Gone to space challenge

[WOLVSAid]

Ever got the crazy idea of moar boosters!!!! well what could go wrong ?

Craft example

My try :

https://youtu.be/U6ezihm65EA

I toke it on my self to build hell mother of moar boosters and ended in space faster then expected,

Now it's your time, Build a stock craft and send it to space as fast as possible and as always rules are simple :

No cheats

stock only

Rating is based on how fast you reach 70KM and will be done on 20/04/2016

So as always make sure you take screen shot \ video and post it in comment below.

 

Good luck kerbals

 

Results and ranking : 

Record holder : 

Nefrums with 32 Seconds

2nd place :

Ultimate Steve with 35 seconds and escaped to the sun

3rd place :

Pete- with 35 seconds and lot of fuel left

4th place : 

purpleivan with 35 seconds unmanned probe

5th place : 

spacebrick3 with 36 seconds All hail the 3.75M engines

 

Thank you all for participating it was tons of fun and moar boosters.

Stay tuned for more challenges every week

 

Edited April 20, 2016 by WOLVSAid
Results and ranking

[spacebrick3]

My first attempt: It's a pile of onion-staged boosters: Got to 70 km in 55 seconds.

Riding on a column of fire:

Lost the Fleas and the Hammers, reaching hypersonic:

SPAAAAAAACE! (You can see the MET time = 55 seconds)

[purpleivan]

Had a quick crack at this while making dinner (was running back and forth between desk and cooker between attempts).

I managed to get op over 70km in 50 seconds.

I decided to keep it simple and just use three engines, the kind that you'd use for a typical launcher construction, but with ridiculously small amounts of fuel for each stage.

I could probably have gone faster as I was only at 2/3 throttle on the first stage (too m heat later if I went above that) and the 3rd stage ran out of fuel at about 52km and coasted the rest of the way up.

Heat and to a less degree stability were the big issues for me.

Might have another crack later at something faster.

Edited April 14, 2016 by purpleivan

[WOLVSAid]

@spacebrick3 Loved the design and keep it up 55 sec is a good run

@purpleivanAwesome run, Now we are competing ( small tip : even fairing does overheat ) 

[purpleivan]

10 hours ago, WOLVSAid said:

 

@purpleivanAwesome run, Now we are competing ( small tip : even fairing does overheat ) 

I actually had three fairings, one inside the other, two attached to the 2nd stage, almost the same size as each other, plus another one the on the nosecone of the 3rd, but yup fairings do overheat.

Edited April 15, 2016 by purpleivan

[JebsDead]

42 seconds... 
 

 

[purpleivan]

8 hours ago, JebsDead said:

42 seconds... 
 

 

How did you manage to avoid atmospheric heating issues?

I had to reduce thrust on the 1st stage so that my 2nd didn't explode.

Edited April 15, 2016 by purpleivan

[JebsDead]

I have a heat shield on one rocket and a sacrificial nose cone on another.  By the time it explodes I'm high enough that heating isn't an issue.  

I'm running the 1.1 pre release.  I don't think the aero changed significantly.  I'll try the simple rocket in 1.0.5 and report back if there are more explosions.

[JebsDead]

Tried it in 1.0.5.  Same result... 42 seconds.  There was noticeably more heating but no explosions. Heat shields have a higher temperature limit than fairings.  Did you try your design with a heat shield instead of a fairing?  Also, engines are heavy. I wonder about the payoff for carrying your large second stage... is that a mainsail?  That's a lot of extra mass for a short second stage burn.      

[purpleivan]

6 minutes ago, JebsDead said:

Tried it in 1.0.5.  Same result... 42 seconds.  There was noticeably more heating but no explosions. Heat shields have a higher temperature limit than fairings.  Did you try your design with a heat shield instead of a fairing?  Also, engines are heavy. I wonder about the payoff for carrying your large second stage... is that a mainsail?  That's a lot of extra mass for a short second stage burn.      

I was going for a more slippery design, but it looks as if at these velocities it's the real issue.

I replaced my fairings with two heat shields (for 2nd and 3rd stages) and was able to go full throttle from launch with the only explosion being the nosecone at about 15km and achieved a time of 46 seconds.

 

Hmmm so... how will I get those extra 5 seconds

Going to have another crack at this after dinner.

[Sharkman Briton]

This is quite an interesting challenge. Can someone make a badge?

[purpleivan]

Closing in... 44 seconds.

I'll have to put a little more fuel in for another attempt as I ran out at a little over 60km.

