sevenperforce

The solution would be a return to the Constellation architecture. SLS Block 2 (or at least 1B) to send a lander/cargo and TLI stage to LEO; separate vehicle for crew and Orion. Here, FH for Orion. Easy. And FHb5e can send Orion just past GTO, but that's far enough for Orion's SM to complete the TLI and still have enough dV to brake into a DRHO or DRO and return. Not that we need that. Sniped.

Yes. If you use Pro Pilot, ISRU will not be possible. Remember that all the bonuses are optional; it will not be possible to score on all the bonuses. Pink Panther and Water Park are mutually exclusive; Pro Pilot and Contingency are mutually exclusive; Express Service precludes ISRU. This is by design. There is no "perfect way" to complete this mission; I want everyone to come at it with their own angle. Not a rule; just a bonus. If you want to use command seats, then Keiger Kounter is off the table. I may still need to rebalance but that's the trick. Contingency would work just as well with a team of three. It was just an interesting possible bonus because it reflects real-world designs a little more closely than usual KSP fare. There is still a single part capable od accommodating 4; any more would be overkill. Well I want to balance it as well as I can. Should I go to a three-tiered bonus system with amateur, pro, and expert? Also I have edited out autopilot restrictions on special request.

Put a mass limit on it for sure.

To be fair, that was already true of FH B3/4.

Made the changes.

Hot damn. What does he mean by MR 2?

Going to come right out and say that this isn't much of a challenge...returning ten Kerbals from Eve isn't hard if you brute-force it. If there was scoring, or other constraints, or a more stringent definition of "colony" then it might prove more enticing.

Good catch -- fixed that! Maybe two classes of bonuses then? What does everyone else think? 0-0 means zero-altitude, zero-velocity. In other words, your LES will successfully abort and pull your crew away from an RUD even if the vehicle hasn't started moving yet. Obviously needs the same later in flight too. I will update to clarify that it applies to Kerballed landings. You could land a rover and a separate EAV on chutes, for example, and then pilot your winged lander in to match location, earning Bird of Prey, Pink Panther, and Contingency all at once. I thought about this; was unsure how to address. Do you think it's fine to just use the honor system on this: e.g., "Please don't just add dummy weight"? You can pre-place relays anywhere you want using the debug menu; I'm not really worried about it. And you assume correctly. At least four Kerbals must go, and all must come home.

I intentionally avoided any incentive to do fewer than 6 launches because I want everyone to take maximum advantage of orbital assembly. If there was a reward for doing fewer than six launches then it would end up reducing to every other Eve challenge. Your score depends on your largest individual payload, not on the sum total of payload mass (other than the Slim Pickings bonus) and so there is no difference between 4 launches and 6 launches. Regarding the wolfhound...I honestly just don't like it and I think it's OP. Better to exclude it altogether than to try and find an excuse to lump it in with Keiger Kounter or something.

A would-be planet has not cleared its orbit if there are other bodies sharing the same orbital neighborhood which are not dominated by its gravity. Trojans and moons are constrained by the gravity of the primary. [snip] You suggest your own assumptions without proving the correctness of these assumptions. This approach creates an cognition bubble that can not be left out, and if you reject all scientific trends that contradict your initial assumptions, you will not be able to see where you are making a mistake. I imagine you do not realize that the entire concept of calculable uncertainty leaves your riposte uncomfortably dull. I do not particularly like the planetary discriminant or the agreed definition of a planet. But it does work for these purposes. A body is either large enough to dominate its orbital neighborhood in geologic time, or it is not. Jupiter is. Pluto is not. If Earth was positioned at the same distance as Eris then it would no longer be large enough to dominate its orbital neighborhood in geologic time, and thus would not be considered a planet, which is why I do not like the current agreed definition of a planet, but that is another topic altogether. Ditto.

