30 tons to high munar orbit?

[dire]

Hi all, I just launched a 470-ton beast with 231 parts in order to get 30 tons of landers and probes to high munar orbit (hopefully with a bit of fuel left over, I don't have -any- mods that would tell me how much delta-V I have).

This is an all-stock ship; I know people -love- to brag about their modded designs but all-stock ships would be most helpful to me as a campaign-mode kind of player. I just about have nuclear engines unlocked, but I can either unlock those -or- the mk2 and mk3 aircraft pieces, but not both at the moment (something this mission should help with, actually).

Am wondering if anyone has a really efficient and minimalist design for this? I could definitely see myself building interplanetary ships in munar orbit, but in career mode 200k per launch hurts

I actually haven't finished this run yet so I don't actually know if this ship is too much or too little. It's got (3x2("Kickback" SRB) + (3xLV-T30 "Reliants) + 3xMk-55 "Thud" + 1 mainsail) in the bottom stage, plus one "Poodle" in the middle stage and actually a FL-T800 + LV-909 "Terrier" hidden away under the (2.5 ton) fairing just in case. Depending on how much fuel I have left over, I'm going to dump fuel into Mun Command in high orbit, and hopefully de-orbit and land the entire payload en masse with the terrier. If I don't have that much fuel left, each of the landers actually has as part of the payload its very own FL-T400 and twin "Twitch" engines that I am hoping to use to rotate the duty roster on my grounded base.

 

Lots of untried designs, I'm sure there'll be a failure cascade somewhere in the mission. Which is why I'm asking what other people are using, so I can compare xD

Edit: The bottom stage got me into LKO just fine, even though I don't like starting turnover until the kickbacks are done and gone (at 20km or so) and spent a good 200 delta-V making my orbit pretty. I still have 400 units of fuel in the tank (out of 5600) to contribute to my lunar burn; if I'd thought to put a command module on this stage I could de-orbit it with that and probably recover a chunk of my 200,000 credit investment. Next time, maybe. Instead that fuel is going towards trans-Munar burn.

Edit 2: It turns out the second stage is a little over-engineered; I completed my Munar burn with almost 2/3 of the tank left! So in its present configuration it's definitely a candidate for some sort of interplanetary expedition. The rest of that fuel is going into the orbital storage in Mun Command.

Edit 3: Got 1280 fuel units into the storage at Mun Command. Used most of my onboard monoprop to dock, but Mun Command has all sorts of surplus to refuel it. I only had 75 units of default rover tankage for monoprop anyhow -- just enough! The extra 150 parts made a pretty big impact on the lag for my simple back-country command outpost.

The real payload for this mission is 3 scientists who were undergoing astronaut training at Mun Command, as well as two tourists who are along for the ride. The scientists will each plant a flag, hopefully each in a separate Munar biome, collect a bunch of data, then return to Kerbal with their intel and plant another flag. Then they're to be deployed each to a separate science facility. For RP purposes I'll probably shuffle out Maree and Grajorie when their replacements' training is complete, as well as the guy on the munar Far East Crater base. That'll also let them flag on Minmus and return home to level up.That'll give me six level 2 or 3 scientists and enough data to really Science!

 

Edit4: Hah, forgot solar panels on my probes and landers. And it turns out the landers have enough gas for a suicide burn landing, and then just barely to get into orbit again, but not back home. So they'll need to dock with something and refuel for the homeward leg.

Edited July 10, 2016 by dire
Or maybe I'm just bad at landing and taking off again.

[Toonu]

How many tons it get into LKO? Because I have 100 ton reusable rocket(not fully yet, but will upgrade soon) and it cost about 350K so....it isn't probably so much. But you may also consider sending lighter ship to Mun instead. I know people who send there ship for going there and back with 1 kerbal for 40K...

Anyway I suggest installing KER. It help you a lot with DV calculations, TWR, navigation, orbital mechanics...and so on and so on....

Ave! Toonu

[dire]

I'm very tempted to get KER, but I want to play through to at least the end tier of the tech tree in Career mode all-stock first so I can say I beat it . Last time I seriously played KSP there was no such thing as career mode.

It turns out the second stage is very over-engineered; I completed my Munar burn with almost 2/3 of the tank left! So in its present configuration it's definitely a candidate for some sort of interplanetary expedition.

The top two stages, including the 2.5 ton fairing, come in at 67.164 tons, 152 parts and 110k credits. That means the cost to LKO is 95k credits and 403.036 tons.

I could send 5 light ships to the Mun each with 1/5 of my current payload and I guess the cost per ton comes out about even, but this saves me 4 launches and lots and lots of things that can and will go wrong.

If your 100-ton cargo ship is reusable it's probably cheaper in the long run; I could have tried to salvage most of the bottom stage but I was more worried about getting it into orbit.

Edited July 10, 2016 by dire

[dire]

Someone was asking for the .craft file. After fixing the most glaring errors on the landers (solar panels, fuel) I was over my 255 part limit so I took off the probes to get it under. But I added another 3 lander seats to compensate; this should now get EIGHT recruits safely down to the moon and back. Use at your own peril and watch your staging carefully,

I also swapped the big orange tank in the center stage out for a smaller, less massive tank; it now has a higher payload and there should be less fuel left over once you get to the Mun (or wherever you're going).

Similar craft and payload

Also it bothered me to have to fly one stage backwards, so I fixed that. If you at any time are flying backwards you are probably doing something wrong.

Edit: The new, improved payload is too fat to fly. I linked a similar craft that is actually going to Minmus with a similar payload, but I haven't tested the landers on the Mun and I have no idea what their munar performance is like. Also the cupola landers start short on fuel, so to land on the mun you may want to transfer fuel to them after your trans-munar burn is done.

Edited July 12, 2016 by dire