Cheapest Eve return mission? and an unrelated question

[fireblade274]

So I've done a lot of stuff in ksp, 2k hours, but never returned from Eve. My question is is there a way to go to and return from Eve in career mode with no mods and still make a profit from the mission rewards? It seems all your craft need to be massive when returning, let alone how big they must be at KSP launch. Is the only way to do this efficiently by putting the craft into ksp orbit first and then launch another rocket that sends a booster section to the Eve landing craft to get it to Eve and back? Any thoughts

Another unrelated question I have: how viable is it to pick up dropped stages? if you drop a stage before your going to fast to destroy the parachutes, wont the stage stop playing along with physics after your 3 some kilometers away from it? I think I remember one instance where I launched a rocket and dropped a stage while below 2k altitude w/parachutes and was able to recover the debris later, but I remember other instances where I did the same thing but higher up (parachutes did not get destroyed) and I was unable to find the debris of the stage later..

[magnemoe]

It was an lander who was pretty small, as in 1+6 areospike stages and an small upper stage.

If you are so deep into career you should have an mining operation and a fuel depot (large core stage with probe and docking ports) in LKO.

You will also need to refuel it in Eve orbit or use an tug to take it to Eve, and an ship to return kerbal.

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In 1.0x the cutoff distance in atmosphere is 22 km making recovery more practical. Main problem is that you is speeding away and have to land it before getting more than 22 km away.

I have put parachutes on the trashcan boosters sometimes but never been able to recover them, however they don't damage the launchpad.

[Terwin]

Lots of missions in parallel. (including one or more in the kerbin system that you pick up on your way out)

ISRU(to make it feasible to do all those extra missions, expect to leave your mining gear on Eve, probably with a thermometer, antenna and power supply to pick up future data from eve missions)

This is what I generally do for any manned inter-planetary missions(except I keep the ISRU), and it is not usually difficult to turn a profit.(not that I have landed any Kerbals on Eve, mind you) (2-3 station contracts should pay for an eve mission, especially with a 'landed on Eve' station. My first Duna mission landed on Mun then Minmus for contracts before ever leaving the Kerbin SOI)

If you want to recover expended stages, then switching focus to each piece after they jettison can help them stick around after they leave the physics bubble, you can also get the Stage Recovery mod which will credit you for any bits that fall out of the physics bubble with parachutes/etc that will let them land safely(reduced by expected impact velocity and distance from KSC)

[KerikBalm]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/131877-Post-1-0-Lightest-sea-level*-Eve-ascent-challenge

You only need to get ~40 tons to eve orbit... which isn't much harder than getting 40 tons to minmis orbit.

If you use ISRU, and have a mining operation on Gilly, you can send much less than 40 tons to Eve orbit... fuel up the lander once there.

Shock cones as nose cones is a little expensive, but its eve, and the contract should be for millions.

Next use a SSTO to get your think to LKO, and you're paying ~250 funds/ton... so lets say 10k to launch it to LKO.... it uses onboard fuel to get to Eve, where it is refuelled from a tanker from Gilly.

Basically, if you've got the ISRU operations already set up, take the cost of your fuelled lander, add 10k to get it to orbit, and that s the mission cost.

As far as recovering boosters, its hard to get them recovered because they need to land before you get 22km away.

So... I find that the launch escape system on top of a barely fuelled flea is great:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zxv4728zhed0ol/SSTNope.craft?dl=0

Get to ~100-150 m/s in a couple seconds, jettison boosters simultaneously with booster chute deployment, recover boosters for 100%.

The faster you accelerate after booster seperation, the sooner you need to jettison them if you want to recover.

Also, the faster you are even going after booster seperation, the sooner you need to jettison them if you want to recover.

So... I actually did the calculations once, and decided I should make a design to jettison boosters at ~150 m/s. That drop box craft was the result.

If you want, you can have a recoverable suorbital stage too... but that won't be landing at KSC.

On my STS-style shuttle I made, the external tank was recoverable... 700 funds per ton to LKO.

Maybe if I added on some LES+Flea boosters, I could do better.

Edited October 30, 2015 by KerikBalm

[magnemoe]

Tips to get anything interplanetary cheap is to launch so you reach LKO on fumes. Smaller stuff can be launched by an SSTO but its an bit unpractical for larger stuff.

Refuel by tanker in LKO, send on its way. For Moho, Eeloo and large cargoes to Jool you might want to take it to Minmus to top up tanks then drop down to low orbit for the escape burn.

This will save over an km/s who is more than the fuel cost to get to Minmus.

Next you want an Gilly mining operation.

This is my Gilly miner / tug, its overbuild as my previous Eve rockets was far larger.

Grab, refuel, do plane change and let it deorbit.

Plan is to add kerbal later in science rover to do science in multiple biomes.

[Mikki]

@magnemoe

Your Kerbal Crew behaves weird... is this Gillness?:wink:

[magnemoe]

@magnemoe

Your Kerbal Crew behaves weird... is this Gillness?:wink:

Its an small moon crew has to save space, or that is their excuse.

It get far worse, later they started bowling

One of the dangers with Gilly is that its trivial to reach escape velocity with the jetpack.

My concern was the solar panels.

And Gilly is an nice place to learn orbital mechanics, It however will give you some bad ideas like, why not just change to retrograde orbit to reach target faster, then match velocity with target. On gilly it cost you 50 m/s, around Kerbin its 7.500 m/s

Edited October 30, 2015 by magnemoe