Laythe Capitalism!

[Ziv]

No problem, if you have any idea to change something then let me know. I will use it in my signature because I like it!

Edited September 2, 2014 by Ziv

[Norcalplanner]

Flight testing continues to go well over at team KABOOM (the Kerbal Administration for Big Overpowered Orbital Machines). Preliminary estimate is around 500 funds per ticket, based on what it costs to get the passenger craft and tanker to and from orbit. Both are SSTO designs with 100% cost recovery, except for fuel. Hopefully KABOOM's engineers can make a few refinements to bring down the cost by the time the launch window to Jool opens.

[Mesklin]

I am working about classical SSTO "Valkyrie" for this challenge: 12 passengers + 2 crew members, ticket cost should be close to Kasuha entry. Last checks and tests in progress

[Norcalplanner]

The Royal KABOOMian Laythe Liner completed her inaugural run last night. Ticket cost for 16 kerbals plus a pilot was 589 funds per paying passenger. Pictures and writeup should be posted this evening.

[Norcalplanner]

[carnival barker mode on]

Step right up and take the journey of a lifetime on the Royal KABOOMian Laythe Liner!

Fully-enclosed passenger accommodations for all phases of the trip! No struggling to remain strapped in while a Mach 3 slipstream tries to rip you out of your seat!

Convenient ladder boarding!

Dine with Captain Bill!

Only unpack once! Stay in the same cabin your entire trip!

All cabins have porthole views!

Everyone is sitting fully upright for landing and takeoff! No need to strap yourself to a seat on the wall or ceiling!

Enjoy classic kerbal styling with our big orange tank and other stock parts!

No hyperedited stations or other infrastructure! All craft involved in the journey are the result of genuine launches from KSC!

100% reusable spacecraft! No part of any ship was discarded or otherwise harmed during the course of this voyage!

All yours for the low, low price of 589 funds per kerbal! Call your travel agent today!

[carnival barker mode off]

Seriously, here's my entry. The entire story is in the descriptions for the photos. Enjoy.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Wanderfound]

This looks like fun; gonna have to see if I can get the Migration Aerotrain there and back.

[Wanderfound]

Do a normal inside pod like everyone else

I don't think that those cargo bays are pressurized. Or magically make seats comfortable.

Depends on what seats you use...

[Kasuha]

Seriously, here's my entry. The entire story is in the descriptions for the photos. Enjoy.

http://imgur.com/a/R1P4u

Very nice misson, congratulations to completing the challenge!

I'd just like to point out that your "double apoapsis" ascent method is IMO suboptimal. You may get some total velocity but you're losing your upwards momentum and need to fight gravity to get it back. I might be wrong about it but every time I overshot my ascent and had to fall a bit to get air again, I spent more fuel and time getting to orbit than when I made sure my ascent is monotonous.

[Mesklin]

Classical cruise liner "Valkyria mk2", 12 passengers + 2 crew members.

Express flight Kerbin-Laythe and back, no stops on space stations for refueling

Living in comfortable cabin for all trip, no additional unpack/pack actions.

Steward service all flight.

And ticket price is only 245 funds.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Ticket price calculation:

I spent only fuel:

Monopropellant - 80x1.2 = 96 funds

Fuel - 3050x0.8 = 2440 funds

Oxidizer - 2205x0.18 = 396.9 funds

TOTAL: 2932.9

Ticket cost: 2932.9/12 = 244.4

[Norcalplanner]

I'd just like to point out that your "double apoapsis" ascent method is IMO suboptimal. You may get some total velocity but you're losing your upwards momentum and need to fight gravity to get it back. I might be wrong about it but every time I overshot my ascent and had to fall a bit to get air again, I spent more fuel and time getting to orbit than when I made sure my ascent is monotonous.

I'm fully open to the possibility that it's suboptimal, along with many other of my piloting skills :-) The idea was to minimize the amount of oxidizer used in closed cycle mode, not necessarily to use the least amount of fuel. That said, I'll do some comparison runs with different profiles and see which one is the best for these craft.

Update: Ran a bunch of different ascent profiles using the SSTO tanker I created for this challenge, getting up to a 75 x 75 km orbit. For this craft, which is very unbalanced in terms of air operation vs. vacuum operation (air TWR of around 3.8 and vacuum TWR around 0.27) the double apoapsis ascent has the most vacuum delta V remaining after circularizing (600 m/s). There are four other profiles which result in more than 500 m/s vacuum delta V remaining, so the margin isn't that big, but it's there. Now the question in my mind is whether a change in engine or intake configuration will improve things, or whether reducing the amount of jet fuel prior to liftoff will have any significant effect.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Norcalplanner

[mr_yogurt]

I've updated the leaderboard again. Sorry for the delay, I was busy with school stuff.

Cool new entries. I wonder if we'll get double digit ticket prices.

Also, I'm surprised we haven't seen any mod entries yet.

