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There comes a time in everyone's KSP career when a destination must be considered.....again! That's right, the first mission to Moho wasn't big enough, so let me introduce OHNO IT'S MY SECOND MISSION TO MOHO! Let's just remind ourselves with a picture of how compact I went the first time round: the first mission to Moho was no small feat, but there was definitely room to go bigger! If you didn't get it from the picture let me fill you in that this was clearly no small probe. I genuinely started out with the best intentions the first time round, but as the wish list for "doing Moho" grew I decided that I required the following to say that I had effectively "done" Moho: 1) Lander: Clearly why bother unless we are actually going for boots on the ground (and returning them safely) Room for 2 Kerbals 2) Orbital outpost: If we are going we are going big and I'm pretty confident I don't want to be sending any more than 1 rocket if I don't have to. Room for 24 in emergencies, but otherwise built to handle 6-12 in spacious living conditions 3) Return vehicle and habitat: Yes, it's a pretty long mission, so the crew needs somewhere to play cards and also to return safely if at all possible. Supports a crew of three with extended living space If you still don't get a picture of the scale of this absurdity then let's cover off some basic facts on the mission with my mission factoids section: Tall - 50.2 meters to be precise. Not the tallest out there but nearly the height of the VAB and certainly long enough to experience massive noodling Wide - Almost exactly 25 meters each way. It's both long and very chubby Heavy - Four thousand five hundred tonnes, and seven hundred kilos (snacks). the trans Moho injection vehicle and payload alone are over 800 tonnes Computer crushing - 608 parts on the launch pad. Could be worse but it's not friendly. Luckily Gerty 3000 is up to the job Expensive - 1,659,692 things. So what's going to change this time? Why bother going any bigger than I already did? Well a couple of reasons. Firstly I don't think I did the ground well enough. This will be a much bigger ground mission, taking into account two separate challenges: The Moho Challenge by @Xeldrak: The Elcano Challenge by @rkarmark: So I'm going to go to Moho, deploy both ground and orbital modules and gain as near to maximum points as possible in the Moho challenge, complete the Elcano challenge for Moho, and then somehow get home. Not only am I going to do this, but it's going to be stock (apart from visual mods for pretty pictures) and there's going to be some sort of narrative, and lots of interesting things to see along the way with you joining me right at the start of the design phase. So let's take stock of where we are at at this point. The first module that is already complete is the Moho ground operations platform: Room for 8 in an emergency, but designed for mission length ground operations for 4. With 43 parts, and weighing 11.508t it means I'm already on my way to a computer melting ship. The Moho ground operation platform descends on two Mk-55 Thud engines, and will decouple 1 drop tank during it's descent to the surface. Margins are tight, but it should be able to cope with a landing from around 150km orbit. Once on the ground it will mark the start and end point for the Elcano mission, as well as providing valuable points for leaving behind a science platform (an orbital platform is also planned) Delivery of the Moho ground operations platform was courtesy of the new Kenman Superduty truck specifically designed for transporting heavy payloads to KSC: The Kenman Superduty will be the main vehicle for transporting completed modules to the VAB for assembly into the main payload. Two or more may be required to shift the massive weight of the as yet unknown launch vehicle. Here's another view of low loader plus payload: So that's it for the moment folks. I'm expecting this mission to take literally weeks or very possibly months, but I will provide updates and interesting tidbits as I run through the design and engineering phase, and then on to the mission proper. Stay tuned! SM