Death Engineering

Making first steps to a permanent presence in space, Skylab's successes were numerous. (These missions also test the USI Life Support mod before sending crew interplanetary.) Starting with a creative solution to a failed solar panel deployment by the crew in the first ever in-space repair, three crews flew to Skylab establishing new records for space endurance and used the built in science sensors and Apollo Telescope Mount to learn more about Earth and the cosmos than could ever be done from the surface. "Hey there's another planet out there!" Apollo XIX, initially intended for a munar landing, flew out to this little green rock (should be called Mintmus) using an unmodified CSM/LM package. Launching the mission was the first Saturn V ELV (Saturn V with four integrated solid boosters). Instead of a rover the crew brought along an RCS powered 'hopper'. Another ELV next launched the MOLAB which set down near the Twin Craters. With only a crew of two, Apollo XX landed adjacent to the MOLAB while the uncrewed CM remained in hibernation mode in munar orbit. The modified LM now carries nuclear power generation and sufficient life support for an extended stay up to 45 days, while the MOLAB on its own can support up to four kerbals for a total of 45 days (or two for 90 days). First mission in this challenge to push the life support (USI Life Support) mod. Flew two crews to Skylab, the first three crew staying 20 days the second two crew flight staying 30 days. Consumption was a predictable 1.08 'supplies' / kerbal / day. Close enough still to not require any extra supplies, the only change from a typical mission was the addition of four SRB's to the S-IC first stage (Saturn V ELV) and instead of a rover, the crew flew a hopper around. With a max crew of four, the MOLAB set down near the twin craters and was later joined by two crew of Apollo XX. The crew stayed on the surface in the MOLAB for 55 days then returned to the uncrewed CM and orbited the Mun for another 10 days before returning home.

Hey GregroxMun... Thanks for posting this challenge! Having fun in KSP again. I'm planning on keeping the 'space program' going and will be using RoverDude's "USI Life Support" mod for the interplanetary missions. I don't really know much about how it compares to TAC, but I like the parts in USI and it seems fairly straightforward. Does it count for the 'life support' points in your challenge? No prob if not.

Carrying on with the AAP 'Major Milestone' flights, we complete the historical missions. Although Apollo XVI and XVII were scientifically significant, they weren't exactly milestone missions. Apollo XV introduces the Lunar Rover which gives surface exploration more range (and let's be honest, more fun ). Computer guidance and improved radar demonstrated precision landing ability by setting the LM down only 360m from the Surveyor 3 probe, landed on the Moon two years earlier. "Lucky 13" was a mission of resourcefulness overcoming failure, starting off with a center engine cutoff on the S-II stage caused by severe pogo oscillation. Then, a major explosion on the C/SM caused the landing to be aborted and required the crew to use the LM as a lifeboat. The LM also had the only working engine and using it to get the crew home safely tested the ground and flight crews like no other mission before. With a precision landing at a place thought to have ancient volcanoes and a surface rover to explore with, this first extended-stay mission proved that real surface science was possible. On their return, the crew had to rely on only two chutes for landing, as one of the three failed to deploy. Next (edit: Skylab and), some speculative explorations of what might have been..

This won't be a comprehensive compilation of the Apollo/AAP missions, but should be enough to demonstrate the hardware and various mission profiles. These are the first brief updates of major milestone flights in the historical and speculative AAP: The Little Joe family of rockets continued its role of tossing command modules into the ocean off KSC. This final test demonstrated the LES and chutes working correctly. This Saturn 1B launch was very important in that it proved the heat shield and the ability for the SPS engine to restart in space, critical for precise flights to and from the moon. Performing a risky 'all-up' test of the Saturn V moon rocket as well as the C/SM, this unmanned launch used the S-IV to push the CM into a high Ap with a Pe low enough that it would burn up on the next approach. The SPS burned to push the CM fast enough to prove the C/SM can safely re-enter at the speeds which would be seen on a return trip from the Moon. Using a nearly-complete LM (sans legs) aboard a Saturn 1B, this launch proved all functions of the LM and demonstrated restart ability of both the descent and the ascent engines - arguably, the most critical engines of a Lunar landing. Under pressure from the Soviets to make a big leap towards a manned landing on the Moon, Apollo VIII was upgraded from a low Earth orbit flight to a Lunar orbit flight, sending crews out of Earth orbit for the first time in history. All systems performed perfect and the crew took the iconic photo titled "Earthrise" as it orbited the moon. "The Eagle has Landed!". Apollo XI was the culmination of the Space Race. Despite unexpected problems with the landing computer, boulders where Neil had planned on landing and a broken switch in the LM that could have prevented Buzz from firing the ascent engine, the first time humans walked on another world was a complete success. This album pay homage to the original Apollo XI crew.

