4-point Onion launcher building technique

[stratvox]

This isn't really a craft so much as an approach to getting heavy payloads into LKO. I have larger ones than this, but this shows the overall approach to it.

Here's a link to my google album showing some of these:

https://plus.google.com/+JackTroughton/posts/JghmLXrB6wa

The basic idea is that you build your payload out of 2.5M parts, and radially attach four boosters (fuel tank plus engine) to it. Then you start to build down from it. Proper strutting technique makes these systems very stable. When you attach your final stage boosters, you strut from the top to the payload, and create a box at the bottom of the tanks. The tanks below get strutted into the box configuration. On the first stage (i.e. the one that fires on launch) you can then onion out to add more dV. This design is extremely stable on launch.

You can use either 2 or 2.5M parts for the outboard boosters. When you use these parts, you can then step down using either the same size parts or put an adaptor on and then strap on the next size up. See the pics for illustrations of what I mean. I have not tested out just how much I can get up into orbit with this configuration, but I have definitely lofted well over 100 tons out of Kerbin's SOI with some of these, and I can see how it could be possible to go much higher than that... I play contract only so my biggest problem is paying for them... but compared to some of the other designs I've seen I can actually afford these... from time to time.

I decided to post this because after poking around I haven't really seen people using this approach to building space craft.

Thoughts?

[GusTurbo]

Seems like a very practical approach to building lifters. I generally eschew practicality in favor of looks.

[stratvox]

Sorry for the long delay. Work. Yeah, this is something that got me pretty late-stage into the contract game before I went broke trying to create interplanetary missions... and the stability of this design and the low part count are remarkable. I'm seriously hoping the update doesn't break this design.