Ultimate Steve

Correct. I'll admit I hadn't considered the whole refueling thing, that does make it much easier. However, I'd think that per kg, a dedicated heat shield material is better at dealing with heat then liquid methane. I don't know how much better, though. And past a certain point, I'm guessing that the reduced mass of a dedicated TPS would outweigh the simplicity and other advantages that methane has. The question is, is that point before or after interplanetary trips?

I've seen estimates of the mass of methane required for the reentry phase that vary from 5-nearly 20 tonnes. Still, props are cheap, and the steel apparently has a lower mass than CFC + TPS, anyway. In fact, even 20 tonnes might simply equal a TPS mass, so this might be "free" from a mass standpoint. One concern I have is re-entries that are not from LEO. Are your 5-20 ton estimates for LEO or not? Because if it's 5-20 from LEO it's going to be a whole lot more coming back from the Moon or Mars.

Well, if they are identical then they all have the same exact flaws... So if you take note of the exact way everything goes wrong, eventually you will have a complete list of every error and can modify the rest of the rockets for effectively 100% reliability.

Find 10,000 haters.

It appears to be a giant bowl for a thin, cold, combustible soup, Skipper.

It was a little off, and I had reaction wheels to compensate. In some cases I also thrust limited some of the nuclear engines to help. For those two missions I didn't have to design the craft to carry very many Kerbals or significant cargo, so they were really small and didn't matter that much compared to the size of the mothership. If I had landers the size of yours, I would definitely design them to balance or be mounted in-line. I only bring it up because your landers are so huge. I think I've built an Eve ascent vehicle smaller than your Tylo lander. Not to put down your landers or anything, it's really, REALLY good to have margin on Tylo, especially since you've got that large rover there. Another thing to think about is docking port rigidity. Having three jumbo tanks plus other stuff hanging off of one normal size docking port is not going to be fun, especially mounted 90 degrees to the thrust vector. I'd consider autostrutting the thing once in orbit (quicksaving first!) and/or moving that lander to the top port, and either finding a way to mount the Laythe lander more centrally or maybe docking a liquid fuel tank of equal mass to be used as a drop tank for the ship, dropping it once you reach Laythe.

Apparently, you can blow up Kerbin City. Other than that, it works in 1.6.1 provided you use the patch and have the latest KK installed.

Ooh, when I had mine pulled out they pulled two others out as well (because reasons) so they knocked me out for the operation. I don't remember falling asleep, I had something dramatic to say but I never said it. The stuff acted too quickly. When I became conscious I expected to say some really stupid things, but I remembered that immediately and unfortunately didn't say anything stupid. Except for when I got up to walk. I said "That's one small step for man!" and "I'm Jebediah Kerman!" I don't think I could see without it being blurry for a while, I don't think I could read, or do my Rubik's cube I had brought. I couldn't feel my tongue for several hours, I kept wondering what was getting in the way of my mouth closing and then I realized that it was my tongue! I finally stopped bleeding, but I still couldn't eat solid food. I think the first solid food was 2-3 days after the fact, with a small piece of bread that made my mouth bleed again. Good luck! Let me know if you say anything weird!

Looks good, as far as I can tell. If the staging display is correct, you have 4.4km/s of Delta-V, though... It's about 2km/s for the Jool transfer. We'll assume you manage to capture with a Tylo assist. And the return is about 2km/s depending on what orbit you start from, although a gravity assist could also be useful. And then we assume direct entry at Kerbin. That doesn't leave much for moving around the Jool system. Capture into low Laythe orbit is at best ~800m/s, and Tylo is ~900m/s. That's 3.4km/s right there. IIRC the Bop/Pol numbers look scarier then they are, especially the plane change burn for Bop - timing that for apogee will be decently cheap. I'd recommend 5-6 kilometers per second of Delta-V for moving around Jool. Plus more for the transfers. But really as much as you can fit in that sucker. Although I do realize that as you use up your landers, your craft will become lighter, so factor that in. And go to your heaviest destination first to get rid of your heavy lander.

It was designed for propulsive landing after de-orbit. I think the only design change is not doing the landings, I doubt they would have resized the fuel tanks. Of course I could very well be wrong, so take this with a grain (or mountain) of salt.

Zero 2 Infinity is rated at a 7. So far they have flown a few balloons to 30-ish kilometers, and dropped a model of their rocket from one, igniting a small solid rocket motor, most likely a large off the shelf hobby motor. A 7 is the same level as Phantom Express, and higher than SEA LAUNCH (6) and Astra (5). Astra has launched their orbital rocket in tests (with failures) but has been very secretive. Sea Launch has been inactive for a while but have launched things to orbit in the past, and S7 bought them with the intent to restart service. Copenhagen Suborbitals is rated as a 4, despite having developed several liquid fueled engines, flying several rockets to an altitude of several kilometers, and several other noteworthy achievements.

Am I the only one that doesn't mind too much and still likes the style? As far as aesthetics go it could use something to break up the white in the middle, but it's not terrible.

Yes, but IIRC we don't usually close school for MLK Jr. day. I'll check, though. Nobody has said anything, and I asked someone and he doesn't know.

Now, comes the lottery that is me being able to watch... It is at 9:00 AM CST, which would usually be terrible if I have school, and it's a Monday... However, we're about to be massacred by the biggest winter storm of the year tonight... The question is, will it be enough to cancel or delay school Monday? Probably not, it's only 4-8 inches... But one can hope!

Oh, hey, a launch I can wa- *improv practice* *at school* *with censored internet* ...Never mind.

Laythe lander advice: If you want it to be a reusable SSTO, I think you're headed in the right direction, although I'd rather go in the plane direction (but that's a matter of preference). However, if you are only going to use the lander once, if I were you I'd go with a multistage conventional design, without jets. But I think your current design *might* be able to work. The only way to know is to test it!

Jeez... From SFN: We may get to nearly two years!

The next PSLV launch, currently scheduled for January 24, will use an upgraded version of the PSLV called PSLV-DL. It will have 2 strap on boosters, and will test the use of batteries on the upper stage to make it into a sort of orbital experiment platform. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/pslv-c44-to-launch-kalamsat-microsat-satellite-on-january-24/articleshow/67561125.cms

RIP Moon Cotton. F

I did that for Vall, albeit accidentally, and no objections were raised, so I'm pretty sure you should be fine.

And, finished!

And here is Robinson X - Jool! The final mission!

Robinson IX - Eve. Dun dun dun!