joshudson

Because it is reasonably difficult. You need to come up with contraptions for course correction.

I never did kerbaled interplanetary because the ladder dance was too annoying for me. Personally I think it would be much better if we had a mod that enabled time warp on ladders (and actually kept the kerbal on the ladder in time warp) and banned the EVA refueling trick. If you want more fuel, pack EVA fuel packs. The various level rules had for most of the rules whatever the stock difficulty setting was for that rule; I don't see a reason to change that. My Order of the Trilobyte badge was earned by sending probes to Jool in easy mode and controlling them from home.

Is what you want a heavy lifter? I can provide.

On Minmus the jetpack has enough delta V to return to Kerbin from the surface. People are still reporting successful reentries with an EVA kerbal.

You only have to get into orbit of the body? Infinite score possible.

I know how to get there IVA only (no map) but I haven't worked out how to get back yet. I get crushed on reentry. I should probably try the inflatable heat shield.

I just want to point out that this has been done (not by me). Youtube:

I might launch a probe core and a bunch of I-beams.

I wanna see that space station in munar orbit in 15 minutes. Is whackjob still around?

This idea comes up from time to time. I'm gonna leave this here.

Any cost-minimization that includes parts recovery just happens to be a piloting challenge.

I have momentarily reclaimed the Diamond Wings. I'm pretty sure somebody's going to figure out how to take it from me, but for now I hold it with just over 1.8t including fuel for the probe's engine. Anybody who wants the Diamond Wings will actually have to work for them. √F5967 was spent so I need 85% recovery to come in under √F5000. I landed on the KSC peninsula so there's no question of getting 85%. I'm about 8km away so I should get 97% or √F1127 back bringing the mission cost to √F4840 https://imgur.com/a/umqxTiH Incidentally the payload has 1987m/s of usable DeltaV.

My submission: https://imgur.com/a/96a6Sw4 I did the whole thing in sandbox; and found it was quite saveload heavy both on launch (only abut 1 in 20 launches of this thing actually make orbit) and reentry (to get close to KSC on so little amount of fuel). Assuming the island with the old airport is close enough for 80% funds recovery, I just barely squeak in under √F5000. The launch cost is √F6165 and I'm claiming √F1217 recovered (sandbox so it won't actually say) so the mission cost is √F4948. After action report: Valentina found the craft highly unstable between 5000m and 12000m altitude and was forced to burn the nose rockets at 100% power most of the time rather than the planned 25% power. This resulted in the available delta V being much lower than planned, resulting in just squeaking into a 72,369x70,782 orbit with the main tank already empty and the nose tank with about one-third of its fuel remaining. After priming the payload and observing the science package was working correctly, Valentina waited in orbit for Mission Control to complete simulations (read: saveload spam) to determine at which point the remaining fuel should be used to land near the recovery facilities. Reentry and splashdown was uneventful but Valentina still finds halo-jumping from orbit nerverwracking. Bonus: the craft has a plausible launch-abort system, although it can't be controlled by a single key.

I'm working on a submission with payload in orbit. I'm not sure how to count mass of payload in orbit because I can't afford the decoupler to separate it from the booster. Previous attempts have left the tank about 1/6th full so the payload in orbit's got the ability to maneuver.

If you can get into Kerbin orbit at all, it's within the rules to launch something else to pick Jeb up.

I could eyeball that Kerbin itnercept as a Homlann but I will lose Jeb. With 4200 delta v available, I only have to graze Kerbin's SOI.

Well if you go for kerbin escape and the absolute win you don't need to steer. Doesn't mean it's going to be any easier. My computer struggled with the sepratron to orbit thing. I'll have to stand down from this one.

So I went back and rebuilt the Jool rock thrower again because those numbers weren't making sense to me. I thought it had 7500-8000 delta v. It has 8994. I really did eyeball everything. It really is just practice though. But due to a horrendous piece of coding, if you launch ahead of the transfer window and intercept Jool by having its SOI collide with you as you're dropping back down to Kerbol, you can cut a chunk out of that capture burn . But Inclination change burns in the sticks cost a couple hundred m/s because you're moving at 10s of m/s so it's actually more efficient to just make a radical burn towards the plane you want to be in, and another radical burn to stop your motion when you reach it. You could accomplish the same thing with an elliptical orbit all the way out to the sticks though.

I've had further practice. I can hit either extreme of Jool's SOI easily and correct inclination on the cheap out there. It should be less than 500 delta V to an equatorial encounter with any moon. But those capture burns are going to be rough.

Seriously? I got my Laythe encounter with a 2500m/s ejection burn and less than 500m/s all the way to Laythe. I don't have the robots expansion, but otherwise I'd volunteer to fly your intercept flights for you.

My attempt at Eve Rocks challenge was sea-level capable and didn't use a heat shield for landing on Eve. On the other hand I staged off all kinds of stuff so it doesn't get any closer to this challenge. Couldn't get it small enough to fit the circle of the VAB.

Since 1.0? Google suggests otherwise.

I really wanna see your screenshot of this. Getting a craft to Jool sea level and back up is just barely possible. Actually planting a flag is something else entirely.

I want to see a screen snapshot of you landed on Jool.

Where's the Orion Drive when you need it?