Anasazi Y Prize Space Competition!

[Fortunateson1969]

The Anasazi Family and the Y Prize Foundation have joined forces to bring the Y Prize motto of 'radical breakthroughs for the benefit of kerbanity†to light through incentivized competition.

It is no surprise that there is a shortage of resources here on our little blue Kerbal, hydrazine and nozzles don\'t exactly grow on trees do they folks? Therefore, we propose a competition to showcase your ability to work with what you have!

$K(Kerbal Currency Units) 10,000,000 to the first private concern to build and launch a craft that can achieve these rules:

1.) You must land a craft on the Mun

2.) You must return it, safely, to Kerbin

Sounds easy right? Hold on, finish reading the rules you crazy kids.

3.) Any thrust mechanisms (besides RCS blocks) must be mounted ~90 degrees perpendicular to the 'landing' plane of the craft

4.) The craft that returns to Kerbin must land on that same landing gear (whatever it may be, wheels are recommended)

5.) The craft that returns to Kerbin must propel itself in the atmosphere for at least 100km (that\'s a nice round number) using either the c7 or whatever atmospheric engines you wish

6.) Ideally, the final arresting of forward motion on the Mun and Kerbin would be achieved with the brakes built into the wheels in KSP.

7.) NO PIECES may break off or be destroyed except for those you jettison on purpose. (Meaning you can\'t crash the crap out of a ship and limp home on one engine...the whole point of space planes is repeatability right folks?)

That\'s right, the Y Prize Foundation is looking to land a space-plane on the Mun. Why? Because rationality and safety are for the birds.

Submit a video of your successful landing/s for consideration!

Extra challenge: do it without RCS/without reverse thrust

Super Extra Secret Challenge: Do all that, but on Minimus.

(Editor\'s note: I spent entirely too much of my time last night devoted to murdering Kerbls by slamming them into the surface of the Mun at Mach 3 and really want to see if this is possible. Like..at all. I felt that after landing on the Mun and putting a constellation of comsats up the next logical move was to develop a reusable space plane for LKO trips...and as we\'ve all seen before my space program stagnated. Now I\'m hiring it out to the Private Sector! Short version of the rules are this: Land a space plane on the Mun the same (but slightly modified) way you would on a runway at home. Reverse thrust is allowed, hovering or tail-sitting is not. Pretty much everything else goes, get it into orbit however, get it back however. Below is my entry-very fluid design as my failures and body count increase.)

Post here with any questions-also I\'d love to see your process for designing! Trial and error is 90% of this challenge!

EDIT (7/17 19:53): NO SAVES/PERSISTS. Might have been obvious, might not have been. Train all you want with one, but it will not count towards winning the challenge.

NO CFG EDITS

[Sean Mirrsen]

How about extra challenge: All Stock? I don\'t really like using mods for challenges like this.

[Fortunateson1969]

I\'ll allow it, and if you pull it off you get a bonus of $K 2,000,000. And your name on a plaque.

However, since fuel storage doesn\'t really enter into it, I don\'t think that using modded parts should put you out of the running. I used modded parts for the Prometheus (really it was just the booster, fuel tanks and mechjeb) and hardly use them for my Mun approach. For me it\'s mostly my RCS and reverse thrusters that (attempt) to keep me from slamming into the face of the Mun.

[Fortunateson1969]

Production Update!

After a worker in the factories (Did I say factories? I meant sweatshops) of the United Republics of Kerb Capitol had a misunderstanding about the meaning of the phrase 'Retro-Rockets', he will now be incorporated into our new line of Aviation Fuels. However, the mission to land on the Mun was not a complete failure, and instead served as a dry-run for the return portion of the trip with everything going exactly to plan-including the triumphant return of our test-heroes on Runway 9 of the KSP.

I\'m pretty happy with my design for the craft, and it would appear there are two ways to do this.

a.) 'Skip' off the ground, putting massive thrust behind you as you do it to kill vertical speed (not such a great way)

b.) Kill almost all vertical speed, putting you on a (really fast) 'glideslope' of sorts.

Anyone else?

[Markus Reese]

Question, the X-prize is a single stage craft. Now for the purpose of this, does that still carry over?

[Fortunateson1969]

Question, the X-prize is a single stage craft. Now for the purpose of this, does that still carry over?

An extra $K 2,000,000 to the BAMF Engineer who can pull that off.

No, it does not. I need two stages to get my shuttle to the moon, and then the shuttle does the landing and return by itself.

[Fortunateson1969]

UGH! This challenge is...challenging!

