Jesrad

No, Gene, we're definitely not gonna mine 4000 ore from Eve and then delivering it to Gilly.

I finished building my Cislunar Space Infrastructure around the Lagrange Point 2 (or rather, its Kerbal-equivalent) of Kerbin-Minmus. How cute is my L2 Shuttle ? I did a suicide-burn landing on Minmus with a 100-ton ship with less than 2% fuel left. From 13 km orbit you reach more than 100 m/s velocity by the time you have to choose between lithobraking and full thrust.

It turns out my calculations were very conservative: I can do the L2->Minmus transit on 450 m/s, and Minmus->L2 on just 255 m/s (crazy!). Likewise, the Cislunar Tankers' aerocapture to LKO takes 458 m/s and not >560 like I thought. All in all, one more rotation in the Fuel Circuit has showed that the final efficiency numbers are really 73% for the Cislunar Tankers, 76% for Tanker Less, 82% for Tanker More and 84% for Tanker Last. So my Kerbin Space efficiency is 60%, and Interplanetary Space efficiency 83%. I'm pleased I'm retiring the Tanker Less, which really is too small to haul any useful amount of fuel, and just leaving the 'More and 'Last in the rotation. I'm repurposing it as a LKO-L2 tug. Last installment, I promise ! The Tanker Last managed to reach and crazy-suicide-burn-OMG land flawlessly with no refueling whatsoever since launch (with just 150 LFO left from its departing 19300), and connected to the Mining Rig for refill. My Crew Shuttle retrieved the rookies + Jeb from the Tanker More and is on its way to drop them to LKO through a fiery aerocapture. And Valentina is flying the Tanker More back to Minmus on a 5 m/s deltaV budget* ! * transit only. We're crazy, but not that brand of crazy.

Government is unnecessary. Only justice is, and you can have that in plenty of differing forms, many of them more suitable, more efficient, saner and/or more humane than the form we have now. To put it another way: you're not asking the right question.

Last news from my L2 MinKerbin Fuel Circuit. Unexpected costs (LKO-L2 rotation is around 1500 m/s total deltaV, or double the figure I expected), a yet-bigger tanker (MOAR !) and a crew shuttle enter the rotation, and I make efficiency calculations at last. Plus, numbers and details of every craft in the circuit are included. The total cost sunk into this infrastructure at the moment is 1,147,653 and is unlikely to increase - I have everything I need in place, I think. People interested only in fueling LKO and not in bootstrapping an interplanetary infrastructure (which is my reason for maintaining a depot in L2 of Kerbin-Minmus) can probably get away with using only the mining rig and a couple cislunar tankers for 1/4 of the cost. I've done the actual maths: My cislunar tankers bring 22.377 mtons of LFO and 3 mtons of monopropellant gas to LKO on each rotation for a cost of 9.622 mtons of LFO. My Tanker Less brings 12.8 mtons of LFO and 1.1 mtons of monoprop gas on each rotation for a cost of 5.2 mtons of LFO. Hence why I hurried and built bigger tankers. My Tanker More brings 58 mtons of LFO and 4.6 mtons of gas on each rotation for a cost of 15 mtons of LFO. My Tanker Last is expected to bring 77 mtons of LFO and 2.9 mtons of gas on each rotation for a cost of 19.5 mtons of LFO. That converts to the following Useful Fuel / total fuel hauled fractions: Cislunar Tankers: 70% Tanker Less: 71% Tanker More: 78% Tanker Last: 80% I think that's pretty efficient

I seized the fortuitous opportunity of a pair of tourists wanting to orbit Kerbin, to bring one more experienced scientists to my Science Farm In Orbit on the cheap. This proved very challenging as it highlighted the many limitations of my SSTO design. Running out of battery and monogas while docking is not fun.

OXSTAT can't power worth a damn, and pods don't hold enough RCS for any useful purpose, but the warp key can save the day.

