Ultimate Steve

As in 1,750,000 funds or 1,750,000,000,000 funds? I'm guessing the first one.

Alright, then, I was thinking of doing a follow up challenge, but I guess this will do. I'm going to focus on updating the KCSS OP and actually getting the ball rolling for now, but once that's through the rough phase I may join this.

To be fair, Apollo had 2 unmanned Saturn test flights, crew on Apollo 8, a lander test in LLO on Apollo 10, and a landing on Apollo 11, requiring 5 Saturn V rockets for a landing. If we say that technological advancements and heritage tech eliminate the need for one of the 2 test flights, we have 4 SLS flights necessary. The Low Lunar Orbit test can also be taken out if necessary, replaced by extensive ground testing and trusting advancements in technology, along with a LEO test on a commercial Vehicle, like Apollo 5, which used a Saturn IB. This brings us down to 3 Exploration Missions, plus the lander launch mission. Theoretically, though, the lander could also launch on two commercial vehicles, one for the payload and one for a kick stage, but that would bring up the commercially launched Orion argument again, which invalidates SLS, so that may not happen. 4 SLS launches might be on the brink of possibility before 2024, but I wouldn't bet on it sticking.

https://twitter.com/NASA Bridenstine and Pence are currently doing an announcement/talk thing and one of the key points is that they aim to return humans to the lunar surface within 5 years, and another that they are aiming for the first SLS flight in 2020. I can't really watch it right now so I'm not sure about the details, but I'm curious as to how they could accomplish a lunar landing in 2024 with SLS. Assuming optimistically a 2020 EM-1 (unmanned), a 2022 EM-2 (manned flyby or orbit), a 2023 lander, a commercially launched transfer vehicle, and a 2024 EM-3 Orion to transfer the crew to the transfer vehicle in elliptical orbit, to the lander in low orbit, and then carry out the mission from there, then it might be possible, but that would require a flight rate far greater than anticipated, development of a lander from pretty much scratch in 4 years, and not paying attention to Gateway until at least 2025.

Really, I think all that has to be done is just getting a few tons into Eve orbit, which should be simple enough.

Yes, sorry, I'm busy, I did not update the OP, things are much more busy than I expected.

I'm not dead, I just temporarily (probably) lost interest in this save. It happens with a lot of things. I'll work on one thing really intensely for a week or two then drop it in favor of something else. I usually come back a few times, though. I'll probably be back to this eventually, but I can't say when.

Chapter 12

Launches nuke containing football at @qzgy's Jank Station

I apologize for the late updates, the OP should be updated tonight sometime. If not, bug me. Hopefully we can get at least the first part of the station up sometime this week!

You would not believe your eyes If 10 million fireflies spaceships Lit up the world sky as I fell asleep

That's been frequently done. I think someone managed it under 20 tons, using lots and lots of ion engines... I did a similar mission once where I visited the moons of Jool and the moons of another gas giant (modded) in one launch, but with refueling.

To be fair, Eve SSTOs were thought to be impossible in vanilla KSP for the longest time. It was the holy grail. You're not wrong in your line of thinking, you're just a bit late. The question becomes, what is the holy grail now? Jool SSTO?

I'm in high school, junior year currently. Optimistically I want to be an astronaut. Who doesn't? The odds of that are extremely low unless Starship or something similar manages to work, and works well at a low cost. A while back I decided to shrink my expectations (but not my aspirations) and I'm currently looking at becoming an aerospace engineer. There are three problems with that. One, I'm not fully sure I would enjoy it. Two, I have almost no clue where I'm going to go to college for that, and three, I have almost no idea how I'm going to pay for that. I'm looking into scholarships, but the whole college and scholarship rabbit hole is so deep that I get lost very quickly. I exit even more confused than when I entered. And I really don't want to brag, but most of my peers see me as the smartest person in the entire school. If I feel this stressed and confused, I can only imagine what the average person of my generation feels... One of the reasons I'm questioning my job decision is that my hobby work style is "Be extremely interested in one thing for two weeks then lose interest and do something else, abandoning the first thing for a few months, repeat for several hobbies." I'm worried that the same thing would happen for my actual job, and I want my work to be enjoyable. The thing is, I don't want to just be a rocket scientist or astronaut. I also want to be a(n): Artist Writer Tinker/Craftsman/Builder thing Musician Composer Actor Pilot Traveler Gamer Probably several other things I've forgotten about But most of all, I want to be happy, and I'm not sure if doing just one thing over and over again without pause will get me that, but I'm not sure that doing everything will be financially sustainable. So put me down as "Status: Stressed and confused" I guess, or something like it.

