The KSP Interstellar Proxima Centauri Challenge

[pmborg]

6 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I though it was supposed to be that way. The main  avantahe of the Hanger is to reduce part count when unneeded and only spawn the contents when required

Yes the idea, but the idea is not working because SpaceShip flip away slowly in space from mothership, with no crew inside , and no way to stop it.

I need to try Hangar:spacedock (spacedock don't scale, so It's not an option) or I need to put a ComputerCore(KSPI) inside for remote control and a retro engine, or Both...

Edited December 1, 2019 by pmborg

[FreeThinker]

5 minutes ago, pmborg said:

Yes the idea, but the idea is not working because SpaceShip flip away slowly in space from mothership, with no crew inside , and no way to stop it.

I need to try Hangar:spacedock or I need to put a ComputerCore(KSPI) inside for remote control and a retro engine, or Both...

Well its usualy a good idea to add any probecore to all your ships just in case its uncrewed

[allista]

22 minutes ago, pmborg said:

AlfaShip appears inside on Hangar (from @allista), but not parked or docked, so in space will flyway from mothership, with no crew inside... any idea @FreeThinker ?

If you're looking for a way to transfer the plane with the mothership, you may just fly the plane slowly into the activated hangar (I would still recommend you to use the space inflatable hangar as it has crew+resources transfer), so that the hangar would store it inside itself for the transit. Then, when you need it again, spawn it and fly away. Let me compose a small demo...

[pmborg]

7 minutes ago, allista said:

If you're looking for a way to transfer the plane with the mothership, you may just fly the plane slowly into the activated hangar (I would still recommend you to use the space inflatable hangar as it has crew+resources transfer), so that the hangar would store it inside itself for the transit. Then, when you need it again, spawn it and fly away. Let me compose a small demo...

The idea is to travel with this interStellar Ship that do 133million m/s, but once in the target planet: Paradise

• Activate the Hangar with that plane inside (we are taking here just about this step where I am struggling)
• Transfer crew from mother ship to plane.
• Takeoff from hangar to do a reentry in target planet.
• Land the plane
• Undock the kitContainer(GoundConstruction)
• Construct the mobile factory described in this thread
• Construct the first Colony in a Alfa Centaury planet.

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

Tried to use "Launch Clamps" because in theory this could be the solution:

 

but hangar don't allow it:

[pmborg]

Maybe the solution can pass to this, Inline Hangar, but once I would not like to extend more the ship, because have already almost 1km long, 914m to be more precise:

Need to explore this stage action of this particular Hangar, maybe this is the solution?

 

[pmborg]

Finally got it, @allista @FreeThinker :

 

Now officially bigger than 1km long: 1001.90649 m

Transfer Crew:

Leave Hangar:

Full control leaving mother-ship!

 

Thank you both for your truly great help!

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

Did you notice something different in image before, compared with other shots? Was the default KSP1.x without my updated AlfaCentaury addon and with dawn, sometimes, I think that I running a demo of KSP2.X... Already have interStellar space and is just... 1.8.1

In the end lost 3M-deltaV down from 133M-detaV to 130M-detaV, I hope it is enough, maybe I will need to do some changes in trajectories, lets see...:

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

OK, I am done for today.

I have done with success almost a full journey, took almost 95 years to get from Kerbin to Paradise (distance 4.1386231837925600E+16m)

 

Record two videos until now: +-1 hour each

• 1st Takeoff from Kerbin, passing Moon...  refuel at Jupiter, and then accelerate and stooped at break point to use Magnetic Scooper which it was a success( in another video)
• 2nd Maneuver to intercept star and planet. Actually found a nice way to intercept planet... just do the orbit, in opposite orbit direction, so the distance to intercept will be smaller, faster and easier!

 

All Maneuvers were made my "hand" no use of MechJeb, actually is so simple some of them, that is more fun to do it my hand, probably with mechjeb it would have been more efficient, in some minor points.

 

I think that I lost efficiency because I break too soon I think! (was with afraid of pass the star), 0.4E+16m now I know that can be, 25% of that distance.

• The 3rd video that I will do tomorrow after a full day of work, will show the undock of AlfaSpacePlane from AlfaStellarShip and the respective landing, I will do all by hand of course no Auto-pilot, will be to easy and too fun to do it!

 

Edited December 2, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

Hello!

... Back to the mission, after another flight, once on target planet I recon that I forgot one little detail on land: The crew...

Actually now serious, I did not put crew in order to concentrate my self on ship and on test all parts, again, and expecting always a failure, at some point, but was a tremendous success, now I am on orbit with no crew... so I will repeat it then, unless you think that is useful to upload those videos anyway...