In the flat disc Earth theory thread, we were talking about standards of proof and evidence in the past. Saw this and it reminded me of that conversation. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-find-fossilized-fish-that-may-have-been-blas-1833671176 The hypothesis is an asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. The evidence is a layer of glass spherules with an iridium-enriched layer of debris and dust above it. The smoking gun: freshwater and saltwater fish buried together who inhaled glass spherules as they died. So fascinating!!!

One of the worst films of all time... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183620/videoplayer/vi3282960665?ref_=tt_ov_vi I think fully 40% of the budget for this film was the gasoline they used to detonate buildings, vehicles...everything they could.

NOTE: THIS CHALLENGE IS NOW LIVE! The "Purple Star" has long been the greatest foil and challenge in the Kerbol system, and the Kerbal Kongress has ordered KSP to make a Kerballed landing its top priority. However, after decades of delays and setbacks suffered by the Really Large Rocket (RLR) intended to lift crew and cargo together, KSP must now turn to existing, commercial rockets to execute this directive. To reduce complexity, they will use up to six launches to assemble an Eve spacecraft in low Kerbin orbit, then launch for Eve at the next transfer window. To keep mission costs low, they will attempt to reduce the mass of each individual payload as far as is practicable. To that end... My most successful challenge to date was Road to Duna: No Moar Boosters, which was actually picked up as a KSP subreddit challenge and got tons of entries. Now we turn our gaze to the Mother of all Planets: Eve. Using up to six launches, take at least four Kerbals to the surface of Eve and return them safely back to Kerbin. You may use any mission configuration you like, including sending portions of your spacecraft to Eve orbit ahead of time. There is no time limit. Your score will be based on the mass of your largest launch payload, just as with the earlier challenge; if you only use five launches and your payload masses are 4, 10, 16, 18, and 33 tonnes, then your score is 33 just as if you had launched six payloads that were all exactly 33 tonnes. As before, there will be multipliers to help you lower your score. First, a few ground rules: You must actually take four Kerbals to Eve and they must all EVA on the surface of Eve and then on the surface of Kerbin. Plan for ladders accordingly. Your landing party cannot wait for the vehicle to be assembled; they must be sent up in the last launch. If your main crew capsule is lofted early in the orbital assembly process, then you must reserve the sixth launch for crew ascent and transfer. Your Kerbals must be protected during any transfer across an SOI. They can ride to Eve's surface and back in a seat, or experience Kerbin re-entry in a seat, but they cannot cross between SOIs while in a command seat. Ions can be used to adjust orbits when executing a rendezvous between two vehicles in the same SOI, but they cannot be used to provide dV for injection or insertion burns. The Kerbals cannot wait around endlessly for ISRU. Drilling for ore, if you do it, must be complete before your landing crew launches. Ore refining is okay, though, so you can structure your mission around that if you like. You cannot transfer fuel out of your launch vehicle and count it as payload. If one (or more) of your launches is a propellant transfer mission, you must loft an actual tank, and the entire tank counts as your payload for that launch, even if it is discarded before the transfer burn to Eve. Your launch vehicles can perform rendezvous and docking in LKO below 200 km only. I don't want people assembling in high orbit to squeeze more dV out of the launch vehicles. A little clipping is fine for structural or aesthetic reasons, or to squeeze something 2% more closely. Just don't abuse it. If you find yourself cramming 43 Oscar-Bs into a small fairing or clipping engines wholly