Norcalplanner

Congratulations, Warzouz! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Modded Division entry scoring 66,440 points! I liked your entry a lot. It reminded me of my own entry for the Jool-5 Kethane challenge (click on pic in my sig for more info) in terms of the modular design of the craft, ability to refuel, and also using the lander as the main drive section. It's also impressive that you were able to get that into orbit with a recoverable rocket SSTO lifter! All in all, a very elegant yet practical entry. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. I'll add you to the leaderboard. - - - Updated - - - rudi1291, That's a very impressive station and refueling operation. Before I can score it, I'll need a few more pictures showing the launch and assembly. As stated in the OP: "Provide a brief description of your station, noting any mods used, along with screenshots documenting all significant steps in the launch, assembly, transit, and operation of your station. Try to take screenshots when the station is on the daytime side of the celestial body, unless you’re showing off the cool lighting or emissives on your station. Include screenshots of at least one shuttle/mining/harvesting run for any dedicated craft. Please provide data in the screen shots on a regular basis using MJ, KER, or by keeping the resource panel open. Be kind to everyone’s bandwidth and use an imgur album or other similar method for posting photos. Please tally up your points as part of your entry." What I'm particularly looking for are shots showing the launch, assembly, and transit of the largest station components with either MJ or KER panels open showing TWR, current Delta V, etc. Right now we have a lot of pictures of vehicles on the launch pad, but there's no data for the craft and no images of the larger pieces getting put into orbit by their lifters, then assembled once in orbit. Many of the images also don't have data screens open, so there's no way for me to know current elapsed mission time, fuel use, etc. If you don't already have those sorts of images, feel free to load up a copy of that particular craft, then take pictures of its launch as a reenactment for the cameras.

But Streetwind, getting back to the Hermes, wouldn't that be next to impossible with an acceleration of only 2 mm per second? By my math, that works out to an acceleration of 0.0002 g. Assuming a 90 minute orbital period for LEO, and assuming that you're willing to accept the steering losses associated with burning 45 degrees in front of and behind the desired periapsis for a burn time of 22.5 minutes per orbit, that means that you'll add only 2.7 m/s per orbit. As the periapsis speed goes ever higher, the period of time per orbit available for periapsis kicks will get even smaller. If the orbital period stayed the same (which it won't) then the Hermes would take 794 periapsis kicks to get up to 4.3 km/s for the mars transfer, and the increasing orbital period would mean that it would take many months to actually reach escape velocity. Maybe I'm just dense, but I'm having a heck of a time figuring out how a vehicle with thrust that low can break out of the earth's gravity well in anything approaching a reasonable timeframe and without things getting weird due to the Moon's gravity well.

Great entries, Warzouz and rudi1291. I'm busy all the rest of today, but will be able to give your entries my full attention tomorrow.

There are a handful of mod parts which are stock-worthy, as far as I'm concerned, mainly from part packs by Necrobones and Nertea: The quadnuke - 4x LV-N weight and thrust in a single stackable 2.5m part. Fuel tanks that are 1.5x and 2x the length of standard stock tanks. 3.75m habitat parts, capsules, probe cores, SAS units, batteries, and monoprop tanks. Fueled adapters and nosecones.

Found another video with just the paths taken by the Hermes. This is the distilled essence of the earlier video: http://www.galactanet.com/martian/hermes.mp4

So I just did some back of the envelope calcs. Delta V for a Mars transfer burn is 4.3 km/sec, assuming a single transfer burn using the Oberth effect. The stated acceleration of the Hermes is 2 mm/sec, which translates into 172.8 m/s per full day of thrusting. It would take 24.8 days of thrusting in order to get 4.3 km/sec of delta V. Of course, that assumes that the 24.8 days of thrusting would be broken up into hundreds or thousands of periapsis kicks, assuming that the system can reliably cycle on and off that many times. Otherwise, you're looking at a slow orbital spiral outward that loses any Oberth effect boost and will require even more delta V. When I read the book, they don't really talk about circling around the earth for more than a month before actually setting off. I like the author's program showing the trajectories for the interplanetary parts of the trip, but I'd really appreciate seeing better detail of what happens near the Earth and near Mars. Then again, it may be a bit "hand-wavy" (the author's term) because glossing over it serves the story. The example that the author gives of "hand-waviness" is the original storm that causes them to abort. With Mars' atmosphere being so thin, he readily acknowledges that there's no way it would have been strong enough to tilt over the MAV or cause a lot of the other damage that occurs. But it sure makes a good setup for the rest of the story.

TheXRuler, I'm not sure I understand the question, as the challenge is for orbital space stations, not surface bases. Is the craft on the ground a dedicated shuttle or miner that normally lives attached to the station?

There's a video where the author shows the exact path the Hermes takes, although I agree that the whole "breaking earth orbit" part is a bit hand-wavy. Here it is. The interesting part starts at 12 minutes in.

This was really more of a "shortly after launch failure" of the core of my 1,000-kerbal station. Staging was a bit suboptimal.