But I'm terrible at reading these entries and maybe there is one that I put in as vanilla.

Also, Ziv: on the badge, I think you should go for eight bit and no circles. (but don't put minecraft in it)

Edited September 11, 2014 by mr_yogurt

[Overfloater]

mr_ygourt: I have designed a badge, look:

http://i.imgur.com/LaNUGzI.png

What do you think? I already added it to my signature, let me know if you accept this as the official badge for your challenge. What I really like, btw, because it's hard and can be very complex, and on the other hand it's a very easy on the points: get Kerbals onto Laythe and back for the cheapest. Awesome.

I love it! And I love that little rocket :^3 I might give this a shot just because of that badge x-b

I've been neglecting my crew transporters for too long.

[Wanderfound]

Also, I'm surprised we haven't seen any mod entries yet.

But I'm terrible at reading these entries and maybe there is one that I put in as vanilla.

There's an SP+/DRE/FAR pseudo-Concorde on the way...

[Laie]

I'm fully open to the possibility that it's suboptimal, along with many other of my piloting skills :-) The idea was to minimize the amount of oxidizer used in closed cycle mode, not necessarily to use the least amount of fuel. That said, I'll do some comparison runs with different profiles and see which one is the best for these craft.

You're aware of how the placement of intakes and engines affects the amount of intake_air available to each engine? (If not, please serach for "asymmetric flameout" and/or take this to the Q&A section, no need to derail this thread). Even if you didn't pay any attention to this, just from the look of your craft I guess you may get away with switching only half of your engines to closed cycle at first, leaving the others running as jets for a little bit longer. This would save you a lot of rocket fuel.

[Ziv]

Also, Ziv: on the badge, I think you should go for eight bit and no circles. (but don't put minecraft in it)

I didn't get it, what do you mean?

[Norcalplanner]

You're aware of how the placement of intakes and engines affects the amount of intake_air available to each engine? (If not, please serach for "asymmetric flameout" and/or take this to the Q&A section, no need to derail this thread). Even if you didn't pay any attention to this, just from the look of your craft I guess you may get away with switching only half of your engines to closed cycle at first, leaving the others running as jets for a little bit longer. This would save you a lot of rocket fuel.

Last discussion on this so the thread doesn't go too sideways. I'm very aware of the asymmetrical flame out issue, but only learned recently that the radial intakes aren't worth it for high altitude flight (which is why the SSTO has them and the tanker only has the ram intakes). I'm also somewhat embarrassed to say that I now use mechjeb to manage my intakes and also prevent flame outs - I set it with a 15 percent safety margin instead of the stock 5 percent, and haven't had a flame out induced spin for some time. I'd like to angle the intakes so they're perpendicular to the airflow, but the tanker design uses 10x radial symmetry.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Norcalplanner

[Wanderfound]

The Kerbodyne entry is still a work in progress, but just as a teaser:

[Norcalplanner]

I didn't get it, what do you mean?

Think Donkey Kong. It's similar to the avatar he has.

[Nao]

So i've been crunching some numbers and came to the conclusion that one of the most cost efficient options to do the challenge is actually direct SSTO...

I've made a plane and on second test run i kind of completed the challenge.

It's "kind off", as it lacks many of the early screen-shots (only started to make them seriously around Laythe) and then i did it in Sandbox, but honestly i don't see any reasons to fulfill the "This has to be done in Career mode, for obvious reasons." haha. (It's not like i even have a career save, so i would have to cheat everything in anyways.)

The craft was designed with a self restriction of no "cubic struts", minimal usage of struts and minimal clipping. The end results is a plane that can work with only one strut (final design has 6 total, for general rigidity) and basically no clipping "phantom" forces.

It has 7.5 (mainly) circular intakes per jet engine, so it's not a total airhog. Total of 14 control surfaces with quite balanced aero (for 35+ton craft), so it doesn't exploit infiniglide too much. Also the 15 small pods are used more for visual features, it would be well possible to get similar results with the big 4 kerbal cans.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Since the craft returns to the launch point, only the costs of consumables are counted: So the total mount of fuel used to fly to Laythe and back: 1725 liquid fuel and 1477 oxidizer = 1646 funds. Considering the flight was with 15 customers and one pilot, tickets were 109.7 fund per kerbal.

Now i did a really inefficient work on the flight... for example what can be done better: -100m/s Jool transfer in a better launch window, -50m/s Mun assist (maybe much more), better Kerbin escape plane aligment -50m/s, no back and forth orbit changes around Laythe -100m/s, better Kerbin transfer window -100m/s better Jool exit angle -50m/s, Tylo assist (idk might be above -150m/s), no back and forth Kerbin capture (damn Mun!) -50m/s... So its like 650m/s of delta V could be saved in fuel and oxidizer (could be more than 250 funds in savings). Then there were like 10 funds spent on searching for proper landing spot in the darkness... All that polished would make the final landing not so terribly close too lol (landed with zero liquid fuel and 8,7 oxidizer (0.6% of total capacity).

