Rfmeijboom

I don't think it's possible to make a single ship that can land on all the planets and moons. I think it is possible to make single launch mission that puts a single kerbal on each planet and moon and return him safely to kerbin. (I almost pulled it off in 0.90) It would require a big interplanetary transfer stage with nuclear engines and a BIG lander to go to eve, the top of the eve lander should then become the lander for the other planets and moons and refuel from the transfer stage. Edit: Never mind, it is very possible with the new mining facilities. I was thinking to much about my 0.90 attempt of the same thing .

Hmmm, I don't think I can restore the top speed . . . Maybe someone can calculate it based on the different screenshots where speed and altitude are visible. I don't think I can easily rebuild the rocket again, it was a real pain to get balanced.

Stage 6 - Command & Control: The last stage of the station for now. This module has 4 mk3 cockpits to form the main command deck of the station, This is where Bill, Bob, Jeb and Val will be most of the time. It also has a communications tower for long range communication. Liftoff! At 37km the boosters ran out and were dropped. Burning to get into an orbit The launch stage is discarded and the rest of the rendezvous will be done on RCS. Approaching the station. Docked! The station is now 104.4m long and has a crew capacity of 448. Closeup of the C&C Module.

Stage 5 - Lounge: I decided to go with hurnik_playz DE's proposal to build a lounge. It is made from 12 mk3 cockpits clipped into submission to form a somewhat elliptical lounge with lots of windows. Forgot to take a screenshot on the pad . . . I had to launch straight up because of the truss on top of the lounge would add way to much drag for a gravity turn. At 30km the boosters ran out and where dropped. Quickly after that I aimed for the horizon and ejected the nosecone. With a few drops of fuel left I was in orbit ready to rendezvous with the station. After a fairly routine docking the stations capacity was extended to 432 kerbals. The current station in all it's glory in the sun. View of the station from the lounge.

Good to hear, I'd love to see what other people come up with.

No, but I can refill the station's ore supply with a miner and the ISRU converter is set to make LFO and Monopropellant. As soon as any ship refuels from the station the ISRU will convert ore into whatever resource was drained (except for Xenon).

Stage 4 - Xenon Storage: To ensure all craft can refuel at the station I added some Xenon storage and a few radial docking ports to allow for more expansion options. The next module is ready for launch. This module is light and stable enough to perform a normal gravity turn. Rising to the altitude of the station at orbital velocity, just a few more correction burns and we have an encounter. Docked! The station can now support any kind of craft, all sizes docking ports are available, all fuel types are available. The station is now 55,3m tall and the ring has a diameter of 28,3m. Part count: 257, so good framerates are no problem.

The images are on a direct link to my own server at home.

The station will be expanded more, in fact the next module is almost done. The next module is a xenon storage container to refuel ion powered craft. It will also hold 3 large radial docking ports and 6 mini docking ports. I might add a lounge later, which parts do you have in mind to build the lounge?