inside other engines, that's a bit much. You can use any parts, including modded parts, for your launch vehicle, but only stock and DLC parts are permitted as part of your payload. You are also not allowed to use the accursed Wolfhound. You can use any visual/planning mods you like. I don't particularly like autopilot but I won't make a big deal out of it. Now, for the optional bonuses that will help you to lower your score and rise to the top! Amateur Bonuses. Get your feet wet...so to speak. Pink Panther. Send a powered rover that will let your Kerbals move around on the surface of Eve. Tilt-A-Whirl. Launch from the Woomerang launch site rather than the KSC, matching and assembling in the inclined orbit. If you do not have the DLC, you can also launch from KSC into an orbit that is more than 40 degrees inclined. Ares I. Launch your crew with a working, demonstrated 0-0 launch escape/abort system. The LES will count as part of your payload even if it is jettisoned before reaching orbit. Bird of Prey. Your crew executes a winged, rolling landing on both Eve and Kerbin. Home Sweet Home. Land within eyesight of the KSC. Pro Bonuses. Not for the faint of heart. Beach Bum. Land and launch from an Eve altitude below 1500 m. Keiger Kounter. Reduce radiation damage to your kerbals: don't use nukes, ions, or RTGs on craft carrying crew. Room To Move. Ensure that your Kerbals have at least three seats each during any transfers across SOIs. Command seats are not allowed at any point. Kerbals may not ride in inflatable airlocks in-atmosphere. Pro Pilot. Use no probe cores on any part of any payload. Beyond LKO, all craft movements must be controlled by pilots. You cannot use command seats at any point. Express Service. Execute only a single transfer to Eve and do not cross any SOIs other than Kerbin, Eve, and Kerbol. Elite Bonuses. You're crazy if you try it! Water Park. Splashdown and return from Eve's oceans without touching land. Contingency. Land a backup ascent vehicle on Eve before committing to kerballed landing, land within walking distance, and then split your Kerbals between the two ascent vehicles for return to Eve orbit. Alternately, you can ascend in one vehicle, abort mid-flight, land safely, and then complete the ascent from the backup. Utter Insanity. Perform a direct ascent from Eve's surface all the way to Kerbin without any further docking. Don't Chute! Do not use any parachutes at any point in the mission. Each amateur bonus reduces your score by 5%, each pro bonus reduces your score by 10%, and each elite bonus reduces your score by 15%. Bonuses follow a straightforward reciprocal multiplication, so your score is calculated as M(0.95)a(0.90)p(0.85)e, where M is the mass of your largest payload, a is the number of amateur bonuses you've been awarded, p is the number of pro bonuses you've been awarded, and e is the number of elite bonuses you've been awarded. You can combine as many bonuses as you are able to combine but some are obviously mutually exclusive. Anyone who successfully completes the mission will earn a personalized mission badge...and trust me, my personalized mission badges are epic. You can also earn badge ribbons as follows: Speed Demon. Have the submission with the lowest mission elapsed time of any submission. Slim Pickings. Have the submission with the lowest sum-total payload mass of any submission. Great Equalizer. Have the submission with the smallest difference between your heaviest payload and your lightest payload. Gunslinger. Submit the very first submission. Other than bragging rights, badge ribbons also bump you above the next person above you on the leaderboard, provided the person above you has none. Leaderboards: Thanks to everyone who added comments and ideas to help refine the challenge. I was originally going to keep this mission in the planning phase until 1 PM today, but I am starting it early, at 11:30 EST on April 2, 2019. The officially-scored portion of the challenge will remain open until midnight EST on May 2, 2019 unless extensions are requested. Fly safe!

