Direct Ascent, Kerbin Rendezvous, or Target Rendezvous?

Leftotian · July 10, 2016

On 07.07.2016 at 10:43 PM, Jestersage said:

My Standard LF/O version. 216k Untested.
My NERV version. 350k Tested to be working

First link doesn't go anywhere.

For the second one, it's hard to tell from a picture, but my guesstimates is it's around 20 tons of a lander, that needs to go to low mun orbit and can go to the surface and home from there. If that's correct, than the entire ship should be around 100-150k(depending on contents of cargo/service bay). Your lifter looks like a huge overkill for that payload.

Jestersage · July 10, 2016

5 hours ago, Leftotian said:

For the second one, it's hard to tell from a picture, but my guesstimates is it's around 20 tons of a lander, that needs to go to low mun orbit and can go to the surface and home from there. If that's correct, than the entire ship should be around 100-150k(depending on contents of cargo/service bay). Your lifter looks like a huge overkill for that payload.

Technically they are the same ship, except the first one use Aerospike + Poodle instead of 2 NERV (one thruster in return portion and one in lander portion). The second one also enable me to carry less fuel, and thus have a small cargo bay that currently have a Inline dock (can be swap for Science JR). Otherwise both have room for 6 total, as well as a service bay that contain a rover. The NERV version is actually capable to do a rescue mission around Mun, land, pick up even more passengers from the Mun Base, and then return home.

Not sure if launch vehicle is overkill. The Lander/Re-entry vehicle is more or less perfected, as is the upper stage.

Once my Aerospike version is tested, I will probably sign up on Kerbal X, since I am surprise there are no Lunex in there.

Edit: replaced all Kerbodyne parts with the Rockomax parts, dropped the price to 180k.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Jestersage

AeroGav · July 10, 2016

On 05/07/2016 at 6:36 PM, bewing said:

For Minmus, I have found that a simple rocket powered rover (with airplane wheels) can do an Elcano (start in the greater flats, go west, and visit every single biome) in half a Minmus day, on half the fuel it takes to do one suborbital hop. This is such a vast improvement that I've completely dropped the concept of hoppers on Minmus. It's easy to get all the way to Minmus, do the complete tour, and get all the way back to LKO on one tank of gas -- no refueling. (I do it twice -- once with a low-tech/minimum-science rover, and then again when I have a full set of science instruments.)

For the Mun, I don't tend to hop around on it until I've got a drill landed. So one or two of my hops are over to the drill to refuel. With an extremely capable rover, I'm pretty sure that every biome is available at the edges of the craters, within 10 degrees of the equator. So equatorial is the way to go with a refueling tanker -- no wasted fuel for inclination changes, and easy to access.