Design wise the plane cockpit could be exchanged to probe core and two capsules, totaling 17 customers (no pilot) for the exact same mass/performance, making it 96.8 funds per ticket, below 100!! But it would look worse, so naaah~~

Thinking about expanding the design, more in spirit with the challenge... Extending the mission to multi-ship one looks good on paper. For example: launch without Nerva engine and dock with one in LKO, also dump two jet engines in LKO, exchange them upon return. Adding 3 more pods to this setup gives the same mass as already done flight, so same performance. BUT there are a lot of additional costs with these systems, 50units of RCS cost more than half of a ticket (60funds) docking infrastructure is ~0.6t (one pod in weight) additional ~300m/s needed for orbital maneuvers could take more than 100funds. All in all the multi-ship would be just barely more cost efficient, with a lot more work needed. So ill wait for others to beat the 96.8 that the current craft is capable of before any more changes/flights.

Cheers!

[mr_yogurt]

snip

So do you want me to include it, or wait for you to expand it some more?

If you landed on the runway then it's fine that you were in sandbox mode.

[Nao]

So do you want me to include it, or wait for you to expand it some more?

If you landed on the runway then it's fine that you were in sandbox mode.

Nah I kind off burned out on KSP long time ago haha, so no way i'm spending even more time on redoing more complicated mission now unless we get some competition going:) (I think going below 80 per kerbal would be possible, maybe even below 60 with an extreme design). I'm ok with the 15 kerbals and a pilot for 109,7 bucks, thanks!

[mr_yogurt]

Nah I kind off burned out on KSP long time ago haha, so no way i'm spending even more time on redoing more complicated mission now unless we get some competition going:) (I think going below 80 per kerbal would be possible, maybe even below 60 with an extreme design). I'm ok with the 15 kerbals and a pilot for 109,7 bucks, thanks!

Ok.

I rounded it up to 110 because it makes it a little bit simpler.

[Kulebron]

If I have a spaceplane with many intakes that are directed inwards, to hide inside hitchhiker can, is this acceptable?

[mr_yogurt]

If I have a spaceplane with many intakes that are directed inwards, to hide inside hitchhiker can, is this acceptable?

As long as you can do it without using the debug menu.

[Kulebron]

I used to write about fuel efficiency, so I couldn't pass by this. My entry. $95.11 per ticket! (see cost breakdown spoiler below)

Highlights:

1. 16 passengers.

2. 2 SSTO planes on Kerbin and Laythe and a cruiser ship with a nuke.

3. No dropped stages.

4. No recovery cost: SSTO can land at KSC.

Extras:

- Free bus transfer to the nearest beach on Laythe.

- Ships have to dock, and Kerbals have to move between those. Also we kindly ask to repack chutes for the next passengers.

Highlights gallery:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I don't know if rules allow, but someone may try improving by flying Kerbals to orbit in seats. Otherwise, I don't see much space for improvement, unless it's some weird combo maybe with ion thrust. One could use lander cans everywhere, but that saves just .4t, or 2.5% of Laythe shuttle. I could have planned Laythe arrival better, and have inclination change less than 20 degrees, but that would save just 100 m/s of dv (about $2 per ticket).

Ship names: Ployka (Kerbin SSTO shuttle), Multifora (cruizer), Vihotka (Laythe SSTO shuttle).

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Images made afterwards, from saves, to show the initial resources and that Kerbals can climb the lander on Laythe.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Design considerations:

1. Specialization. On Kerbin you need 5 engines to lift passengers and fuel. On Laythe you need just 2, and wasting fuel at Laythe is the most wasteful. So why carry all that metal to Laythe? Just put another metal there. And one more metal for the trip.

2. Wings are overrated. (edit: didn't notice Kasuha's entry with similar design.) Planes that have TWR>1.5 don't need any, they can perfectly sustain themselves. When I was making conventional spaceplanes I gradually reduced the number of wings, and results were only improving, so wings create significant drag. Without them, you only need to get higher (at 23Km engines will generate twice more thrust) and accelerate to have the centrifugal force keep you.

3. Landing legs are overrated. But cubic girders sinked into the ground, so I put decouplers on their tips.

4. I used a lot of air intakes. 12/engine on Laythe shuttle, 9/engine on Kerbin shuttle.

Before doing this mission, I did half of one with conventional spaceplanes (images below), and those were hard to fly, had narrow range of critical angles, and were even harder to land. Aspirating rockets instead can ascend and land with MechJeb.

A cut sequence, a-la Jackie Chan: Spaceplanes. Before trying this challenge, I had built 1 (one) plane, and it would just veer off the runway. So I had to learn ALL about them: take off stability, flying stability, stability in vacuum, landing on a runway and, of course, to adjust them for landing on rough terrain. Here's Vihotka, a plane for Laythe (picture taken after the mission, just out of hangar)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited October 1, 2014 by Kulebron