Sstmab!

[herbal space program]

After spending a truly life-damaging amount of time working on it, I finally managed to get a stock 1.0 space plane to land a Kerbal on the Mun and bring him back safely to Kerbin without refueling:

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You can look through the album to see the details of how I did it. This seemed right on the edge of what is possible to me, and 4 RAPIER engines plus one nuke seems like the magic formula. I believe this design could just make it to the surface of Laythe as well, and I will test it for that challenge later. It mey requires some fancy gravity assists! However landing on the Mun and returning has its own unique challenges. Can you do better than this? Can you:

Do it with lower takeoff weight?

Do it with more than one Kerbal?

Do it with more fuel in the tank when you land?

Visit any other body as well?

Do it without using a nuke engine?

Land back on the KSC runway?

Ground rules include all stock, 1.0.2, and no abuse of part clipping or any other physics exploit!

Edited June 8, 2015 by herbal space program

[georgTF]

Well done. Shame about the landing legs, but that's back on Kerbin, so who cares.

You might improve your design by adding more nukes instead of jets. In fact Turbojets + Nukes might be the way to go. It won't be easy, and no, i haven't done it, but something like 4-6 nukes could reach LKO after a turbojet push to about 1100-1300 m/s.

The chief reason i'm suggesting nukes is that jet engines will be dead weight in space. More nukes also means more thrust and you'll need it during ascent. They have very good Isp in high altitude (~790) so you won't waste too much fuel, and you can fully use them in space.

If you try this, you will need more wings as Falconer's KerbODactyl demonstrates. Though that is a single jet design.

[edit] Sorry, i just made a generic reply. I kinda forgot this was a challenge. my bad

[herbal space program]

Well done. Shame about the landing legs, but that's back on Kerbin, so who cares.

You might improve your design by adding more nukes instead of jets. In fact Turbojets + Nukes might be the way to go. It won't be easy, and no, i haven't done it, but something like 4-6 nukes could reach LKO after a turbojet push to about 1100-1300 m/s.

The chief reason i'm suggesting nukes is that jet engines will be dead weight in space. More nukes also means more thrust and you'll need it during ascent. They have very good Isp in high altitude (~790) so you won't waste too much fuel, and you can fully use them in space.

If you try this, you will need more wings as Falconer's KerbODactyl demonstrates. Though that is a single jet design.

[edit] Sorry, i just made a generic reply. I kinda forgot this was a challenge. my bad

Generic replies are fine with me! I used my nuke as an afterburner in the design I posted, but I think you'd need to go pretty big to support 2 or more nukes. As using just turbos + nukes, I don't think the turbos can sustain enough speed at the high end to allow for the most efficient flight to orbit. I also use the RAPIERS during my Mun landing to bleed off velocity quickly. It requires less accuracy that way, plus the rapid deceleration makes up or the lower ISP to a significant extent. Landing without them would have been very hard! Anyway, I'd love to see you prove me wrong about the turbos!