GarrisonChisholm

This story will not sound original or unique to everyone, but it is a first for me & with a craft that I simply think looks cool. Therefore, perhaps embarrassingly simply out of pride, I am going to post here the tale of the Albatros program. The Kerbal Space Program had had 6 unfortunate deaths in its conquest of Mun, so as the the 70s became the 80s an automated exploration program for the solar system was prioritized. Mun and occasionally Minmus were still visited by the Muna program missions so that hard earned expertise was not lost, but after that lander was mastered there was nothing new innovated in crewed spaceflight for a long while. After the Plock fly-by was completed every world had been visited however, so new and more compelling missions were sought. Eventually it was decided that it was time to attempt to visit Kerbin's nearest world, and the Phoenix program was initiated. A single-use mission craft, it was tested unmanned in LKO and then Phoenix-2 went out to an 80 million kilometer orbit for a multi-year duration validation of the craft's ability to maintain two crew for the trip to Eve. Having passed this, Phoenix-3 was sent un-crewed to Eve, where it entered orbit and then successfully returned to Kerbin at the next transfer window. Finally Valentina and Ronble Kerman departed Kerbin for Eve, completing the first crewed visit to another planet in the 2020s. Having completed this milestone and for the moment declining the concept of a crewed landing on Eve, thoughts turned to Duna where a crewed landing would be possible. Phoenix would make the trip, and with modification maybe even Jool, but if a new ship were going to be manufactured every time a world was visited it would make for a very expensive achievement. Then in roughly 2030 a science proposal was seen where-in access to an advanced stand-alone atomic motor would be granted if a certain testing environment would be used. This motor was decades ahead on a research path that the KSP was intentionally bypassing, so the administration's eyes lit up when they saw the failure penalty of only 200k funds. With no intention what-so-ever of completing the contract it was accepted, and - using the general specs of the Phoenix craft as a guideline - a craft was designed and, with perhaps irrational enthusiasm and an apathy towards spell-checking, commissioned for construction in under an hour. Thankfully, experience with Phoenix had provided just enough knowledge, and a few months before the contract deadline passed Albatros was launched into LKO. There had been not a THOUGHT about what the mission plan would be, everyone had been single-mindedly focused on getting the motor into service, so the next steps would have to be now considered. A crew was sent up and a long-duration Kerbin-orbit test of the craft was initiated, shortly followed by the first crewed fly-by of Duna. But now, what about a lander...

I'm just pretty proud of this one so thought I'd share it to the universe. The wing-mounted engines have it looking like a B-58 from underneath. It can't bring up a huge payload, but it reliably carries this type of probe to orbit.

I still read that in Ahnold's voice.

I built a space plane and when it was deployed to the tarmac an oscillation left and right began. Which amplified. With or without SAS. Until it shook itself off the runway and started shedding parts. Fun.

I have a glorified word-processor I bought 2 years ago for $400 new out of the box. It has a 2 gig AMD A8 processor and only 2 gig of ram, and no dedicated graphics card. A large complex rocket can give me 2-3 fps at launch and it can take over an hour to get to orbit, and i STILL have fun. The fun of this game is in the engineering and deployment-to-use, so lower frame rates become (I believe) more tolerable. Though mind you I am NOT saying I wouldn't enjoy it much more at 30 fprs. I wrote a long-term mission report for a while and have many mods installed, including EVE (though trimmed), and it was useful for all of that. I do have to unload the game and re-start after 4-6 hours, as once it loads more than a handful of screens or vessels it slows down in loading new screens a lot.

No pictures (yet), but I will do my best to paint with words. The Program has a contract for science from the surface of Eve! So I designed a delightful little Soviet-style lander, and was quite tickled to see it pass through re-entry with only moderate damage. I managed to miss the large continent I had targeted however, and was heading for a water landing. Oh well, thought I, at least with an inflatable heat-shield it will float! Little did I realize they were inflated with lead. Ah! But this is excellent! I can now 'land' on the floor of the ocean, and still use all my soil analysis tools! If I can transmit from the ocean floor it will work! Then at 118m everything crushed. :| Floating to the top of the sea, incredibly, all that survived is; the Octo probe core, 2 batteries, a communitron 16, and 1 tiny solar panel. One survived communicating probe, ... zero science that can be done.

That's very insightful, I appreciate the input. I think I'll have to "simulate" it and then make my best effort. This is the probe, so as designed the Entry Probe needs to detach before the Insertion Stage can fire to break the Orbiter into orbit. I'll see how it goes!

