How do I move a Class E asteroid that is already landed on Kerbin?

[aluc24]

I safely de-orbited 3000 tons worth of asteroid 6 km away from KSC. Thought it would be a nice to have it as a decoration in front of the Administration building. But now I realized that I can't move that thing. I tried towing it, I tried making a crane, but nothing can even remotely lift it off the ground. That thing is just huge, and there are 6 km to cover.

How would you approach this challenge?

Edited November 5, 2017 by aluc24

[fourfa]

If it's simply to be a decoration, you can mine it for everything it has (with drills and ISRU) and just flare off the resultant fuel in an upwards-pointing rocket engine if you like.  It'll be much lighter when finished (going to take a while) and perhaps easier to move by conventional means

Otherwise... man, good question.  IRL we'd approach this kind of problem with block and tackle - using pulleys to increase peak force at the cost of distance.  But it's not trivial to generate a lot of ground friction without mods. 

Perhaps make a module of the biggest landing gear, attached to a VTOL flying Klaw?  Position under an edge, activate klaw, fly upwards and capture, repeat many many times.  Then extend landing gear all at once.  It won't fly, now, but it might be easier to move about

If mods are in the picture, KAS winches and ground anchors could be interesting.  Might be able to roll it onto a rolling platform of some sort.  I'd be curious to see how many airships it would take to reduce the force on the ground to something manageable...

Edited November 5, 2017 by fourfa

[aluc24]

3 minutes ago, fourfa said:

If it's simply to be a decoration, you can mine it for everything it has (with drills and ISRU) and just flare off the resultant fuel in an upwards-pointing rocket engine if you like.  It'll be much lighter when finished (going to take a while) and perhaps easier to move by conventional means

Otherwise... man, good question.  IRL we'd approach this kind of problem with block and tackle - using pulleys to increase peak force at the cost of distance.  But it's not trivial to generate a lot of ground friction without mods.

If mods are in the picture, KAS winches and ground anchors could be interesting.  Might be able to roll it onto a rolling platform of some sort.  I'd be curious to see how many airships it would take to reduce the force on the ground to something manageable...

I do have KAS installed, but anchors and harpoons simply can't lift that much weight, they disengage first... I did try rolling, but it's just too massive for that. So I don't see how to move it onto a platform either...

[fourfa]

oops, we were typing at the same time.  See my update

[septemberWaves]

How to move 3000 tonnes of solid rock? Moar boosters.

Seriously though, stick a couple of gargantuan boosters to the sides and just fly it like a 3000 tonne VTOL.

Alternatively, see if @Whackjob has any ideas, this kind of engineering seems to be his forte.

[Helmetman]

This is a rover suggestion. This is just in my head, I haven't made such a thing myself. It's thought through from a stock angle.
It may be a bit technical to create, not sure how skilled you are.

I would make 2 identical rovers.

You'll use arms made from tanks or structural elements that curve around the asteroid 2x symmetrically positioned from the base of your rover with the largest sr docking ports on starboard and larboards end. The ends should extend to the radius of the asteroid.

The rover has a reclined ramp that is angled with the bottom curve of the asteroid that nearly touches the surface so it can scoop the asteroid by driving towards it.
On the aft edges of the ramp you put landing gear. Sufficient so that if you extend they can lift the asteroid from the ground.

Make sure the largest rover wheels XL3 is heightened to the ramp (aft side) so that if the aft landing gears extend they still have traction to accelerate.

The idea is to dock both identical rovers together curved around the asteroid with the ramp supporting them after docking both together and raising the asteroid by lowering the positioned landing gears.

Then move wherever you like, undock both rovers and leave asteroid in place. At the ksc yes, or in the swimming pool if you so desire. Although I'm sure there are simpler options. Just in case you wanna get cool with this  

EDIT: If you didn't understand it. I figured this a idea for myself. So I may post a contraption if I get such a thing to work.

 

Edited November 5, 2017 by Helmetman

[fourfa]

Oooh!  the Mk3 cargo ramp has infinite force IIRC.  Use it, flat side down on the ground, ramp side up, as a wedge under the back side of the asteroid to help roll it onto (whatever)

[ARS]

If you don't mind installing a mod, I would like to recommend installing this mod:

And build something like this (from bottom to top): Grabber claw - Utility bay 2.5m (Fill it with 2x 00RGN drive and 16 GN condenser frame, bind activate engine of both of the 00RGN drive to action group and set both of their max overload to 5) - Drone Core - Biggest battery that you can find

To use it, simply place this craft near the asteroid and move it like using RCS when activating it (GN drives can be used like RCS even in atmospheric world). Grab the asteroid from the top and right click one of the drive before select [Activate antigravity]. Now you can move the asteroid like RCS all the way to the KSC. If you need more power, just activate [Trans-AM] on one of the drive (Though it doubles GNparticle (Drive's fuel) consumption, it roughly quadruples the engine's power. GN condenser frame can be used to replenish the GNparticle (Don't worry about power, 00RGN drive is also a generator with +5 electricity/ sec)). I ever use this mod whenever I mess around with superheavy stuff, such as my return mission after heavy mining (see vessel's mass)

P.s: Don't use more than 2 00RGN drive. If you need more drive, use Tau Drive (At the cost of non-perpetual particle generation and efficiency, but you can use as many as you want)

I used this mod to soften the landing of the craft and it barely has any significant consumption of drive's fuel when I used antigravity or trans-am feature

[Gordon Fecyk]

1 hour ago, aluc24 said:

but nothing can even remotely lift it [3 kt rock] off the ground.

