Halfdan

sounds solid, but mainsail and vector have ourtrageous fuel consumption, doesnt that inherit the risk of running out of fuel to soon?

hello i am currently working on a heavy lander to take a crew of 20 to the surface of duna (or any other low gravity world for that matter) but i ran into some issues this is ce current design i came up with, it can get of the ground and land again,but the fuel consumption is very high, combined with a thrust that seems rather low, and i highly doubt it will reach orbit if i ditch the monoprop tank and go for quad clustered vernor engines, the result only fares slightly better so i ask for your thoughts and ideas wich engines should i use? LF/ox? nuclear? one big one, or several small ones? should i scrap it all together and start from scratch?

right now for duna docking with a colony ship and bringing down the colonists right now i am not satisfied with the fuel consumption and the thrust

i am currently working on designing a heavy lander for 20 crew still not satisfied with its performance, alltough i am making good progress on the "landing instead of impacting" issue any tips are welcome

just set up my basecamp on duna in a nice ore rich region, now i will start looking for a nice flat spot to set up the colony

i jsut watched the latest episode

continuing on my research for reuseable spacecraft and reduced scrap production for a recovery contract i launched today a modified version of my Koyuz - S(alvage) on the reuseable core stage that i posted yesterday Capsule seperation and boostback burn last meters before landing the Koyuz approaches the target and lands safely after successfull grabbing and crew transfer (water landing wasnt planned but hey it worked and makes for sort of a fun speedboat ) in summary, all that got wasted were the side boosters, and the decoupler on the capsule, all in all i think this is a good design

@eloquentJane thanks cant really say where the payload capacity lies, i came up with the design for a satelite contract, wich was kinda small i will have do do some testing, but with the side boosters i get pretty good performance out of it

i am really getting fond of reusable boosters

what do you mean by "deep space faction"? i suppose you mean living in o`neil style colonies or something of the sort, instead of planetary colonisation, right? if so an o neil colony is an interessting design, but i personally think that mars is in a sense easier to realise since he provides many resources right on the spot like KAL said above furthermore, what about gravity? mars has at least a third of earths, thats more than any asteroid can say and for the matter of radiation, even an o`neil colony would need appropriate shielding, wich in contrast to mars has to be built from scratch with a humongus ammount of material on mars you`d either use a lava tube (if existing) to set up your habitat, or you start digging or covering it in regolith like ESA and Roscosmos propose it for their moon base compared to lifting gods know how many tons of regolith from the moon to an orbital construcion site it seems easyer to use some robot rovers to either dig a hole, or shovel it onto a structure also like you said with water from earh passing objects, in a matter of cost its cheaper to use a robotic rover instead of a complete spacecraft to either mine on the spot or haul the object back to where it is needed

the first colonists boarded the leonov also the buran above launched aboard an improoved booster stage witch is capable of reentry and reuse

since the buran project was a success, and a can now transport bigger ammounts of crew into orbit, i have now launched the first designated colony ship for duna introducing the "Leonov" (in this image still attached to the second stage of its booster) it is powered by eight nerv nuclear engines, and can carry 20 kerbals and up to 4 colony modules to duna and after refueling in ike orbit return to kerbin remotly the small fuel tanks on the surface are what i call "super RCS" it is more or less a bigger version of the monoprop RCS ports, and features 4 vernor engines wich gives the ship a good manouverability for its size aditionally it features two Klaws wich make docking with such a large craft easier

i made the lammelar armor myself, once you geht an idea of it, its kinda easy

just call it europa and attempt no landing there if you get the reference

here i am in my hobby gear

what i am currently thinking about is to switch the poodle for something a bit stronger, the shuttle suffered some serious stall after bleeding too much airspeed, perhaps switching it for a skipper, or designing a specialized version that switches the engine from the center to two radial mounted ones and a senior docking port in the center so it can dock with my space tugs

that are fair points, i will try that with the fairing yeah i used a bit much monopropellant but its really mostly for balancing i thought the four boosters would assist with stability during ascent, the main booster is propelled by 9 vector engines, wich gives it a pretty good punch i believe, but more deltaV is allways nice to have, so i will try to optimize it

I DID IT! I FINALLY DID IT! A SUCESSFULL SHUTTLE DESIGN!!! uuuuh *coughs* excuse my unprofessionality ^^ so today i tested mi desgin for an orbital MK3 shuttle in order to get large amount of crew into orbit to and transfer them onto colony ships the design is called "Buran" but launches more or less like the historic dyna soar was ment to Blastoff! fingers crossed... 150x150 orbit is established, booster core is seperated Docking with an mun transport as target vehicle Time for prayers and flight emergency bags, deorbit and reentry touchdown in kerbins deserts at about 50m/s (yeah i have some trouble with runways.... but jeb and val seem to like it) note for upgrade, attach ladders....

Station is put together and all the equipment is on the ground all thats left now is to is to put the base modules together and start digging up the nuggets!

dont forget to use a rusty one, good exercise for the immune system

well well well.... i have to say, its a pretty decent show, and i like the narative (plus they say the IMSF HQ is in austria wich somewhat appeals to my leftover patriotism ) but some points are really bugging me and i cant imagine occuring them on a real mission but a couple of questions came to my mind while watching:

since the ike fuel plant is up and running, it is time to set up another around minmus in order to refuel ships returning from duna the expedition is comprised of two heavy space tugs wich carry the two ore freighters, the modules for the surface base, and the modules for ore storage and processing if all goes as planned the tugs will enter into minmus orbit and start landing the base modules (wich double as landers for the base crew), the land the ore freighters, and then dock with each other to become the core of the fuel station additional ground equipment like badger class minging rovers, a spaceport marker and assembly movers were deployed beforehand additional ground equipment like badger class minging rovers, a spaceport marker and assembly movers were deployed beforehand

hello fellow kerbonauts! i was wondering if there are any designs for horizontal landers floating out there? or at least tips for constructing one using stock parts, i tried, but the downward facing enginges allways flipped the craft over and rammed it into the ground

pretty much how sattelites and probes in warhammer 40k work

glad you like it the radial ports on top and bottom of the miners are leftovers from their attachment to the skycrane and transfer stage, they dock using their klaw the movers on the other hand are using their docking ports to attach themselves to the base modules and as the name suggests move them into place or dock them to existing structures they are close to the lab because i forgot to drive them to a parking spot the movers in their transfer conficuration (carried by a nuclear propelled stage) are both docked to this part: it makes mounting the movers on the booster easyer, and after landing and finding a suitable location for a base, it makes a handy marker for a dedicated spaceport (i use mechjeb so my ships can lock onto it for landing guidance)