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Real life Tylo Equivalent


Der Anfang

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You know how Tylo is nearly the same size and mass as Kerbin. It's tricky to land on, and takes a little bit of planning. Now, hypothetically, let's say in our own solar system we had something like that. Same mass as earth, same size, gravity, but no atmosphere. If we wanted to land someone on that world, what would a lander for something like that look like? I am sure it would be far more complicated than the Lunar Landers used in the Apollo program and probably much larger too. 

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1 hour ago, Der Anfang said:

You know how Tylo is nearly the same size and mass as Kerbin. It's tricky to land on, and takes a little bit of planning. Now, hypothetically, let's say in our own solar system we had something like that. Same mass as earth, same size, gravity, but no atmosphere. If we wanted to land someone on that world, what would a lander for something like that look like? I am sure it would be far more complicated than the Lunar Landers used in the Apollo program and probably much larger too. 

It would need to be two orbital rockets.

When it comes to this, you'd need to cancel out all of your orbital velocity and the velocity you gained on the way down. Of course, this would happen on a curved trajectory. That means that Dv to land is the orbital velocity plus some other amount. If we're in low orbit, then it'd be equivalent to LEO velocity plus a good amount. Idk exactly how much, though. But that's just the lander. It might be two stages of hydrolox.

Then we have to do the opposite. Spend Dv to get back up. The cost is roughly the same, and so we need another two stage rocket, that we also had to land.

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18 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

It would need to be two orbital rockets.

When it comes to this, you'd need to cancel out all of your orbital velocity and the velocity you gained on the way down. Of course, this would happen on a curved trajectory. That means that Dv to land is the orbital velocity plus some other amount. If we're in low orbit, then it'd be equivalent to LEO velocity plus a good amount. Idk exactly how much, though. But that's just the lander. It might be two stages of hydrolox.

Then we have to do the opposite. Spend Dv to get back up. The cost is roughly the same, and so we need another two stage rocket, that we also had to land.

True. If I am correct, I think roughly what you need for LEO is 9.3-10 km/s of delta-v. Your lander would pretty much need double that amount, But because the world would be a vacuum (so you would have higher ISP), you could use more efficient engines meant for vacuum... but as far as I understand, a lot of them are low thrust even in vacuum. Albeit, I actually don't really know much about real life rocket engines, anyway. There are probably really good TWR vacuum engines and I wouldn't even know it.

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38 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

It would need to be two orbital rockets.

When it comes to this, you'd need to cancel out all of your orbital velocity and the velocity you gained on the way down. Of course, this would happen on a curved trajectory. That means that Dv to land is the orbital velocity plus some other amount. If we're in low orbit, then it'd be equivalent to LEO velocity plus a good amount. Idk exactly how much, though. But that's just the lander. It might be two stages of hydrolox.

Then we have to do the opposite. Spend Dv to get back up. The cost is roughly the same, and so we need another two stage rocket, that we also had to land.

Yes. best way to do this is an crasher stage using hydrolox, optionally an drop tank like the shuttle, you would probably want to use storeable fuel for accent. 
Benefit is that the upper stage would be lightweight like the Apollo moon lander. 
You might want an second rocket who is just landing stage with gear, rover and an small base. 
You would also need an interplanetary mothership. 

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On ‎11‎.‎09‎.‎2016 at 9:33 PM, Der Anfang said:

True. If I am correct, I think roughly what you need for LEO is 9.3-10 km/s of delta-v. Your lander would pretty much need double that amount, But because the world would be a vacuum (so you would have higher ISP), you could use more efficient engines meant for vacuum... but as far as I understand, a lot of them are low thrust even in vacuum. Albeit, I actually don't really know much about real life rocket engines, anyway. There are probably really good TWR vacuum engines and I wouldn't even know it.

Err, nope. That dV includes drag from atmosphere. My map says 3400 m/s for Kerbin orbit but 2270 m/s for a - albeit much lower - Tylo orbit.

The ability to assume a very low orbit around Tylo can be exploited to dramatically lower the thrust requirements for the uppermost stage.

I would dare suggest a stage-and-a-half afterburning nuclear rocket for ascent. That's how a single-stage Tylo lander is doable in KSP, and if you don't fire up the reactor until launch there will be no problems with radiation during EVAs.

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We would kinda need an orbital rocket as the payload of an orbital rocket. A Mercury-Atlas ontop of a Saturn V could work...

Edit: Since we are in a vacuum the requirements for the parts are way lower, so it will get easier a lot. If you just strap a seat ontom of some stages the total mass could be way, way lower.

Edited by Elthy
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8 hours ago, DDE said:

Err, nope. That dV includes drag from atmosphere. My map says 3400 m/s for Kerbin orbit but 2270 m/s for a - albeit much lower - Tylo orbit.

Atmospheric drag makes up a significant but still small portion of the losses normally between 200-400 m/s compared to gravity drag which is normally in the range of 1.5-2 km/s. 

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1 hour ago, A Fuzzy Velociraptor said:

Atmospheric drag makes up a significant but still small portion of the losses normally between 200-400 m/s compared to gravity drag which is normally in the range of 1.5-2 km/s. 

Main benefit is that you don't have to design the rocket aerodynamic, this give more freedom then designing. 

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1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

My issue with a real life Tylo equivalent in the first place is that it would have to have some kind of atmosphere. An Earth-sized body can't have a Mars-thin atmosphere...

Yes, it should have an atmosphere unless its stripped by something. 
its an matter of gravity, an earth sized body will hold any gasses except helium and hydrogen. even if it started out with no atmosphere you would get co2 from volcanoes and water from comets. 
 

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8 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, it should have an atmosphere unless its stripped by something. 
its an matter of gravity, an earth sized body will hold any gasses except helium and hydrogen. even if it started out with no atmosphere you would get co2 from volcanoes and water from comets. 

* cough * Slate * cough * someone did something really Kerbal * cough *

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