Rakaydos

We are looking at Red Dwarfs because they're the easiest to detect small worlds in habitable zones. Low thermal output means the habitable zone is closer in. Low mass star means the mass ratio of star to planet is higher. And two close objects with a (relatively) close mass ratio is easier to detect by wobble.

I was planning on having the mothership handle the Kerbin/Eve transfer with the lander still attached, so the lander doesnt need that fuel capacity. Idealy, mission would look like: Launch to LKO/HKO, do science Transfer to polar Mun orbit, lander gets all the science Transfer to Minmus orbit, lander does all the science Mothership drops periaps to LKO to slingshoot to eve, makes transfer burn. Solar orbit science -Lander detaches, burns for a slightly earlier Eve encounter -Lander aerobreaks at eve, Science Group 1 takes "flying at" science, and transfers to Gilly -Lander lands at gilly, uses Science Group 2 for surface science. Mothership slingshots Eve, bound for Moho. Does high and Low eve orbit science -Lander launches from Gilly, burns at Eve periapse to catch up with mothership -Lander docks with mothership. Science is collected and reset, lander is refueled. Mothership sets up a moho slingshot back to eve. Does high moho science. -Lander detatches, does low Moho science and lands, then launches to catch up with the mothership. Mothership flys by Eve. -Lander maneuvers around to collect the high and low Gilly orbit biomes it missed last time, and meets up with mothership. Flyby of Kerbin toward Duna ...ect.

Thing is, by dropping to gilly's orbital speed, the lander misses the slingshot, so has to burn all the Delta V that the mothership would be gaining by coasting through. The lander could dash ahead early in the kerbin/eve transfer and aerobreak into a Gilly landing, but then needs to make an independant Eve/Moho transfer to catch the mothership that didnt bother slowing down. I'm trying to find the Delta D roadmat to figure out what that would be.

That makes me wonder... for a hypothetical "grand tour" mission, could a fully fueled Tylo lander detach from a vessel on an Eve slingshot to Moho, fly ahead, make a brief landing on Gilly for the science, and catch up with the main vessel? Or is the slingshot too much DeltaV for even a tylo lander?

I'm prety sure the first stage only gets about 20 km downrange before it's 180 second burnout- easilly enough to compensate for while you're still on the way up.

I'd rather have something like "Mass produced assembilies." Saving a subassembilly costs money, but using that assembilly is slightly cheaper than rebuilding it each time, so after, oh, about 5 uses it becomes cheaper over the course of your carear.

4, it's still worth bringing separate instriments. It only becomes worth bringing a lab if you're hitting 6 or more biomes.

Woult the 5th planet out from it's star have any reason to be tidaly locked? I'd expect there would be enough gravatational "noise" from the other planets to prevent it.

A spaceplane should be able to achieve a 35km orbit, raise it's apoapse to 69km, then dump the kerbal to EVA the rest of the way into space, I'd think.

So, the lab is worth it if you're going to be sciencing at least 6 biomes in a single mission. High orbit Low Orbit Surface -Surface water -Flying above Moon High orbit Moon low orbit Moon surface So if you can land on both Duna and ike, it's as effective to bring 1 of each science and a lab, as it is to bring 6 of each science. If you can land on eve, it's not worth it unless you land on Gilly first. Not worth it for Dres or Moho, but you should almost always bring one when you visit Jool, Mun, or Minmus.

Many of them already do. Novepunch and KW rocketry are, aside from 3 of their engines, actually more balanced than ARM.

Given that my original question was about how much radiation the planet would receive, I dont see how your answer is relevant, then.

Are you compensating for the inverse square law from the body being in about the orbital radius of mercury?

Would the planet need a magnetic field to ward off radiation, or would the weaker star put out more survivable levels even without?

Looking things up is good.

"Bird in the hand" is an advantage.

Cant you just pull the science from the intriments, and EVA over to the other ship to store it in the rescue capsue?

But a spaceplane that isnt SSTO has the same kinds of overhead a multistage rocket would have. That was part of the problems with the Space Shuttle. And a SSTO like Skylon pays for the capability with a much lower mass fraction, making it equivilant to a smaller and cheaper multistage rocket. As for the long term problems of clustering compared to long term use of larger engines... first you have to get through short term to get to long term.

Why not take a 50 year trip with a warp drive?

When multiple planetay systems are added, they need to all be orbiting a supermassive black hole called Kraken.

Spider silk compares favorably with steel. Carbon nanotubes compare favorably with diamond. No contest here. I'm still a fan of Airship to Orbit. So you have to replace a little helium each flight... so what?

"The Poodle has been rebalanced: mass of 1.75t, thrust of 160kN, ISP of 270-410. Higher ISP, lower TWR, but much lower engine mass fraction." Changelog, first post, http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75272-0-23-x-Stock-Rebalance-Project-v1-2-7-04-14

So I got this thing to Layth orbit, before I discovered a screwed up my lander design. :/

The way SpaceX is doing it- Clustering smaller engines. Because you need more engines per launch, you start to reap the benifits of mass production with a lower total number of launches.

Baby's first Whackjob. (that's 4 stages in)