So the intercept from L2 to Kerbin's atmosphere turns out to not quite be 163 m/s, but a rather more bulky 343 m/s That's because from the depot I do not benefit from an Oberth effect like I would in LMinO. And because I forgot to count the ~180 m/s for launching into LMinO in the first place, d'uh... Sending bulk fuel directly from Minmus' surface to LKO would only save a mere 110-120 m/s, so I'll stick with having a L2 Depot, as it makes everything else much simpler and easier. Flipside: the ascent from LKO to L2 is roughly 1000 m/s, as tested by the SpaceBus I have just added to the circuit for crew rotations. So conservative tallies are: Bulk fuel produced on Minmus -> L2-Depot costs 243+2x50 = 343 m/s Bulk fuel delivered to LKO costs 343+60 for recircularization = 403 m/s So total should be under 750 m/s, still a clear wide win against fueling up from Kerbin surface. These costs correspond to relative amounts of fuel, whereas the costs for returning tankers to Minmus and Cislunar Tankers to L2 are pretty much fixed. I need to check the exact masses then I'll make a complete calculation of the fractions of fuel extracted/delivered/expended in the whole circuit. I'll be happy if I get any efficiency rate above 50%

Turns out autopilots of crew shuttles need company, or else they suicide during ascent.

I'm pretty sure you don't really need the big fairing around the shuttle, since it's already streamlined.

Yeah it's a solar-powered electron cannon which happens to be extremely lightweight and simple (two very desirable qualities for a space drive).

More tanker action lately: Tanker More has fueled up to the brim and launched for the Depot. I departed the wrong way though, and it ended up going outwards from the orbit of Minmus instead of inwards, so I wasted about 25 m/s and a day+half correcting this. I did the entire transit burn off RCS and got intercept in 10 days using about 60% of the gas. So I'll need slightly longer transits if I want to make the return trip off RCS purely. Also on next refueling trip with the Tanker Less I'll test a more direct burn, now that I know where to aim the ship at from the surface. That should shave (err, amputate, rather) several days off the transit and save fuel. I launched Cislunar Tanker Gamma to LKO, and since I now have a working reusable LKOBus to ferry to and from Kerbin ground, I also plan to add a Cislunar Tanker Delta (with extra crew quarters) for those LKO-MinKL2 crew rotations. Finally, Cislunar Tanker Alpha sitting at the Depot is refueled, and ready for its return to LKO. I'm guessing it'll cost less than 200 m/s total: 165 m/s for catching an intercept with half of Kerbin's atmosphere, and some spare change for recircularization. I might have to use several aerobraking passes, but I'm pretty confident I can stick to my 600 m/s deltaV objective for the entire fuel hauling circuit. Wit this, I have nearly everything I need now to start building a complete interplanetary infrastructure. The "Develop Cislunar Next" initiative is vindicated once again - - - Updated - - - You're hauling the drills and the ore tanks with you ? Where do you deposit the fuel ? Try and see what kind of deltaV cost lugging the extra equipment all the way adds, it would be interesting to know I figured a Minmus-Kerbin L2-analog depot needs to be at least twice the SOI radius from the moon, otherwise approaching and departing ships risk crossing its SOI all the time - and SOI changes are very "costly" in terms of game time.

An unexpected discovery about graphene's weird properties: it can "turn" photons into electrons (turn the photons into pure momentum for its electrons, more accurately), and it can emit those electrons coherently, in one direction. This makes it possible to get useful amounts of momentum by shining a laser or even raw sunlight (that was tested successfully) at graphene sheets. I mean "useful" as in "orders of magnitude more than a conventional solar sail". The boffins were able to physically push a graphene sponge around with mere sunlight. Simply said, this is a totally-OP form of solar sail. We live in exciting times.

Mind that you can also do many of these experiments flying low and high. Also the seismic readings are impossible in the water.

I went back to my most dreaded KSP thing: spaceplanes. I almost lost my sanity.

Unless you are OK with doing multiple landing-drilling-refueling trips back and forth between your mothership and the local moons, I'd strongly advise you keep your first design idea and make your ship an "all-in-one". Just integrate everything into a single vehicle: one or two drills, an ISRU, an ore tank, biiiiig fuel tanks, and a big efficient engine or twelve. This way, you can get away with having just one of the smallest ore tanks, for a start. That would apply to your solution 2 as well. Secondly, you'll want to land and explore anyway, so you might as well do it with the full complement of instruments, crew cabin, etc. Thirdly, you won't have to guesstimate beforehand the amount of fuel you want to send your refill shuttle with. And that cost won't be "sunk": you'll only be paying it when necessary to move. As for generic advice, I'd suggest sizing your ship for a 4000 m/s DeltaV at a minimum, 5000 for comfort. The Rhino engine is probably your best choice, it has nice TWR, high thrust, and one of the highest ISP among chemical engines of KSP. This would let you get intersects to any planet and have enough left for landing comfortably afterward, anywhere. Well you might need to stop by Pol or Bop for refuel before attempting to land on Tylo, but that's the only limitation I can foresee. Ah, and you'll need fuel cells, of course. You can fully power the mining and refining processes from a fuel cell from the LFO they produce (no, this does not contradicts the laws of thermodynamics, because the ore is not really an "ash" and is very different from the by-products of burning the LFO for thrust or for electricity). Launching it: you don't have to make it an SSTO ! Except for exploring Laythe or Eve surface, you'll only need to push it once through any significant atmosphere. So, you can safely assume it'll only do vacuum landings. Have launch stages on it for the initial climb out of Kerbin, and don't bother any further. You can even expend all but 1500-2000 m/s of its last deltaV, and plan to refuel at Minmus before leaving Kerbin. This way, you can make it simpler and lighter than anticipated, and it'll give you an opportunity to train at landing-refuels in one of the easiest setting possible (yeah, Minmus is easy). That leaves the problem of Kerbin return... I think you don't need to bother with it either: you can bring the crew and science data back to the ground with another vehicle, later.