The probe has some Dv, yes, though only enough to change course. Maybe I'll sketch up a diagram and get some screen-shots when I'm home later, but the Orbiter was going to use Dv insertion and so not touch the atmosphere, but the entry probe would be on a closer orbit to intersect of course, so it would be out-pacing the orbiter until the atmosphere started to slow it down. I can't put a big transmitter on the probe because entry would tear then off, so I need to stay within 1,5m M and LoS to make sure i get the data.

Good day one and all. I am embarking upon an exploration of the gas giants (out planets mod) and my plan calls for a probe stage in three parts. A gas giant entry probe, to be detached after entering SOI, an orbital insertion stage that when decoupled from the orbiter itself will serve as a potential relay, and then the orbiter itself. My issue is, as I start to think about it, how to ensure that the entry probe stays in communication with the orbiter/insertion-stage as it enters the planet's atmosphere. Logically the probe would seem to need to slow down after separation, or else the entry probe might circle around the planet and depart line of sight and lose data transmission. Does anyone have a "method" to ensure this works out, or do I just have to play with varying angles and try to make it work?

See that? 25km off target, but I made it to this beautiful valley where I need to do my biological experiments. Anyone care to guess what is NOT going to be happening? :| Experiments. Or anything. The last command I sent was to apply the breaks when I caught some air at 20 m/s. Unfortunately, the probe core - like an idiot - was mounted right at the front there. Where there is nothing now. :| Sigh...

That water in the last shot looks amazing. You balanced it well!

I'm going to shamelessly give this corpse a kick, as it the idea would provide for Kuiper Belt bodies and might be of current-event interest, on the off chance that someone with the code wizzarding skills might take the idea and run with it.

Be fortunate the kerb isn't spagetifiing away at trans-light speed. I haven't seen that behavior recently, but it has been known to happen on rare occasions.

Well, this is a link for the think-tank we had back then. I had one person much smarter than I say it could be done, but I tried several avenues and the ones I thought were viable were non-starters.

Oktober 1st, '64 Mortimer sat at a mechanic's desk in the Air Force space-plane hangar, the large craft itself now nearly half disassembled. It was easy to see why it had never made it to orbit, even to him. It had clearly been designed by someone who thought the only answer to drag was "moar power", and the pilots had been told that a "standard" re-entry included the phrase, 'when the uncontrollable tumble begins immediately deploy the chutes or you may not regain consciousness to do so before impact.' Comforting. Parts were even now being cataloged and deemed 'store' or 'dispose' by KSC technicians, and then loaded on the appropriate trucks. Mortimer was itemizing the parts that would be disposed of and calculating the expected remuneration they'd get back. Since the 'complete confidence' lawmaker's briefing, Mortimer's primary job had been complete. He had originally been brought in to ensure that the KSC survived its spartan early funding period, and with the CA decision to divert half of the last year's Air Force space-plane budget to the KSC there would be so much cash that even Gene would be hard pressed to spend them into ruin. That being said, there was no reason it had to be Mortimer sitting here doing part notations in an unheated hanger on a chilly morning. He could have sent his assistant. However Mort was trying to find an answer to a larger question. In-between the technicians jogging up and dropping off slips of paper, Mort was going through the construction and concept documents for the Munex Initiative. The space plane had been born of a desire to ferry cargo frequently to space, and also rationalize the programs co-existence with KSC from a gross horizontal/vertical launch perspective. The Munex Initiative had been born out of a classified briefing given by D-Magic to the CA which highlighted the threat to civilization of asteroid collision. What was most interesting though is that it was not the CA that decided to base asteroid intercepting missiles on the moon, that scheme had been pitched by D-Magic themselves. The more he read the memos though, the less convinced he was that D-Magic really cared about executing the plan. They seemed far more interested in establishing and ensuring frequent travel to Mun. Frequently they passed off design decision making or even suggestion opportunities to the Air Force, but always offered a firm opinion whenever that would support more numerous cartage trips. He was particularly interested in specifics of the plan that they argued most vociferously for, namely radar observatories at both poles. And every time the question had been raised which pole to start at, they had insisted the north... Mortimer paused to gaze across the tarmac to the black car that the D-Magic team had arrived at the admin building in. He suspected they had come to collect the box of documents he was currently sorting through. Funny that, that it was here with him rather than over there waiting to be picked up. "I bet they're disappointed" he thought. A kerb in a dark suit wearing dark glasses turned and gazed across the runway towards the hanger before getting in and being driven off. Mort waved from the shadows of the hanger, then went back to work. 'meanwhile...' Linus walked into Gene's office, where he and Wernher had been having a heated 'heart-to-heart' about his Duna Universal Space Transport. Gene looked up and waited for Linus to speak. "It is just as we suspected Gene." He looked at Wernher with obvious sympathy. Gene didn't say anything, having been already convinced, but Wernher spoke sharply. "Can you truly be sure?!?" Linus nodded. "The sun is entering a stage of significant sun-spot activity, such that the astronomy department predicts there will be no period of quiescence lasting the required 2.2 years for at least a decade. As you both know, our radiation shielding can make a single solar flare survivable, but not two. There is no way to fly to Duna with the current spacecraft." Gene asked, "How many active shields would we need?" "70." Wernher said something undoubtedly foul in Kerman and slumped in his chair. Gene spoke. "Ok, that settles that Linus, thanks. We will need to come up with a new technology solution to fulfill the CA's mandate. I'm sorry Wernher, I know that design has been your baby for far longer than we have had a KSC. It just won't cut the mustard now." Wernher didn't speak, but his attitude seemed be one of begrudging acceptance. "Wernher, we'll need to wait until after Linus' team comes up with a radiation solution before we can enter a new design stage. In the mean-time, that means all our "local body" transport rockets will need to be reworked. We can't take a risk on even a Mun shot now." Both Linus and Wernher appeared demoralized. "Get going guys! Our problems won't fix themselves!" And Gene immediately pulled out a yellow pad and started writing an inter-office memo.