If I were trying my method of landing on completely smooth terrain, then I might have a kerbal\'s chance in a Mk1 Pod but WOW the moon is rough! I\'ve never really gotten a great tailsitter landing without the thing sliding or tipping for a moment before and now to graduate to landing a craft no faster than 10 or so m/s vertical and (I\'d like to hit) 100m/s horizontal on touchdown on Edward James Olmos\'s face! (No insult to that fantastic actor)

It really messes with your head when you see the ground coming up ever so slowly, but crap whizzing by you at 500m/s and then you think 'I need several more arms...or a copilot...or more engines or SOMETHING OH GOD HERE WE G-*static*'

EDIT: And the part that I just thought about right now is-what do I do if I get wheels stopped on the surface of the Mun? I have almost no steering abilities-no rudder that I can turn to line up on a big hill or some such. Woof.

[Markus Reese]

An extra $K 2,000,000 to the BAMF Engineer who can pull that off.

No, it does not. I need two stages to get my shuttle to the moon, and then the shuttle does the landing and return by itself.

XD Wow. I think I will stick to sending out trucks to pickup my 10 stages.

I need to re-think my strategy, I thought I was golden with my usual horizontal lander craft, but when I get it up, might be a bit illegal...

[Selrahc4040]

By saying 'anything goes', that means, theoretically, that I could build a tricycle-like pod, .cfg edit the thing to the Mun and back and then collect my $14 mil? Ok!

[Fortunateson1969]

:\

You know what I mean...

No CFG edits for the...crafty.

[Markus Reese]

Well, a test flight went alright. I got to Mun, landed, and braked successfully. The landing craft does not use reverse braking. Approach speed is set up to get me on the way to the ground, then vertical boosters keep vertical drop rate from getting to low. There was fuel problems resulting in an unsuccessful landing, but the design as a whole was successful. Next stop, Minmus!

The image slideshow, will video official Minmus landing when I do it (I hope)

On the launch pad, ready to go! the Biomega Explorer II

Successful touchdown on Mun, in excitement, forgot to get approach image

A nice and safe stop

Liftoff!

Uh oh, out of fuel!

Won\'t make the coastline, Prepare for emergency water landing!

They all survive. Fortunately the isolatable cockpit break away system worked.

Trial and error for this one, Well actually I did have a bit of practice with two other challenges. First, most of this rocket is based off my bioman challenge which was very interesting to get done, to say the least. I have done numerous horizontally configured vertical landers for Mun, this time it was to combine them. Get the horizontal path in, and use the thrusters to keep drop from too much. I have had other failures, getting launch path and balance on the lander right, but not interesting enough to screenshot, etc. Mostly I would just abort and re-land.

I have built x-prize style aircraft before. and with clever work, I could make one to work for this, but the size can get annoying, I like to stock parts challenge. Maybe later :3

[TerLoki]

By sheer luck I managed to make SSTO spaceplane this morning. After a bit of modifying (before it could just barely make a stable 150km orbit) I found that not only had I made a version that was (relatively) stable, flyable, and capable of reaching high orbit, but also that it could make it to the Mun and back easily with just the two add-on tanks I had placed on the sides. I\'ll probably fail at least one of the landings, but I think I\'ve got a shot, so here goes nothing!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, a test flight went alright. I got to Mun, landed, and braked successfully. The landing craft does not use reverse braking. Approach speed is set up to get me on the way to the ground, then vertical boosters keep vertical drop rate from getting to low. There was fuel problems resulting in an unsuccessful landing, but the design as a whole was successful. Next stop, Minmus!

The image slideshow, will video official Minmus landing when I do it (I hope)

On the launch pad, ready to go! the Biomega Explorer II

Successful touchdown on Mun, in excitement, forgot to get approach image

A nice and safe stop

Liftoff!

Uh oh, out of fuel!

Won\'t make the coastline, Prepare for emergency water landing!

They all survive. Fortunately the isolatable cockpit break away system worked.

Trial and error for this one, Well actually I did have a bit of practice with two other challenges. First, most of this rocket is based off my bioman challenge which was very interesting to get done, to say the least. I have done numerous horizontally configured vertical landers for Mun, this time it was to combine them. Get the horizontal path in, and use the thrusters to keep drop from too much. I have had other failures, getting launch path and balance on the lander right, but not interesting enough to screenshot, etc. Mostly I would just abort and re-land.

I have built x-prize style aircraft before. and with clever work, I could make one to work for this, but the size can get annoying, I like to stock parts challenge. Maybe later :3

This is quite neat, but sadly not compliant with the challenge as outlined. Point 3 of the rules says that all thrusters must be perpendicular to the craft\'s 'landing' direction. (although I think the phrasing there is wrong, it needs to say 'parallel to the landing plane' or 'perpendicular to the ground plane', but not 'perpendicular to the landing plane', as that\'s how rockets land, so there seems to be no point in this challenge besides using a spaceplane)

So, you can\'t VTOL to Mun surface with anything except RCS - which, with a little ingenuity, isn\'t all that impossible. It\'s actually what I am planning to do. Drop like usual, arrest descent with thrusters, flip over topside-up and manage touchdown with RCS.