Death 1B at Dawn To be continued...

Looks like a fun challenge! And, today I learned two things about Apollo: The Saturn 5 shutdown center engine before the outboards? Wow... The CSM on the Saturn 1B was not fully provisioned (very glad to hear that for this challenge..!) Working on the entry now...

Did I see you de-select allowing quicksave and revert on your vid? I can see why that would be a requirement, but KSP is a wee bit crashy.. unless that is part of the challenge (re-doing missions when say a kerb poofs into smoke or a kraken eats a lander).

The heat model is just...bizarre. 1) Science Jr. nestled immediately behind the heat shield overheats and explodes while pointing heat-shield down (using FlowerChilds's mass-fix). That cannot be by design. This is from a 100km orbit with re-entry Pe of 34km. 2) 2 units of 'Ablator' consumed during ascent/while in orbit makes 0.0% sense. Heat shields, especially while still coupled to the sustainer, should not be consumed until re-entry. Pointing the correct end toward re-entry and still lost the Science Jr. How? The heat shield colliding into the capsule and riding with it the rest of the way down was adding insult to injury...

When in the VAB, the floor paint vanishes when viewed from above.

1) The bug where a maneuver node may not be placed. Can happen after changine SOI or after docking. Resolved with doing an EVA, unless there is no kerb to EVA. Running a probe and can't quicksave/quickload? Tuff luck, Chuck. 2) How is there no sound in map mode? There used to be, somewhere around 0.19 or so..was there a decision made to exclude sound from map mode? If so, why isn't there a Pe/Ap indicator in staging mode? 3) Can't lock-visible the Pe and Ap markers anymore. 4) All the others already mentioned, but especially: Nooodleville Rocketry, Occlusion Obfuscation, Massless Mess, W T F (Warp Too Fast)......

Presumably this is for when coming back from Moho/Eeloo and you're really booking it, although I have yet to get that far out.

The confusing part, as I see it, is that adding fairings in the VAB increase the overall mass of the craft but when the craft is wheeled out to the pad, the mass somehow disappears. So, while it appears the fairings don't increase the mass of the vessel in-flight, they do increase the mass of the vessel in the VAB. Presumably the on-the-pad mass is what is used during the flight, but either I'm missing something along the way or it is a bizarre oversight/choice that mass is present only in the VAB.

Last Record Update 20 minutes ago (April 27, 2015 – 16:03:49 UTC)

Long-time fan! Getting caught up now.. BTW, is this your door?

I've never used ion propulsion for anything more than command-seat hoppers on low-grav bodies.. burn soooo lonnnng.. Au-2-H20 is aptly named as, in space, it's not gold that is of great value but electricity, since solar panels only work at about 60% efficiency around Duna. Yeah, I read the rules for redundancy and crew safety as mostly focused on backup hardware and life support. No crew will be launched using my primary 'mission' lifter. The crew shuttle to LKO is wide open. There are parts in BTSM for in-situ resource harvesting. Self-sustaining life-support on Duna for four crew however would require delivering ~140t of hardware to the surface (9 processors x 15t + support hardware).. so that's out. Instead, I'll be sending re-supply missions for the bulk of LS and generating the return LS and fuel for the Duna-> Kerbin flight in Duna orbit. Around day 550, I'll start setting up LS/fuel harvesting around Kerbin for the sustainable component of the challenge.

Yep, the DRE parts are great. The part under the Cupola is the Au-2-H2O Life Support Recycling Unit and indeed is a part from BTSM. It decreases life support consumption by 80% but is quite heavy (2.5t) and consumes a lot of EC. Running the Cupola and the Au-2-H2O takes 9.9EC/min. I'm playing in a 'hacked' Career mode BTSM (edited SC points and funds). I wanted to track the science gained, biomes visited etc., and that is the only way to make it happen and start on day 10 in the game. BTW, your effort in the challenge to get a whole neighbourhood of kerbals out there is awesome. I had a good time reading your mission reports when work was quiet this week and definitely inspired me to get a working effort going again on this challenge. gl!

