The Uncatchable Swift—Fusion Spaceliner to Duna in 10 Days!

[SaturnianBlue]

THE UNCATCHABLE SWIFT

"Like the NTR did for Duna Exploration, the Uncatchable Swift does for Interplanetary Transportation"

Powered by an Inertial Confinement Fusion rocket, the Uncatchable Swift can reach Duna in 10 days, and Jool in as little as 55. Packed with 175 km/s of delta-V, no longer are you restricted by Hohmann transfer windows—just point towards the target and burn! As a holiday gift to all kerbals, now available for download!

This ship was created as part of the Imagining a Kerbal Future series, in the two chapters where I designed a futuristic spacecraft. The first part can be found here, the second here. 

Purpose

While mass drivers have taken over the role of launching unkerballed cargo, a much more comfortable ride is needed for a Kerbal. Therefore, this vessel is intended to give kerbals the comfortable trip they deserve. Not only is this an incredibly quick ship, it can operate inside planetary systems without the use of tugs, a fate that befell many low-thrust fusion drives before this one. Though in-game you can't load a thousand kerbals on board, I derived numbers from the Kerbalism mod to create a space and mass required for that number of kerbals, so you probably could load a thousand kerbals onboard. 

Features

The Uncatchable Swift is equipped with two large centrifugal arms that if spun up (if Infernal Robotics parts are added to the ship) should create artificial gravity for the occupants. I tried to make this a realistic design, so I added tapered radiators and fuel tanks to fit inside a "radiation shadow" created by a shield, and that is also why a huge truss segment was built, so the arms could fit inside the cone. 

The powerful engine is built so that the Isp can be sacrificed for thrust, and vice-versa. 

Warnings

As the ship is based in a futuristic setting, it assumes that the whole ship was not lifted from Kerbin, and was instead built with parts built in space. Therefore, you will need to place the ship into orbit with the cheat menu or Hyperedit. I personally pick Kerbostationary, since I would assume many space stations would be located there, since space elevators could be built there. A bug I noticed with this ship also means that an amount of Deuterium, Tritium, and Hydrogen much higher than there is supposed to be sometimes gets loaded onto the ship. To fix that, either do so in the VAB or with Hyperedit menu where the level of resources can be edited. Once complete, this ship should be ready for operation.

Mods

Civilian Population

Interstellar Fuel Switch

KSP Interstellar Extended

Near Future Construction

Near Future Spacecraft

Planetary Domes

TweakScale

DOWNLOAD

 

Gallery

The Uncatchable Swift flying near full-scale O'Neill Cylinders, 27.5 kilometers away.

The Uncatchable Swift as it enters Duna Orbit.

Though older ships could never enter Tylo orbit as they entered the Joolian system, the Uncatchable Swift can.

 

Thanks for Reading!

[Mikki]

Oh wow... intriguing... (i am afraid of installing KSPI-E) .... torchships... omg! Crazy!