 

One last note to feed the nuclear reactor I used:

4 x 1,061,208 of LqdDeuterium and ended the mission with only: 4 x 65,043 ^-^... any thoughts?

Most of the use of it was to magnetic scooper I think, I don't know if is possible to check where or when, I consumed so many nuclear reactor fuel...

 

Updated the ship to:

6 x 1,061,208 of LqdDeuterium, of course that I can refuel the ship on a gas planet like (Jupiter, Saturn and so on), but don't have fuel in nuclear reactor to do the Big Break is never an option.

 

Now with:

Dry mass: 36,879,573.00 kg

Wet mass: 539,930,000.00 kg

93.17% of SpaceShip is Fuel or Resources...

 

Edited December 3, 2019 by pmborg

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, pmborg said:

One last note to feed the nuclear reactor I used:

4 x 1,061,208 of LqdDeuterium and ended the mission with only: 4 x 65,043 ^-^... any thoughts?

Most of the use of it was to magnetic scooper I think, I don't know if is possible to check where or when, I consumed so many nuclear reactor fuel...

 

Sounds like you made a good estimation. To calculate the amount needed you should take several things into consideration

1: the power usage per seond

2: the length of time the power is used

3 the g/GJ consumption , which can be found in the reaction details windows.

Notice that for Ultra Dense DeuteriumFusion, this is only 50% of normal Deuterium Fusion as half of the energy is lost

Edited December 4, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pmborg]

Hello @FreeThinker

- I'm reconsidering some maneuvers, to increase the deltaV, and don't spend more SolidHydrogen, but only spending LqdDeuterium for nuclear reactor.
- The idea is based on this principle: if magnetic scooper work so well to decrease speed, should work also good to increase speed, right?
  When leaving the Sun to AlfaCentaury:
- According to my calculations in theory, I can get a speed near the speed of light like 99%.
- The problem is that in practice the displacement of the parts in the ship don't allow me to do that,
  once I have magnetic scooper, on top and main engine on bottom, and I need both at once, to accelerate and maintain the speed/direction needed.. to Catapult the InterStellarShip to a speed, near of speed of light.

  And also According to my calculations in theory, only the magnetic scooper, can break from  speed of light, from 300,000km/s to between 10,000km/s and 3,000km/s after that the main engine will do the rest...

 

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, pmborg said:

Hello @FreeThinker

- I'm reconsidering some maneuvers, to increase the deltaV, and don't spend more SolidHydrogen, but only spending LqdDeuterium for nuclear reactor.
- The idea is based on this principle: if magnetic scooper work so well to decrease speed, should work also good to increase speed, right?
  When leaving the Sun to AlfaCentaury:
- According to my calculations in theory, I can get a speed near the speed of light like 99%.
- The problem is that in practice the displacement of the parts in the ship don't allow me to do that,
  once I have magnetic scooper, on top and main engine on bottom, and I need both at once, to accelerate and maintain the speed/direction needed.. to Catapult the InterStellarShip to a speed, near of speed of light.

  And also According to my calculations in theory, only the magnetic scooper, can break from  speed of light, from 300,000km/s to between 10,000km/s and 3,000km/s after that the main engine will do the rest...

I'm afraid I have to burst your bubble because due to the exponetial growth on the drag generated by the magnetic scoop.

The Magnetic Scoop combined with the Bussard Fusion Engine + Muon Catalised Reactor has a terminal velocity of about 0.12c.

Edited December 5, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pmborg]

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I'm afraid I have to burst your bubble because due to the drag, tHh Magnetic Scoop combined with the Bussard Fusion Engine + Muon Catalised Reactor has a upper speed of about 0.12c.

And if I don't have both running at the same time?

I can get an acceleration of max: 5g even at 0.4E+16m of distance, the idea is to test how long it goes... i mean those  0.12c and then use the engines... that can do 0.44c in this version of the ship I have another one that do 0.88c but is not stable yet.

But for this current version, the target would be: 0.44c+0.12c = 0.56c, is that the target then?

Edited December 5, 2019 by pmborg

[FreeThinker]

5 minutes ago, pmborg said:

And if I don't have both running at the same time?

I can get an acceleration of max: 5g even at 0.4E+16m of distance, the idea is to test how long it goes...?

Ramjet Show Stopper

Things started to unravel in 1978. T. A. Heppenheimer wrote an article in Journal of the British Interplanetary Society entitled "On the Infeasibility of Interstellar Ramjets." Heppenheimer applies radiative gas dynamics to ramjet design and proves that radiative losses (via bremsstrahlung and other similar synchrotron radiation-type mechanisms) from attempting to compress the ram flow for a fusion burn would exceed the fusion energy generated by nine orders of magnitude, that is, one billion times. The energy losses will probably show up as drag. This was confirmed by Dana Andrews and Robert Zubrin in 1989.

