Ultimate Steve

It's fairly simple to connect things once they are on the surface, as long as the docking ports are at the same height. You just have to hop progressively closer. I would do assembly on the surface if I were you. However I do realize that not everyone is as skilled as me. Put me down for the science base. I may do one more, but I haven';t decided what it will be, yet. @Rocket_man1234 Is that docking port height the same as one of the standards I proposed, or is that a completely new one? 11.51 tons without the launch escape system, 13.215 tons with. It can return to Kerbin without refueling.

Thank you and alright!

After I have uploaded an image to imgur, what I usually do is right click on the image, click "copy image," and then ctrl+v it into the forum. Also, the current plan specifies 15 "turns" and 14 launches. Taking the 14 number leaves us with an average cost per launch of 125k, so don't exceed that by too much! It's okay that some go over, but try to keep it inexpensive.

https://kerbalx.com/UltimateSteve/Serenity-Lunar-Lander-II Here is the Serenity Lunar Lander. It launches on a Katurn III, and can ferry 3 people to and from the Munar surface, or probably Minmus as well, although that hasn't been tested and that is outside this challenge's scope. It features a ladder, a probe core, solar panels, an antenna, a battery, and docking capability, although RCS should be used sparingly, using the main engine for as long as possible in the rendezvous. While many of these capabilities are not mission requirements, you never know when you may need capabilities like these. When flown near optimally, while also hovering and changing course for a while, simulating a precision landing, the Serenity had 479m/s remaining at the end of its mission. When the mission was flown like an idiot, if you started flying smartly near lunar landing and ascent you could still make it home, but I crashed it before that could happen and I hadn't saved. The only action group is abort, which is backspace. The launch escape system should be jettisoned towards the end of the first stage burn assuming an efficient gravity turn. The fairing should be jettisoned in the upper atmosphere, around 50km. Cost is 67,540 plus a custom fairing to allow for safe abort of the crew, bringing the total cost to 80,040 funds to transfer three crew members. At this point I must say once more that I disagree with the idea that the crew descent and ascent vehicle must be separate, as a return vehicle has to get there in the first place, so it might as well carry crew. However, as these are the rules, I'm considering modifying the Serenity to stick on a lighter rocket to serve as just a descent vehicle if needed. Afterwards, it could be tipped over, with different legs on board, to be docked to the rest of the base as a permanent module. But that's far off, if ever. So, I don't know which crew transfer I will choose, but this can do any of them. If it's chosen for a return vehicle, then the fairing can be set back to default, the LES can be removed, and the cost can be reduced. Also, as far as docking port standards go: I have two options. Both of them are based off of the inherent length of the landing legs and cannot be messed up if you stick the legs at the proper angle. The reference angle should be the horizontal modules and not the vertical module, you will need to build a horizontal module to be the guide for the vertical module in construction. Another good thing about these standards is that they are diameter independent. If you used 1.25m parts instead of 2.5m parts, but used the same landing legs, the docking port height would be the same. The same goes for trusses, provided you make sure to attach to the middle, which can be done easily if you leave angle snap on. So, now it's up to y'all. Large legs or normal sized ones? The large ones have the advantage of being stronger and can just barely touch the ground when mounted on 3.75m parts, although it's not recommended. We won't be using parts that large, however, I believe. Another advantage is the increased ground clearance. If I remember correctly, with 2.5m parts, Kerbals can walk under them. Cons, they are heavier and harder to fit in fairings. The normal ones don't have as much ground clearance or strength, but are lighter and easier to fit in fairings. I'd recommend this option because I've had bad experiences with the large legs and fairings. They tend to stick out, even when retracted if you mount modules sideways. Especially because of the extra expense of custom fairings, fairing footprint should be kept to a minimum here, I believe. I also think we should use 1.25m ports and not 2.5m ports in case someone builds a 1.25m module. It is possible that we could use a mixture, but that would require a lot of coordination. Edit: Rounding to the 52k cost for the lifter stated in the OP increases the cost to 80,362 funds per launch, or about 26.8k per crewmember.

It's already been reduced, it was previously 30k.

So does the LES requirement mean that each crewed vehicle realistically needs its own fairing, necessitating an extra 12.5k cost for each crewed mission? I don't believe you can safely abort from a fairing. Maybe in KSP, but certainly not in real life. If so, that's fine, I'm just checking.

Egad, that's 12.6-7km/s of Delta-V if they can get the mass that low! But with the sats, it may be quite a bit more mass.

Is that on a standard Hohmann transfer orbit? If so, I'd imagine that they'd sacrifice payload capacity for speed in the case of Pluto.

