Apotheosist

Here is a video of my friend Scott and myself building and launching rockets! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6GNAfk4rjo Videos are very well made, thanks to Scott. Be sure to watch the second episode too! Tell us what you think.

I tested jet engines there myself (both types), and although they glowed, consumed fuel and displayed up to 100% efficicency, they did not produce any thrust at all for me.

I believe the challenge should remain as it is, although different categories could be implemented. I just did some tests with my Eve orbital ascent rocket, and I found that to get it up to a 10k apoapsis, took 5 of the 7 stages of my rocket. That's 100 tons out of 130. Which drasticaly reduces launch weight, and reduces the delta-v requirement from about 11500m/s to less than 8,000m/s.

My TWR at liftoff is 1.5 (well 1.47 but I aim for 1.5), and I'm also sure this design can be improved, I just liked that all the tanks were the same size. But of course in this case performance is more important. Here is the craft file: http://www./?vc3p64yqd62djy4, feel free to play with it and improve on it, and be sure to share any good results Also, someone has already gone to Eve and back in one single veichle, all stock except mechjeb. He landed on a 11km mountain. I did some tests with my rocket, and it took the first five stages of my rocket to reach an apoapsis of 10km. This means that if I were to start on a 10km mountain on Eve, the ascent rocket would only need to weigh 30 tons, instead of the 130 tons if I launched from sea level. I think we can safely say that launching from a high mountain on Eve helps significantly. See the guy's mission here: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/10lfq0/return_trip_to_eve_craft_file_in_the_comments/

I have actually managed to reach 100km, without cheating, (I took a rocket all the way from Kerbin) and that was flying straight up, without trying to get into orbit. I initially managed 95km, but with more precise control of the throttle I reached just above 100km.

@Excalibur, Thank you and I totally agree, it doesen't count. Just wanted to post it here to show people how a small part of the challenge could be achieved. Now that we have something that can get into eve orbit, we can concentrate on getting it to Eve. In my mind, it would be such a waste of time to build a big rocket to get to Eve...when you can not even get into orbit from Eve. I build rockets from the top down @LambdaCactus, I'm sure Excalibur appreciates my effort, and he was only being encouraging, by giving me a greater challenge. I thrive on tough challenges, so It's all cool @untitled, the point of my mission was to try to make as small a lander as possible that could take off from Eve. This will be easier to then take to Eve.

Good luck with your design! Some competition would be great The whole lander, the rocket that is needed to get back up to Eve orbit weighs about 130 tons. The part that actually gets to eve orbit only weighs about 3 tons. That is, the last stage weighs 2.91 tons when empty. I hope that's what you meant by payload

I managed to reach 100km. But it's also in orbit, I could reach much higher with the same ship if i just burned vertically See here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/21748-First-ever-ascent-to-orbit-from-Eve-using-stock-parts

I managed to get into orbit from the surface of Eve, But I forgot to mention it here. Here it is: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/21748-First-ever-ascent-to-orbit-from-Eve-using-stock-parts

For me, my craft had 7 stages, each stage had a thrust to weight at the start of about 1.5. My flightpath was straight up until first atmospheric colour change, then turn 45 degrees. Continue at this angle until the second atmospheric colour change, then turn 90 dgerees (horizontal). Keep burning until apoapsis reaches 100km, and circularize at this altitude. This is my "universal flightplan", which i use for any planet and seems to work well for crafts with TWR's between 1.5 and 2, which is the around the most efficient TWR.

Perhaps we should include the aproximate delta-v required to acheive orbit from the celestial bodies? For example, it takes around 11,500 m/s delta-v to acheive a 100km orbit from Eve's surface.

Putting it down on Eve is easy, I have already tested that and it went very well. The thicker atmosphere slows you down much more I could quite easily do a mission to return a kerbal from the surface of Eve Back to Kerbin with two rockets, which I'm actually going to work on tonight. One rocket to get to Eve and up to Eve orbit, then rendezvous with a return rocket to Kerbin. Doing it all in one rocket is much more of a challenge. But you people need to have more faith! With good design you can greatly reduce mass and part number of your rockets. People see all these massive ungainly rockets and tend to form assumptions about how big rockets need to be to do certain things.

I can do this on Eve. Stock parts.

