Semi straight line flight & high velocity.

[Halo_003]

Let's use the mun as our example target here. Say we have a crafts at 75km LKO, and it has 100,000dV onboard with mainsail engines. (I am aware that's ridiculous)

I'm curious if anyone has built a ship like this so that they can use say 50,000dV in acceleration to get there faster without time warping, and then flip around the other way to burn the other 50,000dV to decelerate, kind of like the ISV does in Avatar.

For details: The ISV Venture Star can travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri A& (a distance of 4.37 light years[5]) in a timeframe of 6.75 years. It starts with a five and a half month long initial acceleration at 1.5 G to reach 0.7 times the speed of light. Then it continues at the same speed for 5.83 years before the engines or photon sail (depending on which way the ships are traveling) are used to decelerate the vehicle. The ship's deceleration phase also lasts for five and a half months at 1.5G

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture_Star

Obviously though in KSP a more realistic velocity would be something like 20,000m/s, not 0.7c.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Halo_003

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

Let's use the mun as our example target here. Say we have a crafts at 75km LKO, and it has 100,000dV onboard with mainsail engines. (I am aware that's ridiculous)

I'm curious if anyone has built a ship like this so that they can use say 50,000dV in acceleration to get there faster without time warping, and then flip around the other way to burn the other 50,000dV to decelerate, kind of like the ISV does in Avatar.

For details: The ISV Venture Star can travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri A& (a distance of 4.37 light years[5]) in a timeframe of 6.75 years. It starts with a five and a half month long initial acceleration at 1.5 G to reach 0.7 times the speed of light. Then it continues at the same speed for 5.83 years before the engines or photon sail (depending on which way the ships are traveling) are used to decelerate the vehicle. The ship's deceleration phase also lasts for five and a half months at 1.5G

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture_Star

Obviously though in KSP a more realistic velocity would be something like 20,000m/s, not 0.7c.

What you're describing is often called a "Torch ship." They are not possible in KSP unless you're using overpowered mods (or Infinite Fuel), and in the real world are impossible with chemical rockets or even NTRs.

[Halo_003]

Interesting, so if you do have infinite fuel to do it is there any utility that can tell you what trajectory you need in order to do so? Just curious if it's a way to potentially(!) cut down on transit time for some added realism, assuming you have a way to bring enough fuel to do so.

[Red Iron Crown]

A brachistochrone trajectory is the classic torchship maneuver, but the math at the link is pretty complex for non-physicists like me.

[Shpaget]

Scott Manley recently did a couple of videos about this.

Munar return in about one hour ten minutes.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Shpaget

[Halo_003]

Interesting, thanks guys!