I'm home but I can't show the docking standard because I have to go soon. If we're doing docking. I'd prefer to, but I know that landing stuff near other stuff is a skill that not everyone possesses.

I'd like to propose an easy to use standard, but I'm not at home right now so I'll explain when I get home. Many people use this standard, it's based off of the height of a landing leg and is consistent no matter what diameter part you use. I've also been working on a crew transfer vehicle which can be used either way.

I love the fact that we can get up close audio from Electron. It sounds more rocket-y than the other rockets. Maybe it's because Electron is smaller and therefore quieter than many other rockets, and because of that they can put the microphone closer. That close on a large rocket would mean that the audio would clip (soundwaves so powerful that the trough of the pressure wave would be a vacuum) and overwhelm the microphones... The closer microphone would mean a less muffled rocket sound or something like that, meaning we get a more authentic rocket-y sound. I'm mostly just spitballing here, I may be wrong. In fact, I probably am. Maybe Electron just is a cool sounding rocket and they have good mics, and it's not related to size. Still, it sounds awesome. Also, we got an awesome view of the rocket ascending through the clouds. That might have been part of the reason why this launch felt so "real" to me... This one really resonated. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't seen a launch in a while, maybe it was the way the music synchronized with the launch, maybe it's the sound, maybe it's the clouds providing a sense of scale to Electron's climb to orbit... Maybe it's all of those. I really enjoyed this launch.

The problem is not that YouTube is blocked - it isn't, and we can watch most videos - the problem is that restricted mode is enabled, which means that most livestreams are blocked. NASA TV is usually okay, but that's the only one I've found.

Do you know what the approximate timelines for flights 11 and 12 are? Any paperwork on that? I get the impression that you don't, but if you do that would be great.

Ah, okay, never mind then. But the first crewed flight might happen around that time, still... If their newest booster, tail 4, flies a test flight on 11, most likely another cargo flight on tail 3 does flight 12. Flight 13 would probably be of tail 4 again, which would probably be another unmanned test, but maybe not... That puts the first crew anywhere from 13 to 17, I'd say, if they continue alternating tail 3 and 4. TBH I'd probably trust New Shepard enough that I would fly on the very next flight, even if it's tail 3. They have demonstrated safety a lot, with 10 flights that were (unless they're not disclosing a failure) survivable. They have done a parachute out test, an abort test, and a maximum altitude re-entry test. While, admittedly, this is not the final version of the crew capsule, Dragon 2 and Starliner are only doing one unmanned test, Orion 1 and a half, and Virgin Galactic zero. While they want to be cautious, I think they could reasonably go for crew in the coming months.

If they have filed for 13 but not 11 and 12, would that imply that flight 13 will be more significant than the others? Maybe the first crewed flight?

If you're still interested in doing something, one of the participants in this challenge has created a similar, simplified version of this challenge, but for a Mun base. It should be somewhere on the first page of the challenges section.

Sorry I've been so busy, but we do already have 2 crew vehicles and 2 cargo vehicles, I believe. One of the constraints for this challenge is that each payload must ride on one of the existing launch vehicles, so that pretty much means no shuttle. The Dragon looks to have many aesthetic parts and doesn't look to be too cost effective, which is a major consideration for this challenge. Not to diss your craft, though. Both of them look insanely cool! I think that's one of the best, if not the best stock Dragon 2 rendition I've ever seen. And the shuttle with the robotic arm, how did you manage that? Your craft look amazing, but I don't think they are quite right for this challenge. If you haven't, though, I would post them in the spacecraft exchange, they look cool!

No, I don't think the final stage mattered, but you did forget to activate the brakes, which include the control surface deploys at the back and the few airbrakes on the vehicle, that's probably it.

Hehe. I managed to stop it on the runway during testing. I usually started the braking motor slightly before the finish, I think. Glad I survived though! Oh, I see - I believe you forgot to trigger the brakes. The airbrakes and control surfaces play a huge role in stopping the vehicle.

Everyone's eyes now have very powerful telescopes in them, and you can see Jupiter's moons. Unfortunately the zoom level is not adjustable.

Also, how high is the LKO? 70km? 100? 120?

A few questions: Is the limit one launch per person? I notice that the landers and the crew return vehicles are separate. Is there a reason for this? I believe it would be simpler to land and return the crew in the same vehicle, with maybe an emergency escape vehicle in there. Not a question but there are a few grammatical errors in the OP. I'm seeing "KLS IS man rated" on vehicles that are not the KLS. Have you test flown the vehicles with maximum payload? Any chance we could get max payload numbers for Trans-Munar injection? I'd imagine that it would be stock parts and no DLC, but that is not said in the OP, I think you might want to change that. Also, custom fairings at 30k? That's quite a bit. Does that mean that every crew vehicle is 30k more for needing either none or a custom fairing? Also, any restrictions on launch escape systems and such? Any safety guidelines for the crew vehicles? Maybe they could fit in the fairings if it didn't need an LES.