I've completed my Minmus Mining Circuit ! It has a Mining rig on the surface of Minmus (Flats), 2 refinery-tanker ships for collecting the ore, processing it and hauling the resulting fuel, a Depot that sits in a L2-equivalent point relative to Kerbin an Minmus, and 2 Cislunar Tankers that can bring the fuel from the depot to LKO with a cheap aerocapture. I now have FREE INFINITE FUEL EVERYWHERE in the Kerbin system, mwahahaha

My mining operation is go ! As shown above, I already had a mining rig in place on the Flat of Minmus. Now I've launched the tankers an the fuel depot that sits in a L2-analog fashion relative to Kerbin and Minmus. First I landed a refinery-tanker ship next to the mine: The rig is on wheels and has a Klaw for universal docking with any tanker model: In operation: filling the tanker from the mined ore - power capacity is a little too short for operating the drills at the same time as all 4 ISRU processes, but it's OK: the fuel tank is exactly twice the sizze of the ore tank so it wouldn't make a difference. Transit from Minmus to Depot takes upwards of 243 m/s only: any Vinf on top of Minmus' escape velocity just shortens the trip. With 40 m/s Vinf I get to the depot in 12 days. I'll then need 40 m/s to brake there. It's very simple: transit deltaV = 243+2xVinf. This stays true whichever Flats of Minmus you depart from (plus or minus the sidereal boost of 9 m/s from the little green speck's rotation). To address the limitations of this Tanker and make up a complete rotation of ships back and forth between the Minmus Mine and the L2 Depot, I am to add 3 more such tankers. I've added one bigger, dubbed the Tanker More, depicted here: I'm also adding Cislunar Tankers, which are very simple fuel tugs which will bring fuel from the L2 Depot to LKO via a cheap aerocapture. You can see Tanker More refilling from one such, here. Yup, hauling fuel from Kerbin would cost 3600 m/s, whereas mining and refining the same amount of fuel from Minmus, bringing it to L2 and then dropping it into LKO costs about 500-600 m/s ! The "Develop Cislunar Next" advocacy group's initiative is hereby vindicated The Tanker More towed its empty Cislunar Tanker back to the L2 Depot and store the remaining fuels: I then sent the Tanker More to Minmus for a bigger load. This time I aimed a little higher (45 degrees normal-ward from retrograde) and got a 9 day transit for a Vinf of 48 m/s: Transit from Depot to Minmus is cheaper since some of the initial Vinf counts as braking push against the 243 m/s escape velocity of Minmus. So the rotation is even slightly cheaper than I anticipated. Tanker More landed at the mine and the rig latched onto one of its "feet". With this bigger design I can run all ISRU processes and all 4 drills at once: All in all I'm very satified with this setup I can now between 2 and 3 orange-tankfull-worth of fuel in LKO or Minmus-like orbit every 3 ingame weeks, approximately, without any extra launch. And the rotation can be run much faster at some fuel expense. I might not even need to have a full 4-tanker rotation.

Congrats, and get properly hammered

Linielle bailed on her science mission to Jool after filling her helmet from all the intermittent spinning during escape boosts. Oh well. I'll use my tried-and-trusted grabber vehicle to bring the expensive ion and instruments back to the ground safely and retry with a little better thought-out vehicle. In the meantime, I launched and positioned the Minmus L2-like depot station precisely, and parked 2 full cislunar tankers in LKO, which I'll send there once empty. The refinery shuttle for Minmus is on its way to the mining rig, but I really really had to go get some sleep before it could get there. Pictures tomorrow.

