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Showing results for tags 're-usable'.
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Got bored, so i decided to make the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket... And i think i did it well, this thing really is a joy to fly. both pieces regularly launch from KSC LC-1 nowadays, each carrying a crew of 3 paying kerbals on a suborbital hop that included up to 10 mins of pure weightlessness (That they don't get to experience because they are strapped to their seats ) Anyway, tell me what you think!
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- re-usable
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I just saw 3Dprintingnut's brilliant design on KerbalX for early career mode games - https://kerbalx.com/3Dprintingnut/Sky-Shot-mk1 I downloaded the thing and yes, it really does work, and flies well. It's got me thinking about the economics of re-usability, in KSP - assuming that's something you want to RP (yes, i know, you can just ignore economics and fly a few more contracts to farm cash, and most of your cost is upgrading buildings not space vehicles) In a standard rocket, you have a lower stage, which you accelerate to about half of orbital velocity, then throw it away. Then you have the upper stage, which is taken all the way in to orbit. It consists of the upper stage engine, upper stage fuel tank, pod, and whatever stuff you need to survive re-entry and landing. Typically, the upper stage engine and tank are decoupled prior to re-entry, because it makes the process easier. However, since you already accelerated these components to orbital velocity, there is no performance reason why you couldn't bring them back, provided you can solve the design issue. To increase re-usability further, we have to start bringing more of the lower stage components up to orbit then home again. At this point it becomes a tradeoff - there is only so much mass you can carry with you before performance declines too much. So it's helpful to start looking at the Dry mass vs Cost of these components to see which are most worth saving - Reliant Engine - Mass 1.25T Cost 1100 Saving per Tonne when re-used = 880 Swivel Engine - Mass 1.5T Cost 1200 Saving per Tonne when re-used = 800 FT400 tank - Dry mass 0.25T Cost 316.4 Saving per Tonne when re-used = 1265.6 Rather surprisingly, it is better to ditch your lower stage rocket engine but drag it's empty fuel tanks to orbit for re-use, assuming you don't have the delta V to bring the whole lot.
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