Uranus V moon (not Mun!) rocket

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

As the ultimate test for the latest revision to my SMURFF addon, I put together an Apollo-style moon mission:

Because I didn't judge my launch trajectory very well, I ended up in too steep an orbit, with a high apoapsis (1400 km x 150 km by the end).  Not all was lost: the apoapsis was at the line of nodes, so it was a "simple" matter of waiting 22 days for the Moon to be in position so that a 2800 m/s burn at periapsis would lift apoapsis to the Moon's SOI.  The rocket itself was nearly perfectly designed -- I only had to make a TCM of about 3 m/s with the command module itself after the 4th stage burned out.  However, the connection from the upper cargo bay to the command module (via the engine) was a little wobbly -- I had to keep TWR around 1.5 or else the stack would oscillate (found this out the hard way -- in fact, I expected to have 10 m/s margin on the upper stage with the re-planned escape burn, but the wobbling cost me 13 m/s).  I look forward to the stiffer fairings coming with 1.1!  That was the hard part -- the rest was a waiting game to get to the Moon.  The landing was a bit hair-raising -- the shape of the fairing required a fairly tall and slim lander, but thankfully, I'd mounted the RCS high enough on the lander body that I had plenty of leverage to arrest and correct the tipping.  Launch from the Moon and docking occurred without a hitch, though it took almost two days to get the phase lined up for rendezvous.  After that, it was time to burn for home, and the heat shield held just like it did during testing!  I had attached a couple of drogue chutes just in case, but they proved to be unnecessary -- the capsule slowed to safe speeds for the mains just above 12 km of altitude.

The crew ended up spending over a month in space when a couple of weeks would have been sufficient, but all in all, the rocket performed exactly as I planned.  Hooray for rocket science!

I used HGR, Modular Rocket Systems, RLA Stockalike, and SpaceY parts, to complement some stock gaps (cone tanks, cargo bays, lighter 2-person lander can, etc.).  The craft can be downloaded from KerbalX.

[pTrevTrevs]

Pretty good! I was thinking of building (and possibly releasing) a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous spacecraft and rocket, this one makes me want to do it even more.

I also like how RSS changes the planets to look like real ones. I wonder if there is a way to get Kerbin, the Mun, etc. to look like Earth, the Moon, etc. without changing their size any...

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

20 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Pretty good! I was thinking of building (and possibly releasing) a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous spacecraft and rocket, this one makes me want to do it even more.

I also like how RSS changes the planets to look like real ones. I wonder if there is a way to get Kerbin, the Mun, etc. to look like Earth, the Moon, etc. without changing their size any...

There is SmallSolarSystem, but it looks like it's not quite working.  If that doesn't work for you, Harder Solar System and Outer Planets (used together) are probably the closest alternative.

[pTrevTrevs]

4 hours ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

There is SmallSolarSystem, but it looks like it's not quite working.  If that doesn't work for you, Harder Solar System and Outer Planets (used together) are probably the closest alternative.

Thanks, but I think you might misunderstand my question. Is there a mod that replaces the terrain (for lack of a better term) of Kerbin with that of Earth, so KSC is located in Florida, Vandenberg AFB, Baikonour, etc. without changing the size of the planet? I would love to send a spacecraft to explore the Sea of Tranquility, Aristarchus, Copernicus, or Tycho, I just don't want to deal with full scale (or mini scale) planets.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

SmallSolarsystem does just that (as I understand it).

[pTrevTrevs]

1 hour ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

SmallSolarsystem does just that (as I understand it).

But doesn't it change the scale to something like 1/10 size? That would make Kerbin about the size of Minmus, and the Mun... I don't even want to imagine...

I guess I should at least take a look at RSS if there's no other choice. I'm not afraid of a challenge, I just don't want to deal with all the extra tedium such as real fuels, inclined orbits, and super long launches just to go to a reskinned Mun.