way. 

Behold the Kerbal-loader

 

Edited January 4, 2016 by EvermoreAlpaca

[Foxster]

6 hours ago, ManEatingApe said:

How light can you go I wonder? Each OX solar panel is the equivalent of 350 electric charge units, so there's probably a sweet spot where you can run your batteries down to zero just as you touch down.

Question to other posters, is there a mod or trick that allows you to start with a Kerbal in a command chair? I've been using the low tech solution of rolling up another vehicle and walking the Kerbal over but perhaps there is a better way. 

You want the mod "Take Command". Makes command seats act like capsules by letting you assign Kerbals to them in the VAB. 

Edited January 4, 2016 by Foxster

[The Optimist]

Time to dig out my weird ramjet + 0.625 ion/chemical engine. Pretty light too. The cockpit is something I'm really proud of. A 0.625 meter nosecone and a command seat attached to its bottom functions *just as well* as a Mk1 cockpit.

 

Pics coming soon.

Edited January 8, 2016 by The Optimist

[DBowman]

I wanted to try something a little lighter than my Mercury Style entry. Once you start the MassThrustDrag logic is inexorable:

• take Mercury Style and replace the CSM tank and engine with an ion stage,
• nice mass reduction but now the TWR is going to make the Mun burn tedious
• try to improve that by using the ion for the Mun landing itself
• hmm what's the point of that big'ol capsule anyway, I've reentered on 'debris' before & the craft will be Kerbin captured already so just go shallow and aerobrake till it's slow enough to reenter
• now it's light enough to put on a jet
• whiplash is so op a fairing seems a waste
• starting to look familiar...

I learnt a few things getting it down to 4 ton (and a smidgen):

• Kerbals weigh 94 kg not the 80kg RTG I'd been using as a stand-in during design and testing
• Kerbals big giant heads have a different drag cube to RTGs, so my original bobsled style ion stage worked fine with an RTG but was flipped out of control by the big giant head
• Use Take Command mod from the beginning, it makes the craft miss-report crew capacity and I hope it doesn't have any physical effect
• MechJeb cannot fly a jet engine without control surfaces, and neither can I (yet?)
• A jet can fly through your craft when you stage it. I read someone saying they set things up to stage the intakes first to avoid this, in my case it's possible the jet stage had less drag than the next stage (big giant head again?)
• A lander with 'active stability' is 'just fine'
• hitting the water at 37.3 m/s is like jumping from at most 57 metres, the world record is a little less than 60 m - so the landing is 'totally doable'

anyway here she is, 4.038 ton $ 20,572:

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by DBowman