The effect of drag? What it boiled down to was that the ramjet had a maximum speed, where the relative velocity of the incoming hydrogen equaled the drive's exhaust velocity. It has a "terminal velocity", in other words.

A proton-proton fusion drive has an exhaust velocity of 12% c, so a proton-proton fusion Bussard Ramjet would have a maximum speed of 12% c. You may remember that a spacecraft with a mass ratio that equals e (that is, 2.71828...) will have a total deltaV is exactly equal to the exhaust velocity. So if a conventional fusion rocket with a mass ratio of 3 or more has a better deltaV than a Bussard Ramjet, what's the point of using a ramjet?

source: www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php

Edited December 5, 2019 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

In my view, the Magnetic Scoop main strength is not for accelerating but for decelerating.

Edited December 5, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pmborg]

In KSPIE we have as main inter-stellar engines:

• Bussard
• Bussard2
• Daedalus

[1] In resume it means that Bussard & Bussard2 have a kind of max speed limit of 0.12c? will KSPIE be updated to have that speed limit?

[2] My question is Daedalus engine have also that kind of max speed limit?

[3] There is any other engine that don't have this kind of max speed limit in KSPIE ?

[FreeThinker]

45 minutes ago, pmborg said:

In KSPIE we have as main inter-stellar engines:

• Bussard
• Bussard2
• Daedalus

[1] In resume it means that Bussard & Bussard2 have a kind of max speed limit of 0.12c? will KSPIE be updated to have that speed limit?

[2] My question is Daedalus engine have also that kind of max speed limit?

[3] There is any other engine that don't have this kind of max speed limit in KSPIE ?

1. Its not the engine itself that has a speed limit, its the combination of an active magnetic scoop and bussard engine.

2 available DeltaV  eventual depends only on isp and propellant mass ratio, of cource this is without taken into account time constaints

3 you might want to consider antimatter or QSR or Photon Propulsion, which can be quite effective as interstellar probles

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pmborg]

The photon sail cannot accelerate 36,879 tones... is very good nevertheless to send probes.

 

Hey I don't know why, but I believe that inspired by this image:

 

And after trying so many things... probably I discovered 999 ways that make not possible the speed of light with KSPIE, (no use of warp drive) finally got it!

• hum... 0.96c will work?
• will takeoff with empty tanks?
• I don't know yet! something for tomorrow...

 

 

 

[pmborg]

Unfortunately had to abandon that one, because was too unstable/uncontrollable to fly, backed to "old model" now in revision, now with 4 tanks, which allow 142MdeltaV (0.47c) instead 130MdeltaV of previous successful model (Alfa1_8StellarShuttle-v5-9), and this version fly well for a InterStellar Ship of this size 1.4km long, and about 1 Million of tones with tanks full.

• Cruise Speed: 125MdeltaV
• Deceleration Distance: 0.2E+16m
• Magnetic Scoop: 125MdeltaV to 10MdeltaV
• Crew: 50
• Fuel On Board to Intercept Star and Planet: 17MdeltaV
• Demo with: 8 Kerbals
• AvatarSpacePlane: 8 Kerbals

Alfa1_8StellarShuttle-v5-9F:

Edited December 8, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

After 63 years, finally at target planet:

 

Once I activated the emergency landing... the airplane landed on water by parachutes, but is 100% functional and with almost full of fuel!

Time to explore, tomorrow...

In the next day:

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

@FreeThinker

Save all in videos:

- I am now trying to understand where I lose so many time...

In Theory 4.367 light years away is relatively at reach of this InterStellarShip that do 0.41c cruise... which should be in theory 10.65 years... but this don't count with time to accelerate,decelerate and maneuvers.

 

Heads up that this didn't ended well... because the factory once created... slipped way to ocean... and gone...

So basically without factory to construct the Colony they will die...

Any ideas @allista about how to avoid this?

Edited December 8, 2019 by pmborg

[linuxgurugamer]

1 minute ago, pmborg said:

slept

I think you meant “slipped”

you can try the  grip pads in one of the DLCs, or there is another mod with a ground anchor

[pmborg]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I think you meant “slipped”

you can try the  grip pads in one of the DLCs, or there is another mod with a ground anchor

You mean these ones? @linuxgurugamer on the image?

• This is not compatible with the wheels, because they don't touch on ground.
• I don't know why the attrition / friction was so bad, with those wheels in that planet...

Edited December 8, 2019 by pmborg

[pmborg]

These legs solve the problem of slipped down the hill:

 

With these electric fans, I will make sure that in a case like that, he will return to land:

 

Trying now this one:

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by pmborg