Well, I have to get my new craft up into Mun orbit first. My old ones are too heavy for this.

[Fortunateson1969]

This is quite neat, but sadly not compliant with the challenge as outlined. Point 3 of the rules says that all thrusters must be perpendicular to the craft\'s 'landing' direction. (although I think the phrasing there is wrong, it needs to say 'parallel to the landing plane' or 'perpendicular to the ground plane', but not 'perpendicular to the landing plane', as that\'s how rockets land, so there seems to be no point in this challenge besides using a spaceplane)

You\'re right, and I\'m an idiot.

When sitting on it\'s wheels, any thrusting mechanisms must be parallel to the ground.

Nice try though! That\'s a pretty cool ship!

[olex]

Well, a test flight went alright. I got to Mun, landed, and braked successfully. The landing craft does not use reverse braking. Approach speed is set up to get me on the way to the ground, then vertical boosters keep vertical drop rate from getting to low. There was fuel problems resulting in an unsuccessful landing, but the design as a whole was successful. Next stop, Minmus!

The image slideshow, will video official Minmus landing when I do it (I hope)

On the launch pad, ready to go! the Biomega Explorer II

Successful touchdown on Mun, in excitement, forgot to get approach image

A nice and safe stop

Liftoff!

Uh oh, out of fuel!

Won\'t make the coastline, Prepare for emergency water landing!

They all survive. Fortunately the isolatable cockpit break away system worked.

Trial and error for this one, Well actually I did have a bit of practice with two other challenges. First, most of this rocket is based off my bioman challenge which was very interesting to get done, to say the least. I have done numerous horizontally configured vertical landers for Mun, this time it was to combine them. Get the horizontal path in, and use the thrusters to keep drop from too much. I have had other failures, getting launch path and balance on the lander right, but not interesting enough to screenshot, etc. Mostly I would just abort and re-land.

I have built x-prize style aircraft before. and with clever work, I could make one to work for this, but the size can get annoying, I like to stock parts challenge. Maybe later :3

This is uncannily similar to what I started building earlier today to make my next Mun landing with, at the second arch I found. How much work did it take to get the vertical boosters balanced? Or do you just compensate the thrust-induced tilt with pitch trim?

[Markus Reese]

Heh heh, I was kind of wondering that about the landing. So I have different ideas on the go now to get launched. Solves some problems, might cause others, will see.

The balancing for that sort of landing is all trial and error. I build just the spaceplance section and lander in the SPH where I will move the engines forward or back, if one side is too light/heavy, I might move a part from one end to the other, just shift stuff around until it is balanced to a point the gyros can compensate any imbalance. Well time to nosedive into the surface a few times!

[Fortunateson1969]

Heh heh, I was kind of wondering that about the landing. So I have different ideas on the go now to get launched. Solves some problems, might cause others, will see.

The balancing for that sort of landing is all trial and error. I build just the spaceplance section and lander in the SPH where I will move the engines forward or back, if one side is too light/heavy, I might move a part from one end to the other, just shift stuff around until it is balanced to a point the gyros can compensate any imbalance. Well time to nosedive into the surface a few times!

They really need a tool that shows the 'centerlines' of the craft you\'re building-especially for spaceplanes. Based on the Center of Gravity, the 'line' moves foreward and backward, up and down. It would make creating spaceplanes so much easier.

[Markus Reese]

Playing with the new setup, physics is extremely against this build on the mun. Minmus I was able to do it by staging decreasing my orbit height until I just glazed the surface of a lake, and was able to slow.

Mun just became too much of a PITA > with the fighting of physics and the contours of the land. The only places I was able to successfully land was to time it so I would land on the downhill slope of a crater. Mun orbit speed is so high, that touchdown on a glidepath typically bounces you to a nice shattering of parts spreading into space. With only forward facing engines, an effective landing speed is equally pita because you drop too fast to the surface, or need to do a crappy bank up at last second.

Working design I have been fiddling with is a reverse structure where I have wide spaced forward landing gears, and single rear reverse tri setup because of the nose down angle on landing. Still things break apart unless I get the lucky slope landing. At this point it has become more a task of luck than anything else, so I am going to have to call it quits, sorry. Takoff equally as challenging since no vertical thrust is capable. Need to gun it til I bounce off the ground (or break apart a few times)

[Fortunateson1969]

Playing with the new setup, physics is extremely against this build on the mun. Minmus I was able to do it by staging decreasing my orbit height until I just glazed the surface of a lake, and was able to slow.

Mun just became too much of a PITA > with the fighting of physics and the contours of the land. The only places I was able to successfully land was to time it so I would land on the downhill slope of a crater. Mun orbit speed is so high, that touchdown on a glidepath typically bounces you to a nice shattering of parts spreading into space. With only forward facing engines, an effective landing speed is equally pita because you drop too fast to the surface, or need to do a crappy bank up at last second.

