technion

I found trying to land a spaceplane with a lot of lift on Eve to be a very similar process.

Great work! It's interesting that everyone running this challenge has a unique perspective on it. What mods were you using?

If you're referring to that small thing with turbojets - no. Jets don't work on Eve.

Pop a science .jr covered in instruments into LKO and test this out. * Perform experiments * Perform EVA * Fly right next to the experiment * Right click and "take science" * Return to capsule * Fire a decoupler that separates the science components When you return, you'll land with all science attached. In the Eve scenario, you'll need to deal with ladders to make that workable.

Decoupling in an Eve orbit. Bringing it down. Hitting the atmosphere. Just once.. in my career.. I would like to land in daylight. Touchdown. Jeb sitting not far from it.

From what I can see, you're bringing all the science components back into orbit? If you can have a kerbal grab the science, then eject those components, that's a lot less weight. If a final stage involves a tiny tank/engine/probe combo, it can push 2800dv, but that drops to something like 1000 with just a few small parts added to the surface. FWIW, I found it highly frustrating having to land 15 times to try and hit mountains at a certain height.

There should be room for discussing the efficiency of the TWR here too. With a heavy nuclear rocket, a burn to Jool from 100km might take you 2/3 of the way around Kerbin. That's an added inefficiency. From 300km, the problem would be minimised.

Although I enjoy the satisfaction of having completed it.. the re-entry is nearly always sadly anticlimactic ime. It'd be great if I could find a more dramatic way to come home - particularly when the re-entry module from my Jool 5 system was exactly the same as what I first came back from the Mun in.

The normal ascent path just doesn't work on something this shape. It looks like I should do a gravity turn here. But if you make the slightest turn before 15km, this rocket will self-destruct. And yes, the rocket is actually run upside down, which means the target is the 270 degree vector. Here's the problem: If you employ the traditional "cut the engines and coast to burn time based on the manoeuvre node", the problem is that any such node will advise of a 2m45s burn time. And oh look, it's one minute to ap. Finally, the lander itself gets in the action. Due to a lack of both gimballing and SAS, it's exceedingly difficult to keep accurate. Only the outside stages fire as refuelling the inner segments would be hugely painful. And heres how it looks when complete. Note, the dumb pe. The ap will aerobrake to a still respectable orbit and when we circle around we can bring the pe back out. Yes this orbit is disastrous and getting this thing here has been a heavy trial.

There's a reason it took a reasonable period of time for this update - low altitude rescues from Eve are hard. For those who haven't dealt with it: The ascent vehicle itself takes a lot of work. Every time you feel just adding one extra stage will provide the remaining 50dv it needs to orbit - you spent half an hour testing to find four tanks with aerospikes provided only 20dv. Once you get into something like a 15 stage asparagus vehicle, the outer stages don't do much. Then, you need to make it land without exploding, which takes an absolute stack of parachutes. And after placing them all on your outer stage, then it's not capable of reorbit any longer. Finally, and this is the crucial part, it's incredibly difficult to take that launcher and get it into orbit. But we got there. This is the final product.

You know this engine is named slightly differently nearly every time it's referred to on this forum. I'm sure I've spelt it 5-6 different ways. Maybe it's in desperate need of a "buff" in the form of a more memorable name.

What about things that are not spaceplanes? I took this to Laythe but it was tested as quite capable of orbit from Kerbin. The small liquid engine above it provides a serial stage for extra travel once in orbit. Shown below, bugged out some how and not producing any exhaust. Having been to Laythe twice and unable to return to orbit in the past I'm pretty happy with the rapier.

But that would apply to MODERN satellites. Following technological trends, satellite built more recently would have a much higher level of security. You can't touch a Government system unless it's FIPS-compliant, which, interestingly, seems to be demonstrated to be one of the weaker standards.

Thanks will do! It's hard to imagine there being "overkill" on a grand tour vessel. I mean, a rocket like that would ALMOST get me to moho

I would heavily dispute that. http://attrition.org/mirror/attrition/

The dv required to ascent from Eve sea level seems infinite. You get a rocket that gets so very, very close. Like "circularise 90% of the way around the planet and your manoeuvre node has 70dv remaining" close. Then you add another whole asparagus stage with four more tanks and aerospikes. Then it takes you five different attempts at adding in enough extra parachutes to land without crashing, and then staging them just right so that it doesn't rip itself to shreds when they expand. Then you finally get into orbit and you're still 40dv short...

Well done. I can't for the life of me understand how missions like this manage to happen. I pulled several times that amount of fuel on my Jool tour and still barely had enough. And nothing I built for Tylo that small managed to break in time. Your nukes have a great looking color - is that a mod?

It's a theoretical question about the capabilities, so "let's say a group of kids did have such access". I'm interested in what protections (or lack thereof) may actually exist moreso than the likelihood of it being exploited. Edit: If "hacking" involves defeating the security of "no attacker would have access to an appropriate antenna", that is a very interesting prospect. From the security landscape of the day, that would not surprise me.

imo it's actually the hardest place ... because it's the least entertaining. Sure, there's no real effort flying in one direction in a suborbital path until you land somewhere new, but it's boring as heck when you have the tech to reach orbit very early on.

Hey guys, When I look at the IT landscape today vs what it was like in the early 90's, there are major differences. Aside from just "computers were slow", things like, "you could connect to any email server anywhere and have it send email on your behalf claiming to be anyone you like", and "the fact no one outside this office knows about this system is all the security we need" come to mind. So when I look at something like Voyager 1, which presumably is still taking orders from NASA based on a protocol built long before that, the question in my mind is: What stops someone from sending it forged signals? I mean, the only encryption to exist that long ago was single stage DES. If there's a password involved, it's probably all zeroes... I have visions of a high school prank being very nasty here!

Hey guys, I must have done 20+ landings to try and get my "Ultimate Eve Lander" to live up to its name. I can hyperedit into Eve's orbit fine, but seem to have to continually sit through a landing. A small ship works fine with the lander. But anything this big just instantly explodes if I try using the ship lander from orbit. Is there a trick to this?

Thanks. I've confirmed that the kerbal is able to get himself into orbit, but I don't quite feel like I've accomplished the goal if I do that.

Damn. This rocket was totally capable before I put a kerbal in the seat. Now it's about 200dv short of circularising orbit when launching at sea level. It's amazing how hard it is to get that little bit extra once a rocket hits a certain size - four SRBS only shaved about 50 off that.

Although this chart is shown everywhere, be careful reading it. As was pointed out above, some values are optimistic. Some, assume perfect encounters which you are highly unlikely to get. Look at the 12000 recommended for Eve. People exploiting the mountains have done it on nearly half that.

Hey guys, I'm trying to make "version 3" of my Eve ascender. Given that Kerbals now have "EVA Propellant", does that mean that a kerbal in a command chair will weigh less if he sits there firing that propellant until empty?