Because I got multiple requests about the constructions of my space station I decided to post some more screenshots here. I apologize in advance for all the dark screenshots. The station was build in 3 stages, first stage was the ring shaped habitation module. When I build it I knew a gravity turn would be impossible. But going straight up might be doable. Stage 1 - Habitation Ring: I put a nosecone on top with struts to every part of the ring to hold everything together during launch, otherwise the drag would tear the ring apart. With the simultaneous thrust of 18 kickback boosters, 6 Mammoth Engines and 1 Rhino engine on full power the first station part slowly rose from the pad. After 17km the Boosters ran out and were dropped. When safely out of the atmosphere I could start to turn over to actually get something of an orbit going. At this point apoapsis was already over 130km. At 82km altitude the 6 side tanks ran out and where dropped. The Core stage continued to bring the ring into orbit. When the center stage ran out the station was in a sloppy 140x200 km orbit. But even a sloppy orbit is a stable orbit. After decoupling the launch stage and nosecone all the struts where gone and the habitation module was done. Stage 2 - Refinery: Because every station I have build so far always had too much monopropellant and too little LFO I decided a refinery was a good idea. The refinery could simply replenish any resources that was used to refuel any craft. Since all the ore containers were empty this module wasn't nearly as heavy as the habitation section. So a simple launcher consisting of 1 Rhino engine with half a big tank with 3 boosters consisting of a mainsail with 2 big red jumbo tanks each feeding fuel into the center stage was more than enough. The first stage lasted until 50km, leaving a fully fueled center tank for the circularisation burn. After last stage ran out the payload was detached and the nosecone ejected. The rest of the rendezvous was done using RCS. Docked! The second module of the station also added solar panels to ensure continuous power to the station. I used the RCS at this stage to circularize to a 200x200km orbit. Stage 3 - Science Module: The third module was the science module. Although this is a sandbox save and it has no real function I felt that a good station had a science module. This module contains 1 mobile processing lab and 4 science bay jrs and mystery goo containers. It also adds more batteries and monopropellant to the station and has several communication dishes. This module was even lighter than the previous one, so it could use the same launcher and launch profile. In orbit you get a better look at the different modules. There was still some fuel left in the launch stage at this time. Docked! The fuel from the launch stage was transferred to the central fuel tank of the station and then the launch stage was deorbited. At this point the station is only 186 parts, has room for 384 kerbals (+2 in the science lab if needed) and 6 free docking ports for ships and 2 more large docking ports for future extensions. Beauty shots: Close up of the science module Close up of the refinery Shot with 3 crew transfer vehicles docked and a prototype ion powered craft leaving the station.

This is my Orbital station in 1.0.2 sandbox. All stock and launched in 3 parts. Holds up to 384 kerbals. Only 186 parts when assembled.

I made this Apollo 11 replica last august. All stock parts, only used the kerbpaint mod to get the colors right. As you can see, the interstage fairing is very possible with stock parts. The CSM actualy sits on the fairing, there is no decoupler between the LM and CSM.

To me the reentry heat is way to weak as well. I play with reentry heating at 120%, but still I could land my mun lander without parachute, just burn to get periapsis at 30km, hit the atmosphere with 3km/s and let the atmosphere slow me down. I only had to use my engines for the last 200m/s to do a powered landing, no parts overheated . . . And even with different entry angles it is way to easy to make craft survive reentry without really trying. For me the reentry heating should be made in such a way that from a 100x100 km orbit, lowering your periapsis to about 30km should already require a heat shield to survive.

As far as I know the full mass of the asteroid can mined for Ore, so a 50t asteroid should yield 50t (or about 5000 units) of ore. But I have not tried it out, so I'm not entirely sure.

Hmmm, very creative approach, did not think of that either.

But you did it! Any landing you can walk away from . . .

You could always align your craft with the pod and deorbit it when you bring your own periapsis down. Just push it with the front of your craft.

The ISP of the 48-7S has been reduced from 350s to 300s in vacuum. Maybe the KER readout still assumed the old engine parameters? I don't know if KER has already been updated to work with 1.0

It has already been shown that most engines already reach 0 ISP before Eve sea level, Jool has 3 times the pressure there. But perhaps the aerospike has a chance, I didn't think of that one.

I think this may be impossible, at 1km height the atmospheric pressure might be so high that all the Engines have an ISP of 0.

My First entry for top speed is visible in the landing of my third attempt: 2726,2 m/s. Unfortunately I have no screenshot of the top speed in my fourth attempt, but this is a nice benchmark to start with

I tried this and it basically works, so it would save weight and thus give you more Delta-V, however I could not find any way to add more stages without decouplers . . .

Hmmm, Highest orbit would be 1m/s below escape velocity with a PE just above the atmosphere. The same rocket can probably do that. If you want to extend this challenge to even larger and faster rockets you could go for top speed. Just go straight up until all engines cut out and then end game to see top speed achieved. That way you have no problems with lack of time warp or reaching infinity.

AH, that explains a lot Final altitude and speed before ending the game: The craft that did it:

Fourth atempt & new record: Over 3000000 and still going up at 1300m/s . . . I'll leave it running overnight and see how high it goes.