ralanboyle

I can't leave @camacju all by himself on the leaderboard so I threw together a run with a ship I already had. It isn't optimized yet but it got the job done in 11:14 with 7 pod seats. Launch cost divided by 7 is 16,354. Fuel cost per seat is 839.

I agree with all of this, though I think pure rockets may be faster. I'll make the changes. I'm also going to make it acceptable to fly the course in reverse so it is easier for people who are better at spotting KSC.

Starship Intraplanetary Transport System You nerds will remember a few years ago when SpaceX announced a plan to huck a hundred customers across the world in half an hour. They said they would do it with a fully reusable VTOL ship. They haven’t done it yet: Can you? Your ship will have seats, launch vertically from KSP, and land vertically at the Desert Airfield. The ship is fully reusable, so what goes up must come down, intact. It is also acceptable to run the course in reverse. Precision will be difficult to measure, so let’s just say the Desert Airfield buildings need to be in reasonable view. Superlatives and Awards: There & Back- Return to KSC on the same tank of fuel. @camacju @ralanboyle Sniper- Land on the DA Launch Pad. @18Watt Bargain Airline- Lowest Fuel Cost per Seat @18Watt 134 Entrepreneur- Lowest Launch Cost per Seat @18Watt 4,116 Cheapskate- Lowest Overall Launch Cost @ralanboyle 17,790 Whiplash- Fastest Time: @camacju 7:48 Musk- No Chutes @camacju Bezos- No movable Aero Surfaces @camacju Cattle Car- Most Seats (Command Chairs not eligible) @18Watt 32 Pod Ships: @camacju Was first to complete with a quick little 2 seater. Leg time was 7:48 earning him the Whiplash award. He also added There & Back, Musk and Bezos awards. @ralanboyle Got it done on the cheap in 11:14 with a 2 seater cruise missile. @18Watt Went for a bigger ship resulting in better accounting numbers. He slipped 32 kerbals over to the DA in 11:42 and sniped the landing! Chair Ships:

Alright, I did it in exactly an hour. Should have been 50 minutes but I got lost in the dark so Jeb had to take a hike.

Perfect. My plans for the weekend just cancelled so I plan to give this a shot. Do one yourself so I have some competition! (please)

I've never been there before and I never use coordinates. What is the best way for me to find the right spot?

I don't think SLS's biggest problem is it's complete lack of reusability. While that is a huge problem; remember, those SRBs were reused during the shuttle era at a cost higher than building them new. The RS-25s from the shuttle were also reused, but at horrifying refurbishment cost. I think SLS's biggest problem is the old Cost+ model which has incentivized Boeing (et al) to make it as expensive and time consuming as possible. However, even if it had been completed on time and on budget, it still would only have been a valid option for a short period of time (if at all) because of that anemia you referred to. At the end of the day, this is 40 year old technology bolted together in a complicated way. While Falcon Heavy certainly has more engines, I'd argue it is much less complicated because it has a much lower number of unique parts, therefore manufacturing and testing is easier/cheaper/quicker. I don't hate on SLS because I'm a fan of SpaceX, I hate on SLS because I'm a fan of space exploration and SLS represents the worst aspects of the industry. ULA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX have/will made/make SLS obsolete before it has even come online.

Or just forget to load most of the fuel and derp the thrust down on your engines.

Okay, okay, okay! Took off at 21 seconds, "landed" at 8:34, so 493 seconds of flight. Carried 12,000 (!) units of ore for a total score of 5,916,000.

Okay, My first effort carries 4500 ore to the island airfield with a wheels up time of 8:05. I believe that is 2,182,500 points. Starting electric and ore can be seen in the VAB at the bottom of the screen.

I was, but I got bored. And then nothing excited me and I quit playing KSP for a month.

I was waiting for a challenge to get me interested in KSP again. I think you might have done it!

Yeah, there'd need to be a rule about the lab, or at least a different leaderboard.

I am assuming vertically oriented propulsion is not allowed. That would then beg the question: At what point is it vertically oriented? An airplane, with fixed wings will have to be angled upward at some angle of attack in order to maintain altitude. So, if it has to point its nose up 45 degrees; Is that still acceptable? If so, what about 80 degrees? Then ultimately, what if it is able to maintain stable flight and 0 airspeed after pulling its nose all the way back to 90 degrees? Because yes, this is possible, both IRL and KSP.

Alright. Am I allowed to start a new science mode save and use F12 to unlock tech tree parts. Then send an advanced ship on this mission?

Sorry @camacju, I was 2 hours too slow!

Gofer it.

There is no need to fill all of the seats. You can just hire a single pilot for the mission. You can subtract the cost of hiring the pilot from the launch cost because this challenge was made in 1.10. I understand Jeb will add 45KG, there isn't much I can do to offset that. You can use the small probe core if you want but that is 40KG. If you do that, you can subtract its cost.

I thought about the turbo props too but they require intake air, which isn’t available on EVE. Using Nervs to gene power for electric motors might be worth a shot.

I think this might be the best choice for stage 1 getting off Eve if anyone wants to try it.

THIS is the clincher. Everything is possible without constraints.

There are no new challenges I am interested in and I almost never use nerv, so I might do this too.

Sure, but if we use Nerv then I don't understand the challenge. We can just launch whatever we want into suborbit with jets and then visit the whole solar system with nervs. a Jet/nerv Eve landing/return mission might be hard, but the rest is pretty much up for grabs. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably interested, I just need a more refined goal @AngryPotato9.

So, we can do suborbital runs and kerbin atmosphere stuff... unless we use glitch drives. What are you looking for? Welcome to the forum.

Ha... It's a 20km range. I didn't know if you were using KM or M. At what point is this just aggressive docking? I made a small fast reliable rocket and manually put it into orbit, then manually rendezvoused with a LKO Sat. Then destroyed it. I mean, it is an A-SAT device but its really just a missile shaped satellite that I rammed into a sat at close range. What is your judgement for this sort of thing, @Pds314?