Keep an eye on the text indication that appears in the bottom center screen while building the fairing: it'll turn orange if the current position you're trying to add is obstructed by your ship, green once the position is clear (then you left-click and go add the next level). You need to give it a little leeway or else it'll refuse to add your point.

I've properly started mining Minmus: the permanent roving mining rig is in place with Phoda the intrepid engineer. Next up is the tanker-refinery (design is nearly complete) and a space depot for the L2-analog of Kerbin-Minmus (I've settled on the Leading L2-analog point). From there I can run a fully developped cislunar space infrastructure, just like we should IRL. I still need some science to unlock the Docking Sr parts required for the tanker and Lagrange Depot that the mining rig will feed. Turns out one of my scientists, Linielle, decided to run free with a cobbled-together ion pod and all the science instruments she could gather. That's quite the enthusiasm ! We love that can-do attitude here. But the thing doesn't even have SAS, has an asthmatic thrust... and is at the moment making clumsy thrusts for Jool. Meaning: it's trying to run a ion engine on little battery, at night (outer planets require an eject angle in the shadow cone of Kerbin). Of course the thrust is off-center, so she has to spin her pod madly while the ion is thrusting or spend her days constantly correcting. I consider this mission doomed from the start, but having no way to recover this expensive piece of crat I'll let Linielle have her way and see how gruesomely she offs herself with it. ...and I still can't fly spaceplanes

No harm in asking Thanks. I expect the rendezvous will be a LOT less painful than within SOI, actually. From Minmus' surface it's a straight up burn from the equator's leading and trailing orbit points. Switch navball to Orbit, aim, shoot until velocity is 243 m/s and the only thing left to do is to just wait until you see the depot for the RCS fine-maneuvering and docking. I tested the mining feature in KSP yesterday and got the first piece in place: the mining rig is dropped and working in the Flats of Minmus. It's actually already full of ore at the moment, as I need some more science to get the Docking Sr parts and build the tanker and depot: 1 experienced engineer aboard, 1800 ore capacity. That's low I know, I intend to have it mine continuously while docked to the tanker-refinery, so the ore tanks are here only so that it keeps mining while the tanker completes the delivery of freshly refined fuel to the depot and returns.

Aaaand that's why I say "L2-analog" point and mention using the exact same orbit as Minmus (46400000m altitude from Kerbin sea level) and sitting just outside the little moon's SOI I do not need to orbit Minmus. I'll go with Hannet's advice and not lift ore up.

I just grabbed the first mining contract ever, and am now designing a Minmus mining operation. Plan ahead is the name of the game, eh. Here's what I intend to do: I'll deploy a regular mining op, reasonably scaled, on Minmus ; then with the experience from it I shall deploy a similar operation on Ike for fueling many future Duna missions. The how: I shall adapt to KSP the method devised by Hop and neatly explained on his blog for bootstrapping space exploration from Earth to the Moon, Mars and beyond. 1) a mining rover (drills and panels on wheels) on Minmus' ground. Dockable (might need a Klaw). 2) an ore shuttle. Large one. 3) a refinery / fuel depot that will be in the L2-analog to Minmus & Kerbin: I shall place it on the very same orbit as Minmus, but just outside its SOI (probably on the trailing side since the fuel is meant for Kerbin-bound vessels initially). IRL I would pick the L2 point (outer) over the L1 (inner) because of its lower escape velocity requirement, but in KSP there's no practical difference between the leading and trailing analog points. I'll add another mining rover to smooth out / hasten operations. The idea is that there is no need to move the refinery equipment, and no need to fly up the drills and back down. The jury is still out on whether I should put the refining operation on Minmus ground (so I fly just fuel up to the L2 depot) ; or if I leave the refinery in orbit (and only fly ore up instead) ? What do you think is more efficient ? Flying the fuel or ore up to the depot will be eeeaaasy: trajectory from the ground is practically straight up to the L2-analog. You can even drive right under the depot station (or wait until Minmus has rotated you in position), and fly nigh-vertically to it, with a single burn of slightly more than the escape velocity of Minmus (a cheap 243 m/s). Flying down from depot to the ground just requires a slight nudge (an outside push by an EVAd Kerbal would suffice) and then a single suicide burn next to the ground, that is easily planned for. Or a more continuous, gentle braking burn for the squeamish. There is little horizontal velocity to compensate for, as Minmus' tangential velocity is a mere 9.33 m/s. And from the KMin L2-analog point, transit to LKO, Mun or Kerbin escape is nearly free: my interplanetary ships can thus afford a ridiculously efficient TWR. What do you guys think ?