Proposal for new challenge: Recreate "The Martian" by Andy Weir

[Eleven]

I'm only half through the book, but so far everything in there looks like it could be recreated in KSP. There is a map in the ebook that shows the relative locations and distances used between landing sites and the book itself details scenarios fairly well. The same thing with the vessels, other than a physical description there are pretty good descriptions of systems and engines.

Of course I'll have to finish the book and see how it turns out, but so far I think the challenge should start like the book starts, so some pre-planning and initial placement of assets would need to be done first.

I think it could all be done with stock parts but KAS/KIS might be needed to keep it close to the book. For instance the main character takes solar panels from the Hab array and uses them on one of the rovers. He also travels and searches for a buried RTG to use in one of the rovers and actually takes it back and buries it later. So maybe being able to pick up parts and move them around would make the challenge even better.

I'll go back today and make notes of the distances and relative locations so far and see if this would be actually feasible. If it can be kept to Stock Parts (Even allowing for KAS/KIS) then getting the challenge setup and ready to go could actually be saved and shared as a gamesave for everyone to try.

As of right now, 50% through the book the main character has had to get rovers working for long distance travel, gone a few Km's to retrieve an RTG, gone a couple hundred KM's (I think) to retrieve the old Pathfinder and Sojourner Lander/Rover (For communications with Earth) and Mission control is planning on re-routing a ship bound for earth into a new trajectory for a near-earth rendezvous with a resupply ship, which will then head back to Mars to get the stranded Astronaut. His main mission at this point is to make it 3200Km to a waiting ascent vehicle to renezvous with the newly-inbound ship coming from Earth.

The challenge will most likely change as the book progresses, I'll try and finish it quickly and outline the rest of the challenge accordingly.

Best case scenario would be for me (or anyone who has had a similar idea) to build the ships, rovers and Hab and place them to start the challenge and then simply upload the save file and let everyone follow the order of the book.

If anyone else has already done this, or has ideas, post em here!

Edited April 27, 2015 by Eleven

[gigaboom2]

This is my favorite book of all time. Not that I would have the patience needed for this challenge, (I have never even docked before) but the challenge will not need to change much.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I'd love to recreate it. But unfortunately, my visualization skills are horrid and I have no idea how the Hermes and the Mars Descent/Ascent Vehicles would look like.

[Rolanvorxariat]

I'd love to recreate it. But unfortunately, my visualization skills are horrid and I have no idea how the Hermes and the Mars Descent/Ascent Vehicles would look like.

Then let's wait for the movie.

[Eleven]

Then let's wait for the movie.

I saw the two teaser trailers and they weren't much help. We do know from the book that the Hab is a dome with 3 airlocks, the Hermes has a ring for artificial gravity, the MDV has an apollo style design in the respect that it leaves the landing struts and descent stage on Mars when it takes back off again.

There was a quick glimpse of the rover in the teaser trailer but it looked generic, same thing with the MDV, it looked like an Orion style craft.

I'm working on the designs for the rovers, hab and MDV right now, they're all pretty beta right now, and I'd love to be able to properly deliver and land them in the game as well as just use them in a scenario/challenge. Right now they are just basic designs, I think if I get them all to the point where I'm happy with how they look, I'll start working on delivery systems for them too. I'm also confident that KIS will be the only mod needed, and only because it would be more true to the book if you actually had to go pick up the RTG and place/store Solar Panels as you traveled around. I don't think there is a way to do that kind of thing with the Stock system

Here's a couple shots of my first attempts at the Hab, Rover, MDV and a preliminary version of Hermes:

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Edited April 19, 2015 by Eleven

[jarmund]

Time for me to read this one, I guess. I've heard about it on KSP forums a lot, without knowing anything about it (or even hearing about it).

And I find that odd, since I like science fiction (preuming that's the category?), such as Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, in addition to Neal Stephenson

[Batz_10K]

Here's another take on the MDV.

The trailer looks good, I'll be interested to see how the movie turns out as so much of the book is inside Mark's head.

[Eleven]

Batz_10K Your MDV does resemble the one in the trailer much more than mine does, can it hold 6 kerbals? There are 6 astronauts on the Ares mission in the book, my Hab and MDV can each hold 6, the rover can hold 5+1 (extra seat in the cargo bay!)

I'm going to start working on the Hermes tonight, and hopefully finish the book too

[Batz_10K]

Huh. I didn't realize there were 2 trailers.... That is what I imagined it would look like. I guess if I put a hitch-hiker under the capsule it'll hold 7 Kerbals and look a bit more like the movie one. The Aerospikes probably need to be swapped for LV909s too.

[Eleven]

Here are the trailers:

{Full video URL}

And:

{Full video URL}

Edited April 19, 2015 by Eleven

[Apature rocket science]

I think I could make the whole thing as a simulation, I might try this when ksp goes into 1.0, this is only 6 days away and if I start it now I will have to deal with probblem due to mods. The beata update will be the longest update, 1.1 will be about 3 months away according to squad and on this time I will be able to a make a set up.