Silly idea, but what about a structural frame raised and lowered with extra large landing gear? And at the very top of the frame, a klaw or three. Use the gear to raise or lower the structure so you can grapple the rock and lift it

Steering might be a problem as the XL landing gear isn't designed for steering, but you could have extra reaction wheels or engines to steer the craft once it grapples the rock.

[ARS]

This should be in challenge and mission idea!!

[softweir]

Try attaching some drills and ore tanks on the side you want to roll it towards, as high up as you can land them. Activate them, fill the tanks with ore (and fuel) and with luck the asteroid will roll over a bit. Add some more, higher up, detach the first lot, and repeat.

[aluc24]

41 minutes ago, fourfa said:

Oooh!  the Mk3 cargo ramp has infinite force IIRC.  Use it, flat side down on the ground, ramp side up, as a wedge under the back side of the asteroid to help roll it onto (whatever)

I just tried this. Two rovers, one flatbed, and one with a ramp that tries to push the asteroid onto the platform. Impossible, I'm afraid. Even with wheel friction set at maximum, it slides out from underneath the asteroid, or simply explodes. There's just no way to get enough leverage to roll 3000 tons.

 

7 minutes ago, softweir said:

Try attaching some drills and ore tanks on the side you want to roll it towards, as high up as you can land them. Activate them, fill the tanks with ore (and fuel) and with luck the asteroid will roll over a bit. Add some more, higher up, detach the first lot, and repeat.

Yeah, that would work, except that I have 6 km to cover

21 minutes ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

Silly idea, but what about a structural frame raised and lowered with extra large landing gear? And at the very top of the frame, a klaw or three. Use the gear to raise or lower the structure so you can grapple the rock and lift it

Steering might be a problem as the XL landing gear isn't designed for steering, but you could have extra reaction wheels or engines to steer the craft once it grapples the rock.

I'm having trouble visualizing this one, could you please explain it with different words?

[softweir]

Just now, aluc24 said:

Yeah, that would work, except that I have 6 km to cover

I didn't say it would be quick!

[Gordon Fecyk]

51 minutes ago, aluc24 said:

I'm having trouble visualizing this one, could you please explain it with different words?

How about a working example? (This may still be uploading, please wait a bit until YouTube finishes processing it.)

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Gordon Fecyk
Delay in upload

[aluc24]

33 minutes ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

How about a working example? (This may still be uploading, please wait a bit until YouTube finishes processing it.)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Very nice! Although for that, I would have to know the height of the asteroid pretty accurately. Pretty difficult since it glitches out and rolls on different sides each time I approach it. But maybe this will work, assuming the structure can take such weight.

[Just Jim]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

This should be in challenge and mission idea!!

I was thinking the same thing... @aluc24, this is a great idea for a full-blown challenge. 

You should have one of the moderators move it into the challenges section.

 

[katateochi]

Rovers, cranes and levers....*shakes head*, what's happened to the Kerbal spirit, those are far too sensible.  

3 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

Seriously though, stick a couple of gargantuan boosters to the sides and just fly it like a 3000 tonne VTOL.

ah! that's more like it! 
Use KAS to attach a bunch of boosters around it and a whole load of parachutes on top, and have a way to separate the boosters when you start to loose control and deploy chutes.  I'm thinking it might take several explosive hops like that, but I'm pretty sure you'll cover the distance faster than any land based solution.  

Another (odd) idea. Use KAS to attach a smallish flat part as low onto the asteroid as you can. Then get something long, maybe a couple girders (or if you can be bothered to have enough Kerbals standing around) an orange tank and node attach it to the part on the asteroid.  The second part should be clipped almost entirely into the ground and as the KAS attach logic kicks in it should throw it up into the air. No idea how well that would work, I only suggested it because I accidentally launched a bit of a base a couple hundred meters by doing that. 

[septemberWaves]

Stock boosters aren't big enough? Use SpaceY Extended, the tanks go up to 10 meters in diameter and the biggest engines are huge.

[LordFerret]

2 hours ago, katateochi said:

it might take several explosive hops

Instead of explosive hops, why not position and use the boosters to roll it? I'm thinking the "Burn Together" mod would be helpful for this... have them all fire off at once.

https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BurnTogether/releases

[septemberWaves]

33 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

I'm thinking the "Burn Together" mod would be helpful for this... have them all fire off at once.

No need for it. All parts attached to the same asteroid with the claw are counted as part of the same vehicle.

[ARS]

6 hours ago, aluc24 said:

I'm having trouble visualizing this one, could you please explain it with different words?

I think he mean a craft that looks like gantry crane, where landing gear serve to lowering/lifting klaw. Though the one that I'm worried about is the frame bending under heavy load since those structural frame and girders tend to bend when overloaded. But its worth trying

Edited November 6, 2017 by ARS

[invision]

if you dont care about a more realistic approach you could just alt-f12 set gravity to low and move it

[Jarin]

I'm joining the vote for "upload the save to dropbox and make a challenge". Judge by distance/time with categories for single vehicle, no-parts-destroyed, and anything-goes.

[[insert_name_here]]

1 hour ago, Jarin said:

I'm joining the vote for "upload the save to dropbox and make a challenge". Judge by distance/time with categories for single vehicle, no-parts-destroyed, and anything-goes.

If this is going to become a challenge, maybe someone could cheat some more asteroids onto Kerbin's surface roughly the same distance away. That way we could have "size classes" (class A, B, C, D and E all worth different points for returning)

[JAFO]

Here's how not to do it.. (and no, I wasn't the culprit.. just a shot from my collection of funny KSP pics - no idea where I found it)