This is why I love this community. Thank you @Snark and All. That was the insight I was hoping for. My plans will now be simpler and more attuned. :] If I don't screw it up I will post it in the results. If i do screw it up, it will appear in my mission report.

Thank you for KSP-TOT, I will look into that. I think my rationale was more time than speed, as I just want to make the journey as short as possible. Burning 40,000 dv in Kerbin orbit to go straight to Valentine (extrasolar planets mod) will take 33,000 years. Going to Neidon to Kerbol to Jool to Valentine would get me there sooner. I would sacrifice 5 years travel on the front end as I dove back in but in the end it would pay off. End (Planet9 mod) is not so far, only ~40 years (i think), so I don't think a super complex trajectory would pay off. It would be going faster at End, but I doubt it would get there sooner due to the sacrificed out-bound time. That's really the question I am puzzling over. At what point does the inbound leg no-longer make sense. I was trying to find that magic "dividing line."

Good evening all, I've a simple (I think) question. I know that if you drop down around Kerbol then your hyperbolic velocity is greater than just burning straight out with the same amount of fuel. I also know that going faster at Periap produces greater velocity, which means dropping from a higher Apoap. So the farther out you go before you drop down, the faster you will exit. However, at a certain point the benefits of dropping down towards Kerbol must be exceeded by the time you've spent traveling out to your Apoap. In an extreme case, if my target was 1,000,000,000 km out, and I rose to an Apoap of 500,000,000 km, it feels like I may as well have invested that energy in launching directly to the target rather than a sun-skim profile. Is there an easy way to determine how far out to egress with a sun-skimming plan before it would just make more sense to launch straight out, or am I missing something basic?

...What if you fired a ballistic rocket from KSC, with no guidance V2 style, and hit it? Different contest I suppose.

"Gahd noh. Eet vould never hahppen. Zat ting cahn barely fly straight andt level." (once every 3-6 months)

De-Orbit... Linus' sim-team had given the go-ahead, so Bill and Bob prepped the ship for the wholly unplanned for event of bringing the Duna Descent Vehicle down on Kerbin. First the DDS was jettisoned on a sub-orbital trajectory to drop into the ocean. Then the craft was prepared for re-entry. It had been determined that it would be possible to pump fuel from the Duna Return Stage into the Landing stage to break re-entry, so the needed valves were prepped and then the craft brought into alignment. As soon as the heat threshold was reached for the folded-away solar arrays, the engines were fired. Now the consumption rate was slightly greater than the pump rate, but re-entry was never-the-less managed without a single part being lost. Every chute was opened, and the engine set to recover the ship in the far highlands. However, at contact it was discovered that the break rate was just a bit too high, and a brief and alarming cascade failure initiated; Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, and nearly 3 million in Funds were recovered. The world was of course disappointed that their greatest ever enterprise was delayed, but all were thankful that the software errors in the fly-by-wire hub were discovered before the crew had left orbit. Work was enthusiastically begun on a final upgrade for the design before the next launch window 2 1/2 years away. In the meantime, there were contracts on the books to mind. Crewed missions would be cancelled pending the completion of Duna, however there exists a simple part test that could be easily accomplished. To test a decoupler on solar orbit, QuickCom was built for the modest sum of 10,000 Funds. Following a Lunar fly-by, the mission was easily accomplished, and the craft later inserted into an inter-Kerbin orbit to potentially support Eve missions. Work at the KSC progressed, though Gene was puzzled to find that the assistant finance officer was taking over the signing-off of expenses, and no-one could identify precisely why Mort was not on campus...