Going to start mashing the F1 key when I get close to 70km as well for that extra 1/2 second too.

 

[Sharkman Briton]

1 minute ago, purpleivan said:

Closing in... 44 seconds.

I'll have to put a little more fuel in for another attempt as I ran out at a little over 60km.

Going to start mashing the F1 key when I get close to 70km as well for that extra 1/2 second too.

 

I don't know if im gonna participate but i recommend fast engines, well places heatshields and hella aerodynamics

[purpleivan]

So, I redesigned my ship a bit, changed some engines and fuel loads and got my time down to 44 seconds.

Good, but not good enough.

As loathed as I was to do it, I decided on MOAR BOOSTERS (well two additional engines and tanks for the 1st stage) and so now we have.

Gone in 41 Seconds

More impressive though is that the pic I grabbed when I finally made it into space was at the exact moment my fuel ran out, as in 0.00 in the tanks, but before the game's particles from the engine significantly faded (no idea what the lifespan for those are on an aerospike).

But with that I think I'm bowing out of this challenge, as I think we could be getting into serious diminishing returns territory.

Although I'll probably proved wrong and a couple hours from now someone will post a time of 35 seconds.

[JebsDead]

Sorry...  Not sorry. 
40 seconds.  39?

 

[purpleivan]

I thought I'd escaped from this madness, but then got pulled back in again.

Unfortunately I couldn't do it in 39 seconds, not matter how hard I tried, but I did manage it in 38 seconds!

I did the honest thing this time and put Jeb on top of the stack (previous launches were unmanned).

[killakrust]

Wow, breaking the 40 second barrier is going to be a tough one.

Here is my attempt. I used a bunch of Vector engines due to their massive power in a small package. I did it it in 40 seconds...

 

Edited April 15, 2016 by killakrust

[JebsDead]

37 seconds. 

Killakrust I'm surprised the Vector engines did that well.  They are close but the Mammoth clearly wins out on TWR.  Must be fuel consumption rate or reduced drag on the smaller profile that makes up for it. 

How do you guys get the badges?  I did the Jool 5 challenge.  Do I just add the badge to my signature myself or is it automated somehow in the profile settings? 

[Jetski]

1 hour ago, JebsDead said:

37 seconds. 

Killakrust I'm surprised the Vector engines did that well.  They are close but the Mammoth clearly wins out on TWR.  Must be fuel consumption rate or reduced drag on the smaller profile that makes up for it. 

How do you guys get the badges?  I did the Jool 5 challenge.  Do I just add the badge to my signature myself or is it automated somehow in the profile settings? 

1. Get the URL of the badge image, then click your forum name top right corner.  
2. Account settings -> Signature
3. insert image from URL (enter the image URL you have for the badge)
4. save and done.

For stuff like the Jool 5 I usually wait until the thread OP posts me on a board, or at least says it's a legit mission.  If OP is absent, meh, it's up to you if you want to grab the badge I guess.

Also just did 51 secs to space with Vectors.  Room for improvement.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Jetski

[sevenperforce]

I may give this a shot in Demo. Won't come anywhere close to y'all's results, of course, but it will be an interesting design challenge. 

[Mesklin]

36 seconds

Vector engine is a king with magic of antenna. Antenna, installed on the top of nose cone is working as a very good heat defender.

 

 

[purpleivan]

36 Seconds

Now with extra video goodness.

 

[spacebrick3]

So, after seeing how everybody here is doing better than me, I decided to try again. Using elements stolen from @JebsDead (basic layout of the boosters) and antennas from @Mesklin, I got a score of 40 seconds. Not perfect, but better than my last attempt by a quarter of a minute.

On the launchpad:

The three outer boosters all feed into the two directly attached to the middle, and those two feed the empty fuel tank above the Vector.

Reaching hypersonic:

Overheating but protected by the antennas (how does that even work?)

After forty seconds of terror for Mallong Kerman, space.

And finally, a quote which I think is appropriate for my rocket: " If you steal from everybody, it's called research" -Tom Lehrer

[JebsDead]

I posted my 37 seconds on Reddit.   They are down to 35.

[purpleivan]

30 minutes ago, JebsDead said:

I posted my 37 seconds on Reddit.   They are down to 35.

I pushed for 35 a few times with more tanks/engines at the base of the vehicle but couldn't quite get it. I was close (probably about 0.1 seconds off) but couldn't quite get there.

Hmmm.. was hoping to get out of this madness, but think I'm being pulled back in again.