My understanding is that radial parts, especially struts and docking ports, are something that really ups the drag in 1.0.4. NathanKell can probably elaborate a whole lot better than I can - I just like running tests in the the game. And I can't come anywhere close to OhioBob's level of analysis. With a gimbaling engine, a proper ascent profile, and a relatively aerodynamic craft, you can safely omit the fins. The trick is making sure you never get more than a few degrees off of prograde, which means a proper gravity turn. If you look at the MJ ascent settings, you'll see that it's set to limit AoA to 8 degrees. I seem to recall reading somewhere that if the Apollo program had continued, they were going to omit the fins from the S-IC stage because they weren't needed. More modern lifters like Delta IV and Falcon 9 also omit the fins.

[clears throat] Allow me to respectfully disagree. The trick is to remove a lot of the expensive bits, reduce drag, and generally optimize the design. 1,089 funds/ton in the final configuration.

The utility of fairings depends on several factors, including how many radial parts are on the payload. My general rule is that if there are two or more medium sized radial docking ports, then I'll use a fairing. Otherwise, I'll do just like moogoob suggests and slap a nose cone on the end - the only change I would make is to omit the decoupler. The day I learned I could attach docking ports to end nodes was an eye opener.

I think a lot of it depends on what your definition of "massive" is. Back in the Heavy Lifter Challenge, I created an SSTO vertical launch rocket that lifted a 40 ton payload (orange tank, 2.5m monoprop tank, and some other bits) for less than 20,000 funds after recovery. And yes, my entry was gamey as heck. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122243-Heavy-Lift-Economy-Challenge

After reading all this, I can't help thinking that this is a topic which is ripe for a challenge. Let's see some actual designs with relevant numbers attached and see who can do what.

Landed probes on and returned Kerbals from everything with a solid surface in stock. Landed probes on everything in OPM. Currently having fun relearning things in RSS/RO.

Someone finally cracks open the Behemoth mod! I'm not a big fan of the art style, but there's no arguing with the performance. Adding you to the top of the leaderboard...

Well done. I'll update the leaderboard.

Maybe it's just me, but that rocket on the pad looks like some sort of stubby robot. The kind of robot that would fight a guy in a rubber monster suit while stomping all over model tanks and buildings. I can almost hear someone yelling "Run for your lives!" And, or course, it does a great job showing why Tweakscaled parts are prohibited.

Congratulations, Haruspex! You've completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Stock(-ish) entry scoring 7,121 points! Great looking stock entry. No nonsense onion staging on the lifter, and I always like a craft large enough to make using a Mainsail as an upper stage engine seem worthwhile. I also enjoyed how the science side stacked contained all the science gear; it's like the design is modular, but without being detachable. Airbrakes galore on the escape capsule! (I've used them in lieu of a heat shield more than once myself.) And kudos for the documentation - this could be used as an example of what sort of photos to take. One question - the ascents seemed to go vertical for a long time instead of doing a gravity turn earlier, even though your designs were pretty streamlined. Were they really so flip-happy that a steeper ascent made sense, or was it just a matter of playing it safe? Regardless, it worked. I'll add you to the leaderboard. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. If you enjoyed the challenge, rep is always welcome. - - - Updated - - - Moho can be a harsh mistress - you have to make a huge delta-V change in a fairly short timeframe, and the amount of delta-V required is highly variable depending on where Moho is in its orbit. There's a reason why the multiplier is so high.

Snacks is an older life support mod, much like USI-LS. I'll edit the OP to update the reference. - - - Updated - - - XxSkillZorxX, I'm afraid that I need more information before I can score your entry. TheXRuler was right on the money in his interpretation of the rules. I'd be happy to add you to the honorable mentions if you don't have all the information needed for a scoring entry. - - - Updated - - - You got it!

Yep! The challenge is designed to allow any version of KSP with any combination of mods. I don't want to force anyone into playing KSP a certain way.

I'll gladly use parts of any diameter, depending on the situation. However, my heart belongs to the 5m parts in SpaceY, which allowed me to build a wonderful Saturn V replica using the stock 3-Kerbal capsule. The center engine in the first and second stages even cuts off near the end of each stage's burn. I love that!

Editing files is a no-no and would be considered cheating. Is there any reason why you can't send multiple ships during a single launch window? If you use KAC, it's possible to keep track of a bunch of ships at the same time. The only trick is stretching out their arrival times a little bit at the target planet so you don't have to do multiple orbital capture burns at the same time. I've found it to be easiest if I start launching ships a few days before the transfer window, and have multiple ships waiting in LKO for the "go" order. Or are you sending ships to different destinations? - - - Updated - - - Congratulations, Dfthu! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Stock(-ish) entry worth 23,530 points! Nice entry - it reminds me of some of my earlier Mun stations back when I was still exploring everything for the first time, figuring out what works and what doesn't. A little high on the part count, and a little over-engineered in places. Looks like you're doing direct ascents to the Mun rather than achieving orbit and then doing a Hohman transfer, which requires a little more delta v. Your miner looks like it is (barely) in the black when making a fuel run, so it counts. And I loved that your somewhat tall lander set down on a slope that must have been way too exciting in the moment. I'll update the leaderboard. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. If you enjoyed the challenge, rep is always welcome.

Ablator is a tweakable that can be changed in the VAB. I regularly remove a majority of the Ablator for Mun and Minmus missions.