Attempting to go to space. With Canon... Re-ARMed!... An experiment report.

[Tw1]

Made a kind of sequel. By dragging kerbals behind SRBs with a cable, I got them much higher than I could with the cannons, or by strapping a seat on the side of the SRB.

Also, could a mod please move this to mission reports, now that we have it again? This no longer belongs in general discussion.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Tw1

[Supernovy]

Moved to Mission Reports on request.

Still haven't tried the Minmus cannon thing, I have to get around to that...

[Tw1]

Thankyou!

[Tw1]

Hello, and welcome to a new round of cannon tests! With a new set of engines comes new potential, so I'm rebooting these trials.

*fanfare*

(That's a trumpet incase you don't get it.)

First, testing the Kerbodyne KR-2L!

This is the cannon. Pretty standard.

Or volunteer today is of course, Jebediah Kerman.

With Jeb positioned in the center of the engine bell, it was time to send him skyward.

Now this was interesting. The thrust effect and the engine's collider surface are not aligned. Perhaps if I jump.

Much better. Jet pack assisted, Jeb reacked about 3.5 Km. Interestingly, this is less than the heights I achieved with mainsails earlier.

This may be worth investigating.

And bounced on the way down. This feels familiar...

Ok. So that was the KR-2L. Time to test the S3 KS-25x4 Engine Cluster.

Higher thrust will throw a kerbal higher, but the clustered nature of this engine may complicate matters.

However, I hypothesize that the thrust will have been programed to come from one central point.

I built this set up with ladders leading to both the center and one of the thrusters to allow me to test both possibilities.

Note how Jeb appears to be floating above the engine. This would be due to it having a simplified collision mesh.

Ok. Off we go.

Woosh! That answers the question of where the thrust comes from on a KS-25x4.

This time, Jeb went about 4Km.

However, this was without jet pack asistance.

I modified the cannon to make it suitable for multiple launches:

And tried again.

Achieved a max of 4.8 Km. Ok.

Now, time to go big. This time, I'm going to take a scientific approach. I plan to build a huge pass through type cannon- for this to work optimally, the engines need to be positioned so the arrival of a kerbal in each engine's thrust zone coincides with the game calculating a physics step.

To work out spacing, I conducted an experiment:

Seems I forgot rule one of cannon building. Struts and launch clamps. A little later:

I think you get where I'm going here. Added extra pods so Bill and Bob could join in on the fun.

After three splattered kerbals tests:

There. That's where I need my engine to be.

Back in the VAB, I set up a version on the cannon with a KS-25x4 just below the bit my kerbals kept crashing into.

Beautiful.

Jeb's enthusiastic face.

...And Boom!

Off at a rapid pace. Everything is proceeding as expected. Except for the cannon falling apart below.

Bill and Bob where in that thing....

7Km! Now that's more like it.

But this was an unassisted flight. Making full use of the Jet pack:

Which was not that helpful for the first second, as Jeb wouldn't stop tumbling...

8Km! Now we're starting to get somewhere.

Unfortunately, Jeb had drifted too far this time. He did land on the bouncy launchpad, but bounced off and was killed when he hit the grass.

I may bring parachutes next time.

Now, I could keep going with by trial and error, but if I'm going to overbuild this to its full potential, I'm probably going to need to take an engineering approach.

Fellow forumers, I need some advice. Physics advice.

If I'm going to calculate the position that a kerbal will be in at each physics step, I'm going to need to take drag into account. I'm not sure how I'd go about factoring in that, so I look forward to any advice. I'm using the stock aerodynamics model, BTW.

That's all for this time!

To finish up, here's a picture of Jeb bouncing from the launchpad:

Edited April 8, 2014 by Tw1

[Castille7]

Thank you Space Nut(ter)! I have really enjoyed this experiment!

[-RanZ-]

looking forward to more!

[DatBoi]

On 5/17/2013 at 9:32 PM, Thrfoot said:

Hmm... What if they replaced the conventional explosive charge with a nuke?

Nuclear test "Pascal-A" launched a manhole cover at six times escape velocity. I think it could work...