Nothing is nigh on impossible. Earlier today I reached orbit from the surface of Eve with stock parts: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/21748-First-ever-ascent-to-orbit-from-Eve-using-stock-parts Sorry to rain on your parade buddy

It certainly is! The lander weighs about 130 tons. I've seen other people's ships with landers weighing about this much. I have also managed to fly some of the smaller previous versions to Eve, for this one it should be just a little more difficult to build the launch rocket. Taking off from the middle of the ocean is easier as you don't need landing legs it also kinda proved that I did it from sea level, without using any high mountains to help me.

It took me 11 tries haha. The ship's name is "Eve 11". Yes, I have 10 other designs named Eve 1 to Eve 10. I basically teleported it to Eve by changing the persisitence file. Under the vessel I changed things like "Landed= True", "REF=5", "Splashed= True", "Alt=0" and things until I had it floating nicely in the sea. I have landed some of the previous versions from orbit to test parachutes and such things, those tests went well, so I didn't feel there was need to repeat that part.

I can proudly say I have escaped the surface of Eve. See here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/21748-First-ever-ascent-to-orbit-from-Eve-using-stock-parts

The hard thing is returning from Eve. I recommend another category for universal rockets that go to anywhere but Eve.

Is this the first stock parts orbital ascent from Eve? If you have already done this or know someone who has, please let me know. Until then I will bask in the partial glory of being the first to acheive orbit from Eve using stock parts. I did use the engineer mod, but that doesen't help with the ascent to orbit, it just displays information, which is handy for showing things such as orbital altitude in the screenshots. Yes, I only got to orbit, I didn't do the whole round trip back to kerbin. In fact I didn't even go from kerbin to Eve. I changed the persistence file to put this craft on the surface of Eve. One step at a time. Now I'm going to work on a rocket to take this lander out to Eve. Then the third step will be to transfer the crew to a seperate ship to do the whole round trip from Kerbin to Eve and back to Kerbin I did fly this same rocket last night, but I didn't want to burn all the way into orbit because I wanted to do the whole mission without "cheating". However tonight I couldn't wait and took it to orbit, and thought you guys would like to know. I have learnt from this mission that it takes about 11,500m/s of delta-v to reach orbit from the surface. Well that's how much it takes me. Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/9yaTU

Yep, Eve. I'm thinking of making an all round planetary ship, that can land and return from any body except Eve. Eve is just very hard.

I'm currently working on this. I have managed to reach 100km (out of the atmosphere), but not orbital velocity.

I have taken both types of jet engines to Eve, fired them in the atmosphere, right clicked on them and they showed their efficiency, going up to 100% depending on altitude. The craft had four jet engines and had a theoretical thrust-to weight on Eve of more than 3. However, even though they were working at good efficiency and they were glowing and using up fuel, they did not produce any discernible thrust. I detached two outer tanks on my way down through the atmosphere, then turned on the jet engines, but the detatched tanks fell alongside the jet powered craft at the same velocity. Eventually I crashed into the surface. Can you confirm that, although the jet engines appear to be working, they actually produce any thrust?

I once built a rocket where 1/2 time would have been very useful for staging.

WOOT!? I tested jet engines on Eve, It displayed 100% efficiency, but it wasnt actually generating any thrust for me. Are you sure they work on Eve?

I have been working on this, it's one of my main goals. So far I've managed to land on Eve with a rocket capable of reaching 95km vertically, almost out of the atmosphere. However to give it the extra delta-v needed to reach orbit makes the lander significantly larger, and makes the whole launch vehicle much much larger. I've never been good at handling very large rockets, and neither is my laptop I considered setting up a similar challenge to this, but only to reach Eve orbit. Another ship would then rendevous to pick up the crew and go home. That would be enough of a challenge on it's own. Maybe the challenge should be "highest eve ascent" or "closest to eve orbit from surface". This will gradually come to meet the original challenge of the complete mission, but will allow more collaboration and sharing (or stealing, whatever you want to call it) of ideas along the way. Having more collaboration can be a great help with difficult challenges, and with more people working together, we might see an Eve-return rocket sooner than if we all worked independently. Anyway, despite what I just said about working together on this, I'm still gonna go work on my rocket to try to beat everyone to it. Muahahaha!