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High Jinks Space Tourism vessel procurement


AeroGav

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Given the runaway success of the Kerbal Express Airlines thread,  I've decided to create its space going, space tourist counterpart here. 

The idea is to submit your space tourist vessels for review,  and the entries can be collated and grouped according to their tech requirements, cost , and capabilities.

Peer Review

The other thread suffers from a shortfall of reviewers,  so the first rule of this challenge is that to qualify you must have reviewed at least one other person's vessel before submitting a craft of your own for consideration.    It is acceptable to  submit multiple vessels for HiJinks Inc.,  so long as the number of craft you have reviewed yourself is equal or greater than the number of craft you submitted.  This should stop the thread falling behind.

A craft can be reviewed multiple times by different persons (all the reviews will be linked,  and ratings averaged).    If you want to review a craft but have no intention of submitting a  vessel of your own,   that's fine too,  you're helping the reviewers keep up !

 

Vessel Type

All kinds of tourist vessel are considered.   I suggest however, categorising them into three main types :

Spaceplanes require  basic airplane flying proficiency.  If you have zero proficiency with this type, and have never made a successful flight in a KSP aircraft (including stock ones) then you might not be the best person to review such a vessel...  but everyone has a first time, right?

Rockets require basic vertical launch skills,  such as the ability to perform a gravity turn and ballistic re-entry. 

Shuttles  launch vertically and later transition to horizontal flight, so require both airplane and rocket skills to fly.

 

Re-Usability 

SSTO and partially/fully expendable craft are being considered by HiJinks.   

For vessels with expendable elements,  the operating cost per tourist seat  is calculated by adding up the cost of parts that are left to crash into the sea, and dividing by the number of tourist seats the vessel provides.  Because fuels have an unrealistically high % of launch price in ksp,  the cost of fuelled parts discarded is taken from the tank in its empty state.

 

Capability

Broadly,   this is categorised as follows :-

LKO - can bring tourists to an orbit with AP and PE below 400km

Mid Orbit - Can manage an orbit with both AP and PE above 400km,  so well able to rendezvous with a Kerbin station at fairly high orbit.

Flyby -  Can manage a flyby encounter with Mun or Minmus

Other body - please specify which it can reach,  and whether this refers to orbit,  atmospheric or surface return capability.

 

 

Tech Tier 

What is the tier of the highest tech part in your vessel ?

Runway/Launchpad  Tier  

How far do you need to upgrade the facility to launch this?  In career mode, Tier 3 is not cheap!

VAB / SPH Tier

As above !

 

Review Guidelines

When reviewing another person's vessel,   please include the following ratings :

Death Trap Rating 

One Skull 

Stable in all phases of flight, not prone to breakup or heatsploding unless grossly mishandled

Two Skulls

Can go out of control,  overheat, or break up in certain parts of the flight,  but possible to operate safely with a trained crew.

Three Skullls

Requires significant skill or luck to return in one piece.  Truly Kerbal stuff.

Ease of Use

IOW, how easy is it to obtain the advertised capability ?

Three Stars

The vessel does not require precise piloting to obtain desired performance or is so stable that precise piloting is easy to do.

Two Stars

Takes a few goes to get it right, but was eventually able to get it there.

Three Stars

Hard or impossible 

 

Time to orbit

How many minutes elapse between engine start and cut off (coasting to AP) when flying to orbit ?  (if you can remember!)

This is a category rockets are probably going to excel in !

 

I'm going to be busy for the next 4 days,  but after that i'll be around to admin this ! Good luck all and hopefully HighJinks Inc.  will soon have a wide variety of vessels to choose from !

Edited by AeroGav
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Here's a craft of mine to get this started

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Kranker

Tech Tier 7

Runway, R&D and SPH all required at Tier 2

Class

Partially reusable Spaceplane

Cost 3575 Kredits per tourist per flight  

Capability

1 pilot and 2 tourists,  capable of reaching Duna,  flying around in the atmosphere for a bit, then returning to Kerbin.   Landing gear too fragile, so touchdown on Duna itself not recommended.

Flight Profile

Action group Abort toggles nukes

The wings are angle up to make lift even when the fuselage is on prograde hold,  keeping the nose down so it doesn't climb too quickly can be a challenge on jet power.   Best to go supersonic between 4 and 8km up ,   can use Abort action group for a boost from Nukes if needed.

Once sonic,  try to stay below 14km until over 750  m/s,  if it shoots over that in a climb,  just let it come back down naturally.    Once over 750km , then stage the nukes in .       At this point,  go on prograde hold and keep navball in surface mode, let aerodynamics take care of pitch angle.    When the fuel tanks in nuke nacelles run out (usually happens within 10-15 seconds of jet engines flaming out) stage for the third and final time to jettison these motors.

Flight envelope  (left is jet power, middle is jets and nukes (stage 2) ,  third is final stage,  jets jettisoned)

Tzrkg2B.jpg

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...and one more..

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Foxbat

Tech Tier 7

Runway, R&D and SPH all required at Tier 2

Class

SSTO Spaceplane

Capability

1 pilot and 2 tourists,  Mid Orbit

Flight Profile

Action group Abort toggles nukes

The wings are angle up to make lift even when the fuselage is on prograde hold,  keeping the nose down so it doesn't climb too quickly can be a challenge on jet power.   Best to go supersonic between 4 and 8km up ,   can use Abort action group for a boost from Nukes if needed.

Once sonic,  try to stay below 14km until over 750  m/s,  if it shoots over that in a climb,  just let it come back down naturally.    Once over 750km , then stage the nukes in .       At this point,  go on prograde hold and keep navball in surface mode, let aerodynamics take care of pitch angle.  

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