I reassembled a few bits of the station I aborted into a few days ago. The historic segment of the station is also intact, but I can't attach it to anything without launching a Jr. sized port or altering the historic section, which I don't want to do. For the time being, the historic segment will still be referred to as "Arkangel Station" while the rebuilt station will be referred to as "Phoenix Station."

Generally, everywhere can benefit from refueling platforms to be used for operations at that body and refueling ships for the return journey, but it's rarely beneficial to stop somewhere along the way to a destination to refuel.

I would recommend refueling equipment at your destination, for operations there and refueling for the return trip, but along the way it would be a bit extra in my opinion. Another thing is waiting for transfer windows... If you went from Jool to Eeloo, the transfer window may only come every several years, which is a lot of waiting even at maximum time warp. As far as Kerbin to Moho... Moho needs a large plane change burn, even moreso than Dres. It's cheaper to do the plane change maneuver closer to solar apoapsis and more expensive to do it near periapsis. The higher your apoapsis, the cheaper the plane change. Starting at Eve would mean a lower apoapsis, which would necessitate a much larger plane change burn, even optimally, which would most likely outweigh any Delta-V benefit from starting at Eve. Usually when going to Moho I completely ignore transfer windows and wait until Kerbin is at Moho's descending or ascending node, so I can do the plane change at apoapsis, then reduce periapsis to Moho's orbit, then reduce Apoapsis so that I get an encounter in 1 or 2 orbits. Don't underestimate Moho. It is probably the most Delta-V intensive planet to get into orbit of.

@M_Rat13 It's an interesting idea, and it's one that would be interesting to play around with. Your ship could indeed be smaller, but perhaps not as much as you might think. Much of the energy required for interplanetary transfers is just the energy spent accelerating out of your starting planet's gravity well. In the case of Kerbin, this would be 1km/s. This plus a bit gets you to Minmus orbit. Now you're currently at 1.3km/s. Getting from there to a Duna transfer can be another 400m/s. Getting into a low Ike orbit is about another 400m/s. Getting from there to a Dres transfer is 1200m/s. Dres is weird. Because it's so small, you need to match velocities with it pretty closely and end up with expensive capture burns. Plus, Dres's orbit is so inclined that you need a lot of Delta-V to match inclinations... Sometimes around 1km/s. Not counting plane changes, it's another 2.3 kilometers per second to get into an elliptical Jool orbit. From there, transfers to the moons range from 1 to 2 kilometers per second of Delta-V, assuming you don't use gravity assists, which are really easy in the Jool system. In fact, you can practically get anywhere for almost free. So, if you use the refueling route, the most Delta-V you will need on a single trip is from Dres to elliptical around Jool, at 2.3 kilometers per second plus the plane change, plus getting to whatever moon you want. To be fair, though, Dres is weird, and all things considered, Ike to elliptical Jool orbit is cheaper, at 2 kilometers per second or lower, assuming optimal trajectories are found.. Over your whole trip, including refueling, you would probably be expending 5.6km/s of Delta-V minimum, maybe up to 8 maximum unless you do something crazy, but you will only need 2 at a time. But, going directly from Low Kerbin Orbit to an elliptical Jool orbit costs about 2.2km/s minus inclination changes, which are usually under 300m/s. Even if you skip Dres, your ship sizes would end up about the same - 2km/s vs 2.2km/s (excluding plane changes). Is saving 200m/s worth all the time spent waiting for transfer windows, the time spent doing rendezvous and docking, and the mass spent on docking equipment? I'm not sure. If you are doing it for fun, then go ahead, I think it's a cool idea, but if you're looking for maximum time efficiency, I wouldn't bother, as the performance hit going directly from Kerbin to Jool is minimal. The same should hold true for going inwards to Moho, I think. TL;DR: From an efficiency standpoint it's slightly better than taking a direct route, but your craft won't end up that much bigger than if you had taken the direct route. If you stop at Dres, which is a bit out of the way, your craft may actually need to be bigger than going directly.

10 minutes left in the window, I think we can safely say it's not happening today.

Absolutely 100% true!

Do the Kerbals need to go to the ocean floor with the goo? If not, do they need to go to Laythe's surface? If not, how far do they need to go?

I'm going to be a senior when this thing lifts off... All this is going so slow and my life seems to be going by so fast... I'm not ready to be an adult yet, but that's just over a year away.

Technically not supposed to help, but most of the docking piers use 1.25m ports, and appear to be oriented towards facilitating transfer vehicles. There currently appears to be a lack of a central 2.5m docking port node. If the station was currently assembled, I could see it looking like one giant long pole... Which isn't necessarily bad, but many modules only have one 2.5m port and as Barzon said,

Yes, screenshots would be appreciated.

Yup, and this goes without saying but plus the cost of the launch vehicle.