Mods I plan to use

KAS

Kis

Kar

Interstellar visual effects mod

Enviroment enhancements mods (for the Duna dust storms)

More to come

I will need to make a hab Whitch is basicly a blow up tent, the had is quite large and I think it might have to be made by a modder because I could make it out of wing parts it would loose its importance, the ares 5 (the rocket mark uses to get of Mars) I want that to be a interactive process of taking apart the rocket using KAS, say ditching some comas pod and making a comand seat, ditchimg KAS container and sutch, the rover mark makes will have to be a custom mod and I think we might have to use real solar system mod. Things like adding the rtg to the rover could be done usa g KAS and moving the solar pannles across and making a rack for them can be done in KAS, KAS can deal with taking the battery from one rover to the other.

Life susport mark style will be hard to do, how he makes to potato farm and sutch so I think we should go with a time limit and this can be done by having the Hermes fly by on day 564 and the play will have to have gotten to the roket by then and modded it, timing the launch time so the rocket will intercept the Hermes will eb tough and calulatior a orbit that the Hermes can take that intercepts Mars and goes to earth will be hard, I don't plan on having the play be able to move the Hermes at all, un till they dock to it

[Eleven]

I'm still working on some of the designs for a stock-only version of all the ships and rovers, but yea a full-on modded scenario would be great. And potatoes...how cool would that be? I've gotten new versions of the Hermes and MDV/MAV that can be launched and reach Duna already, and I've kinda stuck with the same design on the rovers that I pictured above, I have a setup ready with 2 of those that can be launched and reach Duna as well. Same thing with the Pathfinder/Sojouner. All I need to do now is tweak the Hab and make it launchable, as well as come up with simple designs for the satellites they have in orbit around Mars, and the Hermes resupply.

At this point, I've been able to keep everything stock, except for KIS, you really need to be able to take things apart to keep in line with the story. I've tested taking sojourner apart and placing the solar panels on the rovers, that was fun to do. Having parts that could come off of the MAV before launch would be great as well.

With 1.0 coming up so quickly, I hope it really doesn't affect the launchers I've designed, that would just suck

Forgot to mention, for me, half the fun is just building things that would work in this scenario, and being able to actually have all the parts that can fly to and land on Duna, not just place them there with hyperedit or something. I'll post updated pics later tonight on the new Hermes and MAV I worked on...

Edited April 22, 2015 by Eleven

[Thunderous Echo]

I am totally on board with this.

(We're recording this for YouTube, right?)

I don't see any way around KAC, as that's the only way that Watney can tinker. And we'll also need

Kerbal Follower

But nothing more would be needed, especially if we supplemented with animation.

I can do voice overs as well, my mic only gets a little background noise.

I'll also look for measurements. We should be based more on the book than the trailer, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)

EDIT:

When we find specifications, put them here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B99mIHx34Okjfmh3QzNtaHU2MzFxZ0xNdDQ4QlB4MXJiMkJybnNUcnVtSUlXY3B4b2xhWUk&usp=sharing

EDIT: Are we scaling meter by meter or scaling to Kerbal height?

Edited April 24, 2015 by Thunderous Echo

[Eleven]

I haven't given up trying this. I re-did most of the crafts I had worked on in .90 but the Hab is just not easy to do in stock. I've gotten all the pieces together and they're all on their way to Duna now. I haven't given tons of thought to the scale, but it does need to be significantly smaller than real life.

In .90 I landed a rover only a couple km from the hab and it was a long ride

[Tem Barone]

Funny thing, I just sent off a challenge based on this idea to Biff and Nos on the Kerbal Podcast. Here were my suggestions:

1) Send 2 unmanned ascent stages to Duna. These are our DAV's (Duna Ascent Vehicles). These should be landed at least 3,200 KM apart since this is the distance Mark Watney travels. These were Ares 3 and 4 in the book, but lets just call them A and B so that everyone can name their own.

BONUS) The DAV's should be capable of mining their own fuel (since if I remember correctly the Ares mission MAV's had to be on Mars ahead of time in order to have enough time to create fuel for when the Ares crew needed to take off).

BONUS) DAV "B" is a sketchy as possible. Mark Watney had to strip Ares 4 to the bare minimum in order to get enough dV to catch up to the Hermes.

2) Send a multicrew mission crew to Duna and land at the "A" site. They should bring at least 1 rover. One of these crew members must be an Engineer: this is our Mark Watney.

BONUS: Bring 2 rovers

BONUS: construct your rovers so that one rover can tow the second.

BONUS: bring along a Hab unit / Duna base. if you choose not to go this route your lander will serve as your Hab

BONUS

3) Evacuate your crew in the DAV "A", leaving behind your Engineer (lets call him Pirate Ninja, that's easier). Your Pirate Ninja should now be by himself, with no means of leaving Duna other than to rover his (or her) way over to the DAV "B" site.

4) Let the roving begin! Make your way to DAV "B"

BONUS: bring both (if you brought 2) rovers form site A to site B

5) Reach DAV "B" and launch and rendezvous with your interplanetary vehicle and bring Pirate Ninja home.