First off, this is assuming all of the proposed modules launch, which not all of them will. Second of all, this includes the lifters for the test flights of the crew and cargo vehicles, minus the SSTO, as that doesn't need a lifter. Also, I goofed. There is no reason to use the Z-1 besides a grounding, as it is more expensive and less capable than Lyra. One Kerbal XM, 77k Two Muon 6's, 66k Four Lyras, 60k Seven Sky IIIs, 301k (!) Zero Z-1s, 0k One Sky IIIA, 47k, for the DreamChaser. Note, I mentally switched the CRV from a Sky IIIA to a Sky III as with good enough piloting, it should be able to reach orbit as it is only 0.3-ish tons over weight. If not, it can use its engines. Plus 15k for Sky IIIA Development Plus 30k for Sky III Man Rating Plus 30k for three custom fairings Plus the launch costs for 2 science modules, assuming two Muon 6's that's an additional 66k Is a total of 692,000 funds. Dreamchaser is 25k in expendable cost plus (48/3) 16k in cost with reusability for a total of 41k per flight without the launch vehicle. I recommend switching the vernors for RCS as vernors are really expensive. Also, the solar panels on Dreamchaser currently outpower the rest of the station if I am estimating correctly. It has 7 seats. The fuel tug is about 18k and can take up to 8 tons of cargo to the station if fuel is cargo, but actually a bit less because it needs some of that fuel to rendezvous and dock, so maybe 6-ish tons? 7? 5? According to the spreadsheet, Wisp is 22k per launch. I believe it has 6 seats. The other cargo vehicle, the GRA C-1000 can take 1.2 tons of cargo up on a Muon 6 (which it is currently listed on) but more if it's on a heavier launch vehicle. It has some RCS fuel on board, though, that can also count as cargo, so it might get an extra 3 tons from that, although some of it will have to be used for docking, so maybe 1-2 tons. It is reusable, so rounding up, 5k per flight. The vehicle test flights are 86k. The fully assembled station (with 3 hab modules, the spinny one, the tourist one, and the cheaper of the two rover designs, just one of the docking nodes, and the minimum science equipment) comes out to 283,000 if I am not mistaken. The total, launch vehicles, test flights, and station hardware is currently sitting at 1,061,000 funds. This is against the budget of 600,000 funds. If my math is correct, cost needs to be reduced by ~43.45%. I think some optimization is definitely needed. If you cannot make it work I will help you out, but do not rely on that potential bailout. I may update the spreadsheet later, but I'm all mathed out and I still have calculus homework to do. Best of luck, guys! The station is looking way bigger than I thought it would ever get, and the cost is rising proportionally. The challenge I created assumed a much lower user turnout. So, again, don't rely on the bailout, but one is probably coming assuming you make an effort to reduce cost. Hey, at least it isn't as over budget as the JWST!

So, I did a test assembly. THIS IS NOT THE LAYOUT YOU HAVE TO USE, BUT YOU SHOULD PLAN A LAYOUT. DO NOT BLINDLY ACCEPT THIS, THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE AND NOT INSTRUCTIONS OR A PLAN. Some of you are probably looking at that 400k price tag and are feeling quite alarmed. Slow down a minute, I'll explain. The base price of all of the modules that have been sent in is 250k. I added in the bare minimum of parts required to meet the science and power requirements (2 labs, only 1 is necessary but 2 appear to be planned, instruments, and solar panels) and that was about another 50k. The visiting transfer vehicles were another 100k although 2/3 of them are reusable so the actual cost is lower. I am, however, missing the SSTO, so that needs to be factored in. In reality the station cost is ~250k, I'll get into launch vehicles in a minute. WHAT FOLLOWS IS NOT YOUR PLAN IT IS ME MESSING AROUND DO NOT ADOPT THIS AS YOUR PLAN MAKE YOUR OWN PLAN AND IF YOU COME UP WITH THE SAME THING THEN THAT'S FINE BUT MAKE AN EFFORT TO TALK IT OUT I made three major changes while experimenting around. Remove the central EVA module as there are two of them, the other one is cheaper, and @Johnster_Space_Program has proposed three modules, so removing the EVA module would bring him under the limit. Removed the science greebles from the second EVA module and shifted all of the science experiments to the science module (might not work as the mass limit on the lifter might be reached) Switched out the 10 docking port node for the 6 port one (2.5m-1.25m) to save cost, and so that the angled docking ports wouldn't be troublesome to dock with or interfere with the station Removed one of the hab modules. Currently, there are three, Rover's, at 30k and 12 seats, the tourist one by swjr-swis, 18k and 17 seats, and the spinning module, 49k and 43 seats (!). There is also the core with 8 seats, the return vehicle with 5 seats (might not count?), the EVA module with 1 seat (also might not count) and the cupola with another one seat. This brings the station's total capacity to at least 79 and I'm probably forgetting something. If we have four researchers on board, that's 71 seats left, which equates to 17.75 tourists (rounding up to 18) which means a total crew of 22. That's four crew vehicles worth of crew. You would be lucky to have 4 open normal size docking ports without another docking node, so one of the modules should go, I'll leave the decision to you. There are three Cupolas on the station, only one is needed, although in my test assembly I only got rid of one. I'm not going to post the picture of my altered design, but it's around 300k funds with transfer vehicles, 215k without. I'll do launch vehicle math in a bit. I guess that's correct. I never specified an amount of solar panels, but the design above is alarmingly short on them. I managed to use only one docking pier in both of my test designs, but I had to get creative and alter one or two docking port sizes on the modules. Also 565 Parts Not everyone has a beast PC, and this number may be trimmed, and it's with 3/4 visiting craft, but trimming part count will also trim cost in most cases, so if some modules are going to be redesigned, it would be best if they are part count conscious. I'll be back with lifter math.

List of craft not in the KerbalX hangar (I can't add them myself because of reposting rules but some have links): @Barzon Kerman's CRV https://kerbalx.com/BarzonKerman/CRV Either of the builds of @Rover 6428's hab module https://www.dropbox.com/s/8v4n0fvlygy8imv/Rover6428-HabModule.craft?dl=0 by @swjr-swis or https://www.dropbox.com/s/pa2o79434brtfih/Rover 6428 Hab Module.craft?dl=0 by @Johnster_Space_Program @fulgur's Wisp SSTO (no link found) @Barzon Kerman's airlock https://kerbalx.com/BarzonKerman/Airlock @swjr-swis's habitation module design https://www.dropbox.com/s/hts7cysi7ikqv6z/Rover6428-HabModule1.craft?dl=0 which currently has the DLC RCS tanks. Also, @swjr-swis are you planning on participating or just putting the module out there for us to use? Either way it would be great if you could remove the tanks, but I can do that if you want me to. @swjr-swis's Cupola/Habitation/Tourist module https://www.dropbox.com/s/s9rufm1yi1fuf3q/Rover6428-TouristModule1.craft?dl=0 @MiscelanousItem's rotating habitation module https://kerbalx.com/MiscalanousItem/Spinner-2-ELHM If your craft is in this list, it would be appreciated if you could add it to the hangar, but it's not completely necessary. Also I may have missed a few. And in the KerbalX hangar (https://kerbalx.com/hangars/60757): @Ultimate Steve's lifters @VA7NFH's core module @Johnster_Space_Program's fuel tug @Johnster_Space_Program's Cupola module @Johnster_Space_Program's EVA module @Johnster_Space_Program's Science Package @Alienwall's cargo vehicle @Alienwall's RCS tug @Alienwall's docking piers @Barzon Kerman's Dreamchaser I'm going to do a test build of the station if I can, but there is one ting I'm noticing. Rover 6428, you have the science modules (2 of them IIRC) on the launch manifest as your design, but IIRC you are not back from your trip yet and the science modules aren't designed. This is probably one of the last things required for the design phase to be complete, without it the station doesn't fulfill its requirements. There are a few other requirements I'm concerned about, though: Be able to generate significant amounts of power I haven't assembled the station yet and I may be wrong but I don't recall seeing many solar panels. I'll look through it, though. Those could either be mounted to an existing module or perhaps on the upcoming science modules if nothing has them yet. Be able to change its orbit a bit I suppose RCS would be alright, and I suppose making the station mostly balanced and docking a fuel tug to the back would also work. Have the materials bay, goo, thermometer, barometer, gravioli detector, seismometer, surface scanner, atmosphere sensor, sentinel telescope, and narrow band scanner on board. The cheap science module has the goo, thermometer, barometer, and materials bay. That leaves the gravioli detector, surface scanner, atmosphere sensor, seismometer, sentinel telescope, and narrow band scanner, which are somewhat expensive pieces of equipment that are necessary. I would suggest modification of the science package. I said I wouldn't help much, but I'll do an assembly of the station and an initial price calculation to speed things along. I would much rather help a bit to prevent loss of interest than see the challenge die out. All these critiques aside, you're all doing great, and now all the crafts are in one place! OP has been updated.