Working design I have been fiddling with is a reverse structure where I have wide spaced forward landing gears, and single rear reverse tri setup because of the nose down angle on landing. Still things break apart unless I get the lucky slope landing. At this point it has become more a task of luck than anything else, so I am going to have to call it quits, sorry. Takoff equally as challenging since no vertical thrust is capable. Need to gun it til I bounce off the ground (or break apart a few times)

Noone ever said it would be easy-but I understand the frustration.

I\'m beginning to wonder how possible it is myself. I mean, I keep trying out different landing methods (I even tried to put an orbit @ 1km. I smashed into a mountain) and none seem to work

I wonder if I attach an absurd amount of those c7 shock absorbers to the thing if it will work, but it looks goofy as hell and I can\'t get them attached how I like. I also wonder if some kind of automatic plotting and obstacle avoidance algo is needed to do this properly.

I\'m going to keep trying. As my own issues and challenges arise in the scope of this, I might modify the rules.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, if you\'re wondering if it\'s possible, then the K Prize challenge has an entrant that does all of the everything here - it takes off horizontally, lands on the Mun (horizontally), takes off from the Mun, lands on Minmus, takes off from Minmus, takes a stroll through interplanetary space and returns back to the KSC. All in one piece, as befits an SSTO craft. It\'s called the Sawfish.

[Fortunateson1969]

Well, if you\'re wondering if it\'s possible, then the K Prize challenge has an entrant that does all of the everything here - it takes off horizontally, lands on the Mun (horizontally), takes off from the Mun, lands on Minmus, takes off from Minmus, takes a stroll through interplanetary space and returns back to the KSC. All in one piece, as befits an SSTO craft. It\'s called the Sawfish.

I smell a but coming...

EDIT: WAIT WHAT GET THAT MAN IN MY OFFICE RIGHT NOW. PARKER I WANT A STORY ON THIS SAWFISH 'FLIGHT OR FRAUD' IS THE TAGLINE

[Markus Reese]

Well, if you\'re wondering if it\'s possible, then the K Prize challenge has an entrant that does all of the everything here - it takes off horizontally, lands on the Mun (horizontally), takes off from the Mun, lands on Minmus, takes off from Minmus, takes a stroll through interplanetary space and returns back to the KSC. All in one piece, as befits an SSTO craft. It\'s called the Sawfish.

As an SSTO, I have done so as well, though my comp doesn\'t like early stage of large SSTO space planes. The difference is in the landing without doing any form of tail or nose stand. This means clever planning and spacing to come in at a few hundred m/s or steep nose in which you must pull out of to a landing position at last seconds. I will probably work on my reverse space plane more, might be able to get it to work here.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can do a tail stand on deceleration, then gently flip over into RCS hover mode and plop down onto wheels. At the reduced gravity of the moon, the maneuver shouldn\'t be excessively dangerous even with a large craft. Doing this without RCS necessitates strong landing gear and low overall mass of the craft, and you basically have to almost touch down vertically, then pitch over onto your rear gear as gently as possible, and try not to snap your fuselage in half when the nose gear touches down. My design would have a swallowtail for this purpose, so that it can touch down onto wheels, and tip over without risking the engines touching the ground.

Of course, the design is still theoretical. I\'ve yet to make a new SSTO that can reach the moon, let alone land on it... I gotta devote more time to this.

[olex]

Doing this without RCS necessitates strong landing gear and low overall mass of the craft, and you basically have to almost touch down vertically, then pitch over onto your rear gear as gently as possible, and try not to snap your fuselage in half when the nose gear touches down.

What I did to put a spaceplane on the Mun a while back was basically this. It had no RCS (or rather, it had the thrusters... forgot the bloody tank and only noticed during descent -.-), but it had the rear landing gear installed almost at the very rear end of the wings. So what I did was bring it to hover on the engine thrust, then pushed it up a bit and killed the thrust, tilted about 45°, and landed on thrust again, having decreased vertical speed to ~2 m/s and gained about 30 m/s forward speed in the process. Touched down on rear wheels, turned off the engine, let the nose wheel touch down, killed speed with wheel brakes.

Sadly, because of the lack of working RCS that plane failed to come back - I tried using a hill to Evel Knievel it off the ground, but it sort of disintegrated on hitting the incline.

[Markus Reese]

The tailstand part is the trick. Initial challenge said no tailstanding, and that is why it became impossible. I have landed space planes as well, but as apposed to tail standings, I just like to use the vectored thrust on my shown rocket. If you have the damned robotics patch, the rotators allows you to make a really awesome vtol. For now I just play with trying stock parts on challenges.