They are not stable, because Jupiter is cleaning its orbit before our eyes. Another way of putting it: Jupiter dominates its orbit because it controls the orbits of those objects, whether they are coming or going. The giant impact between Earth and Theia happened a LONG time ago. Unbelievably long ago. Earth's entire surface has been reworked multiple times since then. Continents have been taken apart and rebuilt and taken apart over and over. The formation of a mountain or volcano or anything else may seem slow, but it is blindingly fast compared to the amount of time that has elapsed since the formation of the Moon.

You can, if you can go back and see that the tracks from the first 90 match the tracks from the first 10. Even if the tracks are broken and intermittent, you can still put a number on your effective certainty. You only start to get into trouble if you are talking about 3' of tracks at the 20 mile point and 1.4' of tracks at the 60 mile point and no actual tracks during the last 10 but you're matching to the tires which were once on a car that was similar and so......you see the point? [snip] In the above example, we can say "We have matching tracks running across 20% of the path; we have analyzed track-producing systems and we can say we have 88% certainty that only one vehicle produced this track. If we discover matching tracks totaling 30% of the path, our certainty will rise to 95%. If we find parallel matching tracks at any point, then we know there was another vehicle involved and our certainty drops to 0%." That is what the result of science looks like. Our certainty about the past behavior of the moon comes from the exquisitely detailed records we are able to extract from ancient fossil records, particularly corals. Coral growths are able to show things as specific as the height and frequency of tides, interlinked with day-length cycles, insolation angles, ocean oxygenation, and many many other things. These are all buttressed by other fossil records like sedimentary layers and benthic foramins. We cross-reference this data with ice cores and tree ring samples and speleotherms. Even though any one of these might only be able to provide 60-70% certainty, their combination (and agreement) provides overwhelming certainty (>> 99.99%) for the history of the Earth-Moon system.

As space news go, this is pretty darn cool.... https://bgr.com/2019/03/28/spinning-asteroid-debris-6478-gault/ Because the asteroid is uneven in size, it is heated unevenly and its blackbody radiation pressure makes it act like a propeller. Its centrifugal forces are equal to its gravitational forces and so it is ripping itself apart. This is the Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-0Radzievskii-Paddack effect (helpfully compressed to YORP) which was discovered in the 1970s.

My SSTO has TWR << 1 on LFO when full, but after I burned off the majority of my props it was easy.

Very nice! I solved the same problem a little differently. After the splashdown and associated mission, I burned off a bunch of my fuel heading back toward land, so that my CoM could be shifted around. I pushed all my LFO to the nose to help me get the front canards underwater, then went as far down (and as fast) as my RAPIERs would push me. Then, I then transferred some of the LFO back to the back so that it would help me kick the nose up, and I did a "breaching whale" jump with a Closed-Cycle burst from the RAPIERs. Got me going high and fast enough to stay in the air, and it was a quick trip back to land.

When the giant impact took place, the crusts of proto-Earth and Theia were mixed to such a degree that they became undifferentiated. The core of Theia merged with the core of proto-Earth. Our moon formed rather rapidly from the debris cloud and has very little core to speak of. We know without question that the Moon has been receding since its formation. This is observable.

That particular approach would lead to people heaping on the xenon so that they have enough dV to land spent stages on Tylo, just for the sake of landing more mass. Not necessarily a bad thing, but eventually such challenges become "who is patient enough to do 300 periapsis kicks" which gets rather boring. Price is a cool way to do it, because it forces mass optimizations, but it does tend to push people to a pancake-stage approach. The best approach, I think is to have people optimize the DRY mass of their Eve liftoff vehicle, which tends to level things out. If you want, then you can add few modifiers that each reduce the dry mass score by 10%. Like, "Direct flight from Eve to Tylo" or "No gravity assists" or "No periapsis kicks" or "No xenon" or even "No nukes".

No, the goal would be ZBO. Your condenser is going to take gas from a reservoir, cool it with a heat exchanger and radiators, and then dump it into the prop tank. Boiloff from the prop tank would simply be vented back into the gas reservoir. This reference study specifies that while Qref/QHL (refrigeration power divided by heat leak) may be less than 1 for certain expendable propellant depots or prop delivery systems, any system capable of cracking H2O into props would necessarily need to have Qref/QHL > 1. The bottleneck would be how long it takes to condense the gaseous props. If that process is too slow, then you need more radiators. But boiloff per se is just venting back into the electrolysis chamber; nothing is lost.

Water electrolysis cannot be done at cryogenic temperatures, so you will need to use a rather large radiator array in order to cool GOX and H2 gas into liquids. Since you need radiators anyway, just use them to control boiloff. Voila.

I am not sure that doing this is any better than Duna Orbit Rendezvous with the Dawn and ions waiting up there.

I have an SSTO that can do the round-trip without losing any parts. 78,813 kerbucks. Mines its own fuel from the runway so there's no recovery penalty at all.

Deep cryo is only necessary for launch, really.