Smallest possible ISRU

[Majorjim!]

Hi everybody,

I haven't used the ISRU parts yet as they are stupidly large. Having said that does anyone know the smallest possible ISRU part configuration?

Do I have to use that massive part with all the tubes and whatnot?

Thanks!

[Yukon0009]

Unfortunately it seems the answeris yes, a smaller unit would be nice, but the drawbacks would be being slower than a turtle, even the large unit isin't exactly fast.

[Majorjim!]

Unfortunately it seems the answeris yes, a smaller unit would be nice, but the drawbacks would be being slower than a turtle, even the large unit isin't exactly fast.

Damn.. I was really hoping for smaller ISRU parts.. Considering it is possible in rl with something about the size of a Kerbal.

And the speed of refuelling doesnt bother me, in fact it would be very realistic! Sending a craft first to refuel over many months. A man can dream.

Ok, so i have to use that massive tubey part?

[Hagen von Tronje]

The ISRU is about the same size as the mobile lab, slightly bigger than a hitchhiker. How much smaller is an interplanetary drilling rig and fuel refinery supposed to be?

Smallest possible configuration should be 1 ISRU, 1 drill, 1 small tank, 1 Oscar B, 1 OX-STAT solar panel, and 1 probe core. You will get to enjoy running it for a few minutes a day due to having virtually no power, so presumably a couple of Gigantor panels and maybe more battery space would help out, and assuming you want to do more than fill up the Oscar B, you'll probably want a bigger tank and/or a docking port.

Here's what I consider a tiny mining operation. If you consider this "stupidly big" then you'll probably find it difficult to get ISRU out there, though you can of course trim the living quarters off the top.

[Majorjim!]

The ISRU is about the same size as the mobile lab, slightly bigger than a hitchhiker. How much smaller is an interplanetary drilling rig and fuel refinery supposed to be?

Smallest possible configuration should be 1 ISRU, 1 drill, 1 small tank, 1 Oscar B, 1 OX-STAT solar panel, and 1 probe core. You will get to enjoy running it for a few minutes a day due to having virtually no power, so presumably a couple of Gigantor panels and maybe more battery space would help out, and assuming you want to do more than fill up the Oscar B, you'll probably want a bigger tank and/or a docking port.

http://i.imgur.com/LMRlasf.jpg

Here's what I consider a tiny mining operation. If you consider this "stupidly big" then you'll probably find it difficult to get ISRU out there, though you can of course trim the living quarters off the top.

Damn, yeah that is way too big for what I had in mind. Yes in reality these things could be much, much smaller. Ho hum.. I don't really need ISRU for my next mission but it would be cool.

Thanks anyway doods.

[Hagen von Tronje]

Yes in reality these things could be much, much smaller.

I am genuinely curious because sometimes I miss tech advances (getting old...), can I see this? That would be amazing even making allowances for realism (presumably a real unit wouldn't have a 5m magic drill that extracts unlimited resources and never wears out the bit).

EDIT: Also not sure if you like mods or not, but I THINK tweakscale works on ISRU. Won't swear to it, and I certainly can't guarantee it's good for anything, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the scaling available on the part.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Hagen von Tronje

[SAI Peregrinus]

Yes in reality these things could be much, much smaller.

Fuel refineries IRL (that start with Oil, not with rock) are very large complexes of buildings. The ISRU is already ridiculously small and magical.

Just tweakscale it.

[Majorjim!]

Fuel refineries IRL (that start with Oil, not with rock) are very large complexes of buildings. The ISRU is already ridiculously small and magical.

Just tweakscale it.

Compared to some ideas of ISRU it is quite big. Mars direct for example was going to extract fuel from the atmosphere on Mars. The rover was about the size of a man.

Also the machine that Zubrin et al made to test the science was quite small too. Yes I know atmospheric fuel extraction is different from drilling.

I don't know any planned missions that will use drilling as a fuel extraction method though. Anyway. Yes I believe that the ISRU parts are too big.

Arguing about a mans opinion is useless so lets not bother. I am not interested in a discussion thanks.

Mods, I got what I needed from this thread. Could you close it for me?

[Sharpy]

It's a different thing to produce fuel from material picked in a random place without human attention in amounts of some 2 litres per second, and one where you have to supply the ingredients by hand and obtain milliliters per second. I gues MK1 profile ISRU that would work at 10% the speed and requiring an engineer to operate would be viable, but realistically obtaining reasonable amounts of fuel completely automatically would require something much bigger.

Especially that it processes 1kg of ore into 1kg of fuel.

[Majorjim!]

It's a different thing to produce fuel from material picked in a random place without human attention in amounts of some 2 litres per second, and one where you have to supply the ingredients by hand and obtain milliliters per second. I gues MK1 profile ISRU that would work at 10% the speed and requiring an engineer to operate would be viable, but realistically obtaining reasonable amounts of fuel completely automatically would require something much bigger.

Especially that it processes 1kg of ore into 1kg of fuel.

Ok I'll bite. I think there should be smaller ISRU parts that just do the job slower for less elec. Current parts and method just feel wrong.

[lajoswinkler]

Majorjim, you are not alone.

I can't go over the benefits of Kethane. It had two sizes, 1.25 and 2.5 m. Very convenient system with nice and educational scanning. This all does seem very wrong to me.

[Sharpy]

Ok I'll bite. I think there should be smaller ISRU parts that just do the job slower for less elec. Current parts and method just feel wrong.

Would accept, providing they do require an engineer to operate, can't function unattended. Possibly even the engineer "within range", like for fixing wheels (command seat acceptable).

The difference is like between your typical "kitchen robot" you can buy at any appliance store, which you use to prepare food, and an actual robot that can cook meals from raw ingredients, unattended.

[Ripper2900]

The size would depend on the fuel. Producing a stoichiometric amount of hydrogen / oxygen by electrolysis seems to be the closest analog to the isru in ksp. The ratio of products to ore (water ice?) would be very close to 1, and require only electricy, and a cell which could be almost arbitrarily small. The rest of the refinery would be cryogenic cooling equipment and such...

You don't need oil to produce rocket fuel.

[Sharpy]

So what about monopropellant?