It's been over six months since I started moving on this challenge with the Better Than Starting Manned game overhaul mod. Since then, updates to KSP and BTSM mean that I can play it in KSP 0.90, which is awesome. Along with the BTSM mod, I'll also be using Kerbal Attachment System (for resource transfer only), Kerbal Alarm Clock and some graphics mods. There are no 'engineering' assist or flight assist mods which provide control, other than stock SAS. The challenge's primary goal of sustaining four kerbals on Duna under the restriction of BTSM's parts suggests that a top-ranking score in the challenge is out of the question. The life-support in BTSM is heavy, there are fewer rocket and fuel tanks parts to work with, and background processing of resources means there is nowhere to hide. Setting up a resource supply infrastructure around both Kerbin and Duna is going to be critical, and building in margins for error will include a hierarchy of mission milestone failures in order to build in safety margins for the crew. In keeping with the spirit of this challenge, BTSM makes sense as it includes its own proprietary life support and resource harvesting. It is also integrated with the Deadly Re-entry mod, providing some very real risks with aerocapturing and landing. However, while a brilliant mod, BTSM does not really highlight multi-crew missions; providing life-support and safe travel for a group of four brave kerbalnauts is going to be a real challenge. This post introduces the primary lifter for the challenge, with a nominal payload to LKO 36t. Since the two reusable LFO powered boosters are recovered at KSC by passive parachute landing and recover 140t of the 280t lifter mass, the turnaround time on the lifter is 54 days. Initially, it seemed a bit too easy to recover the boosters during testing, but the DRE mod is working and at least 10 tests have returned 100% of the two booster stages, despite landing on the engine bells alone. [table=width: 100%, align: left] [tr] [td] Death Engineering BTSM-36 Lifter Lifter mass on pad: 280t Recovered lifter mass: 140t Time between launches: 54 days Booster recovery: Passive chute, jettisoned <9km [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Prototype Crew module for Kerbin-Duna shuttle Max crew: 4 Life support (max crew): 23 days Life support with propulsion module docked: 70 days/4 crew Primary use: Crew module for Kerbin-Duna shuttle Backup use: Space station module [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Prototype Twin Nerva Propulsion Module Autonomous deep space booster Integrated life support: 185 Kerbal days Primary use: Propulsion module for Kerbin-Duna shuttle Backup use: Life support/payload delivery to Duna orbit (max 42t) [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [/table] Launch Schedule (first 500 days): 10 Duna Surface Support Module (DSM-1) --> 54 DSM-1 to Duna (arrive day 118) 64 Crew module for Kerbin-Duna Shuttle (KDS-4) 118 Propulsion module for KDS-4 172 Duna Landing Module (DLM-4) 226 Duna Station module (DS-1/Propulsion) \\\ 280 Failure mode branch 1 280 Duna Station module (DS-2) --> 283 Four crew on KDS-4 and Duna Station modules/DLM-4 to Duna (arrive day 347) 334 Duna Surface Support Module (DSM-2) 388 Duna Station module (DS-3) 442 Duna Station module (DS-4/Propulsion) \\\ 496 Failure mode branch 2 496 Kerbin Atmosphere Processing Unit module (KAPU-1) --> 511 Duna Station modules and DSM-2 to Duna (arrive day 575) Failure mode branch 1: If any of the previous missions fail, this launch will be it's backup. Duna Station module (DS-2) will be launched on day 388, supplanting DS-3. Failure mode branch 2: If DSM-2, DS-3 or DS-4 fails, this launch will be it's backup. KAPU-1 will be launched on a later mission. Test Launch and Booster Recovery

From an earlier reply to this question by the OP: "Anything other than crew to LKO, no matter how small it is, must be launched with your standard (cargo) lifter. If that lifter happens to be a (fully reusable) SSTO it will be considered a reusable lifter but doesn't get any additional bonus."

Great question! According to the manufacturer (Kerbodyne): "Designed for usage as a first stage, this engine uses four of Kerbodyne's KS-25 rocket motors." ..making it a 4-engine part.

Well, Solivagant, I really like your crafts.. especially your 'Altair' styled landers. However, every challenge submission so far has included a 4 or more crew command module. Feel free to post your missions here, of course, but to make the 'leaderboard' your CM needs to be 4+ crew. If you don't like having to kludge pods together, maybe the Taurus HCV is worth a look? I'm surprised that this part which carries up to 7 crew hasn't been used by someone doing this challenge already. Hope to see more of your crafts in action!

Orion has 3 crew or less: The minimum crew capacity for all "command module" and landers is 4; 3+1, 1+1+1+1, 2+2... that's up to you. edit: or just "4" SLS rocket parts are all permitted, as are all stock and "balanced" mod parts.

Great program update, CocoDaPuf! I go to work in my PJ's so I can really appreciate that rover/module design. Welcome to the challenge, Solivagant. Do you have any designs you can post?

Discovery I - Maiden Flight Thanks inigma for developing this craft and challenge.. your STS is a pleasure to fly! I've chosen to name my challenge submissions after the shuttle Discovery, as I was able to see it launch May 31, 2008 on mission STS-124. All 'maiden flight' mission goals achieved.

Neat mission with some unique and beautiful crafts! I especially like your horizontal stabilizer/elevator solution.

Awesome video, Alchemist! I landed a bunch of Kerbals completing a Vall challenge and took this shot of Bill pondering kerbality and the kerbalverse around him.