WanderingKid

That's a great ship, Kata. A little under 11 tons? My word! How high/hard do you fly that in atmo? My own method ran into both part count and weight issues, but succeeded. I need to get better at doing things, but that's a different story. You can find the full mission movie on my Let's Play, here:

TWR = Thrust to Weight Ratio. Short form: TWR = Thrust/(mass*gravity (9.81 for Kerbin)) Each engine has a Kn rating, this is KiloNewtons. So, for example, the LV-909 has 50 Kn, the LV-T45 has 200. Let's assume your rocket, for round numbers, is 20 tons. At rest on Kerbin, your rocket has 9.81*mass downforce at sea level. This is due to gravity. At TWR = 1, you will 'float' but go nowhere. You've merely negated the downforce. To go upwards, you need positive TWR. Your 20ton rocket has (roughly, if we round gravity to 10) 200 newtons of downforce. That means the LV-T45 can only make you hover, and the LV-909 has no chance of getting you anywhere. TWR of 1.6 - 1.8 basically means you'll get moving without going past the terminal velocity of the atmosphere (which happens ~TWR 2.1) at full throttle. You'll gain more TWR as you burn fuel, so you build in the vig. If you want more detailed discussions on it, check the wiki. For satellite you need a probe core and solar panels. Open those up and you should get the missions.

Pan: Shift + arrows move the camera. Don't know about binding trim.

I got a manned lander to the Mun, and back!, in under 18t with Tier 4 or lower Science nodes. I've even got a clean recording of it processing. I'm a happy camper. Sleepy time.

It's not horribly offtopic, I'd think, Pecan. You're still discussing something under 18t! But yeah, the original question was really how to get to Mun without upgrading the Launchpad or other buildings. At this point that's been discussed/solved, so, Tech 0 away!

I treat most Kerbals like Lemmings. They are the same color, and roughly the same life expectancy. Jeb, Bill, and Bob are the only ones who get special treatment.

Just make sure to bring a reaction wheel if you're not Mk1 Pod driving it around. I used it for my first satellite mission. It was a wild ride, but it's viable.

Ah, so you've done upgrades to R&D! Without an R&D upgrade (or completing Mun explore) the deepest sat contracts I see are between Mun/Minmus or orbiting Mun. Definitely no space stations. That makes sense. Yeah, contracts open up based on your researched items. Sats are a bit broken as they open up for batteries instead of solar panels.

Pecan: What difficulty are you at? 100k is barely enough to upgrade the Launchpad in Hard. I've confirmed the Hybrid Munshooter is viable in sandbox. I plan to take it for a spin in recording later today in my career mode. "Simulator Tests show a high success rate..." EDIT: And 5th Horseman was correct, I originated this post to know if it COULD be done, before I spun my wheels for an entire evening trying to eek a few extra hundred dV out of a craft. I ended up having to completely adjust my approach.

If you're finding career too difficult, you may want to check out my Let's Play in my sig. It's a Hard Career that I've been editing/recording. You may find it useful. However, in general I agree RKMan, unless you know the price of the experimental part (which you can't check, ANYWHERE, in game except in a sandbox game) before you pick up the contract, you may lose a ton of cash. Contract selection needs a review. At the least, the cost of the part should be included in the description of the test.

I haven't seen Solar orbital stations yet, but my rep may not be that high. Mun satellites will come up pretty quickly. Minmus not so much. Have you already done flyby's on Minmus?

Um, no, now that you mention it, I'm NOT sure. I was running off the wiki, and since one was I assumed they all were. Whoops. So, 28 parts. 15.7t. To the Mun, landed, and returned (with Aerobrake). With finer tuning I won't run out of gas screwing around in Kerbin Orbit and end up 'landing anywhere'.

Girders, while not massless in the VAB, are during flight. They're just there to protect the engine. It's all good though, new design, much better, less worrisome. Just trying to get the fuel load right to avoid flameout.

Did it with a Mk1 Capsule. I'm perfecting the 'ditch the jets' phase with Sepratrons. For the curious, 2x Jet Engines + 2 Radial intakes + 30 Liquid Fuel should get the rest of your bird up.

Nice Kata! You need to up R&D a level to get Turbojets but a nice craft anyway! My best so far: Orbiting Mun and returning (with Aerobrake): Note: You can't offset two 'centerline' thrusters onto the same axle. you have to use F12 to get the clusters of engines.

Ah, nice one Cantab. I hadn't thought to use the offset to use multiple 7S's. 215/30 (TWR is a killer)... 7 7S's... that's half the weight of the T30. Hrmmmm.... That's delicious.

Curious. I was just working on a design with a similar theory... Not quite as round though. Edit: Note to self: Do not launch to see Munrise when you're staring at the darkside...

You can deploy manned, it just has to be unmanned once it's left alone with just the probe. EDIT: Note, though, you're going to find it tough to get both the satellite AND a MK1 pod into a lot of those orbits without purchasing upgrades.

So, Stormweaver, you radially attached all that stuff and fed it into the single 48-7S? How'd you get it orbital?

Landing Gear

I've been using the plane itself as a rover. What I've taken to doing is basically bringing the craft down like it was going for a landing, and then firing my four chutes I have centered around my CoM. Once I land, I rover the entire plane over.

Yeah, part of this I feel is being able to do it before you get past the Tier 5 Science Components. Upgrading the pad is 10x cheaper. This... has possibilities. Use a probe ship to 'push' the other ship. Rondevous with no upgrades is always fun, but definitely an interesting technique. The pushing ship though is a suicide run, unlikely it'll have enough to slow down and return.

Best I've gotten, dV wise, is ~6,720 dV. Problem is it has TWR (starts at ~1.7 TWR) issues during liftoff and loses a chunk in Isp to my additional boosters, so it's really ~6,420 dV. You're not doing a manned landing at either with that. You can pull into orbit, but you're not leaving again. If you've opened up EVA you could extreme land it, refill mono at the capsule, and send yourself home for a rescue ship, I suppose. Edit: Note, OKTO is .1t, MK1 Pod is .84. Unmanned landers/satellites are a bunch easier to get dV for.

I can't get near 30 parts in 18t without throwing on a bunch of excess. My current attempt runs 22, and that's with 4 24-77's to help with TWR at liftoff.

Has anyone had any luck creating a Mun Lander in 18t or less? I can get the fly-by. I can get an OKTO lander down. I can't get a manned mission down and back up again yet, not without EVA Thrusting. I keep coming up ~700 m/s short in my calculations on how to get in and out again.