BONUS: Your interplanetary ship takes a trip back to Kerbin before returning to Duna to pick up Pirate Ninja

SUPER BONUS: Your interplanetary ship only slingshots past Kerbin on the first return, and slighshots past Duna for the final pickup. This means you can't establish an orbit!

There you have it. I'm normally a career player, but perhaps I'll spend time this week in Sandbox trying to complete this mission myself, since I don't currently have the tech or money to do it in Career.

I think this provides a pretty thorough recreation. The only thing that would be better would be if the engineers can construct/repair ships on the fly, especially if you can rob parts from one to add to another. Then we could add mission elements for scavenging parts off of another rover like Watney does with the Pathfinder probe.

If anyone does this challenge, please take and share pictures!!

[Soda Popinski]

This might help. From Andy Weir's blog. It shows the orbital maneuvers, using constant thrust. Don't think that can be done properly in KSP unless you want to do physics warp for several months. Or did someone make an ion drive that works under normal warp?

http://www.galactanet.com/martian/hermes.mp4

Edited May 7, 2015 by Soda Popinski

[Eleven]

Here's a few shots of what I'm doing. Everything is ready to go, except the Hermes is still in Duna orbit. I think it will be 'officially on' when Hermes leaves orbit

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Here's the Ares 3 landing site, Hermes with and without it's solars extended and the orbits of my versions of the 5 active satellites currently orbiting Mars. I can't remember in the book which ones were used, or even if they were the real-life current ones and not just some newly created ones for the book.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Eleven

[SirJodelstein]

I'm also working on an entry. Ares III site with hab, rovers, MAV and MDV and weather stations is complete. Stay tuned

[Jonboy]

The space program that NASA is running in The Martian is based on many of the concepts of the Mars Direct proposal that Robert Zubrin has been famously advocating for over 20 years now. Now that we have stock ISRU, do you think there's any way fuel production could be a part of this challenge?

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I really want to design a Duna Direct challenge that uses stock ISRU to refuel the Duna Ascent Vehicle so that your Kerbal explorers can use it to get back home when they arrive. That would probably be beyond the scope of this challenge, though.

Edit: Also, this challenge might require someone to have read The Martian to really understand the objectives. The basics of Mars Direct are freely available online for anyone to research, another advantage to a potential Duna Direct challenge.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Jonboy

[Eleven]

If anyone is interested in my take on it, HERE is my Game Save. It is all stock except for Kerbal Inventory System, it was needed to be able to retrieve the RTG and attach the solar panels to the rovers. It has all the ships and subassemblies I used, and the scenario is set right where the book starts. I have Bill on the surface of Duna as my "Mark", don't know if that matters, but Bill is an engineer and you do need one to use the KIS tools

@Jonboy I had thought of ISRU for the MAV and it's do-able for sure. The only difference is in the book, the MAV converted hydrogen and oxygen I think? And all we'd be able to do in stock is drill and convert Ore. And yea I think for this to end up being a real challenge for the forums, the steps would have to be laid out.

I just eye balled the distances in my current Game Save, going the real distances Mark did in the book would be crazy. So right now there is an RTG about 4km from the Hab, Pathfinder and Sojourner are about 50k from the hab and....I forget how far the Ares 4 MAV is off the top of my head!

There are solar panels in the KIS containers in each rover, the rovers dock to each other so you can take them both. They will run out of power so you will have to take the solar panels out and place them on the rovers to recharge. There isn't a real use for the RTG, but it's out there to go retrieve!

The only thing I'm unsure about in my scenario is if the MAV has enough dV to rendezvous with Hermes when it comes back. Hermes also needs to be micro-managed, you'll run out of electric charge on long burns, but you can prolong it by keeping the solar panels oriented correctly. The Hermes resupply ship has Xenon, I'm pretty sure they'll need it.

I can't wait to see what other people have done, please post your saves or at least screenshots

[SirJodelstein]

The story begins (With a slight twist to the original narrative)

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[heng]

well, the interesting part is in the last leg of the novel.

i don't want to spoiler it, so i can't be specific, but the flight path of the Hermes will be tricky to recreate... especially if you want to go for the two refuelling missions around Kerbin. (i probably can do the first one :-D)

and the last maneuver? you really think this is doable in KSP?

[SirJodelstein]

Planning and executing multi-day continuous thrust maneuvers? No thanks, I'll pass on that. But I'll get some cool screenshots to go with my writing anyway

Meanwhile, on Duna, our hero is busy moving dirt and repowering the Duna Ascent Vehicle

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[Apature rocket science]

well, the interesting part is in the last leg of the novel.

i don't want to spoiler it, so i can't be specific, but the flight path of the Hermes will be tricky to recreate... especially if you want to go for the two refuelling missions around Kerbin. (i probably can do the first one :-D)

and the last maneuver? you really think this is doable in KSP?

Well planing a Mauver like that is hard because the rocket he gets in needs to get striped down and needs to reach escape velostidy on a orbital party that reaches earth and also there's the Hermes adjust meant thing and that need to alime up.

Personally I think there needs to be a custom mod for this challenge, because of the Hermes launch window and the ridiculous amount of other stuff he dose, it could be a custom mission thing.

[Eleven]

Production stills from the movie shoot: