Antimatter transport from orbit to space center?

[NeverEnoughFuel!!]

Some ideas and designs for antimatter transport? Please don't tell me bigass SSTO I hate flying those monsters... too expensive too risky to crash, I was thinking something like a rover i.e. antimatter containment unit with wheels, collectors and lot of parachutes... only thing I'm not sure of is can wheels survive reentry? And one more question, I probably shouldn't ask it here, but I noticed that interstellar can't "see" or use near future reactors?

[quasarrgames]

exactly how delicate are antimatter tanks? What's their impact tolerance?

Also, rovers dont survive reentry very well, you'll need a lot of radiators. If all you're doing is transporting it from orbit to the space centre, i'd suggest some kind of drop pod with parachutes. You should either learn how to aerobreak precisely or strap some wings to it and glide it until its vaguely over the space center, then deploy 'chutes.

 

Just my two cents.

[suicidejunkie]

You can make a sporty little 30t SSTO plane for about the same price as my mun lander, except it doesn't get thrown away at the end, so it really only costs $5k per launch (fuel) and pays for itself immediately.

 

It sounds like what you want is just an orbital drop pod: heat shield + decoupler(to drop the heavy shield) + AM canister + basic probe + parachutes, and then fling it at the atmosphere with a ship.

Depending on the precision you get with your targeting, you can then send a rover or a puddle jumper airplane or perhaps a boat out to collect the goodies.

 

[Jetski]

I use a drop pod, size the heatsheld a little bigger than the tank, lander legs and chutes. I also have a small reactor on board so the tank stays powered, and a few fins near the top to point it the right way during reentry. Easy money in New Horizons universe, as the big blue planet with rings has a juicy antimatter belt, and I do direct drops from there to kerbin surface. 

[wumpus]

Depends on what antimatter you make.  I think the only antimatter containment I've heard of (except that it was years ago, don't know if anybody still cares to work on it) was a bunch of positrons in a cyclotron-type structure. They were held traveling in a ring.  Presumably as long as you kept them in their ring (and don't touch *anything*) they would keep going.

Things might be easiest if you could make anti-iron and hold it in place magnetically, but I don't think anybody can make much beyond positrons.

[katateochi]

On 21/01/2016 at 10:29 PM, NeverEnoughFuel!! said:

only thing I'm not sure of is can wheels survive reentry?

well the rover wheels have a max temp of 1200 whereas the LY-10 landing gear can take up to 2500, so generally no, rover wheels don't like reentry.

But I have built small craft which return from orbit as unpowered gliders and use the little LY05 landing gear, which has an even lower temp tolerance than the rover wheels.  In a normal re-entry they will explode.....so with those craft I do reentry upside down.  Or you could just put a heat shield to protect the wheels.

[the torturer of kerbals]

what mod are you using for antimatter?

[NeverEnoughFuel!!]

Interstellar Extended... and bunch of others...

[Jhawk1099]

I dont have the mods you are speaking of but an idea I have is to have your rover with your anti matter tanks and all that but mouny a heat shield and parachutes as to make your re entry survivable. Then whem you land just decouple the heat shield and drive back to the ksc