Maybe he's up to something...

25 minutes to Duna Injection Burn... Everyone was seated again in the conference room, and Gene looked directly at Linus for him to take the floor. "We can't do it Gene." Gene harrumphed slightly. "Is it close?" "If we aerobrake low enough to enter orbit, we lose all the primary solar panels. If we aerobrake far enough up to preserve the panels, we can't enter orbit. If the primary solar arrays fail the secondary panels can maintain operations, but only if we shut down 4 of the 8 Active Radiation Shields. However most of that secondary power comes from the Duna Departure Stage, which is designed to remain in Duna orbit as a supplementary relay satellite; they have to decouple it to land. That would leave only bare minimum solar panels for nominal life support, with no active shields." "We can't do the mission as planned. We see 4 options Gene." Gene nodded, "Go on." "One. We refuel the Departure Stage in orbit. We have 2 Lustre's in storage, we could launch 1 in 4 days, rendezvous, dock, pump all the remaining fuel in and still catch the tail end of the departure window. The bad news is that the involved docking ports were never meant to be mated, both are on sloped facings of the capsule leading to a terribly difficult maneuver. And we would have to do it twice with ungainly vehicles not meant to maneuver on RCS." "Two. We send up a Lustre, disembark Bill and Bob, bring them home and build a purpose built refueler to refuel DUST in orbit and delay departure until the next window." "Three. We proceed using the low aerobrake at Duna, then we remain in orbit until 2 days before our departure. If we delay the landing that long, then the crew will only be without radiation protection for roughly 250 days. They could make it; though of course a single solar flare would kill them." "Or, ... four. We reprogram the ship, set all the parachutes on one trigger, leave the departure stage in orbit, and try to land the whole thing on Kerbin, recovering greater than 80% of the whole flight's expense. Then we have access to those funds for another try." Gene tapped his pen several times and then just shook his head. "Wernher, from the outside looking in someone would ask how this ever worked at all!" "Gene, zat is unfair. We completed multiple successful insertions and landings in simulation. No previous iteration has ever had this difficulty. It was wholly unexpected." Gene looked at Linus. He wanted to tell him that the data on how massive the battery change was must have been hogwash, but Linus knew that already, and Gene was sure that in the sim team's final report he would admit that. "Alright. Option 4 is dangerous, but it would mean plenty of time to test it because we'd be under no time crunch. Option 3-" "Bill and Bob both favor option 3 Gene." "Well bully for them but it is still insane. I'm sure the CA would be tickled if Kerbin's heroes came back microwaved and glowing some unwholesome color." "They wouldn't actually be micro-" Gene bounced a swiftly crumpled paper off Linus' nose. "Two makes little sense. If we're not launching for this window, why preserve an imperfect craft. We could recover, redesign and build again. As for One, I seriously doubt our first attempted docking should be with two very large craft not intended to dock with one another, and racing against the clock at that." "No, it is Option 4, or we simply have them return if 4 cannot be proven safe. Questions?" No-one said anything. "Alright. Linus, get to work, prove we can do it. Griff, tell them to skip their departure routines. And tell them not to get any funny ideas. Mort would take it out of their paychecks." Someone chuckled, but no-one would later admit to it. Everyone rose, though Gene exited out to the Admin wing. He needed to get up front with this one, and hopefully the news that most all the Funds would be recouped would soften the blow. Gene arrived outside Mort's door, raised his hand to knock, then paused.

Until someone comes out with a band named The Boosters, could there possibly be a more Kerbal group than; The Struts ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc3XIbUuTMc

I know it is off topic, but remember the thread we had going a couple years ago about fixing science to the heliopause and interstellar space should you reach that far, that would have been a much easier add and nothing ever came of it, despite seemingly a lot of agreement and support. I would love your geology/search for life biome layer though.