Lightest Rocket to Mün and Minmus!

[EliteGuy3]

Lightest Kerbin Tour!

MINI CHALLENGE

Originally @luke5521's idea!

=============================================

GOAL:

To create the lightest rocket capable of landing Kerbin's moons, Mün and Minmus, and return back alive in 1 luanch.

 

RULES:

- All entries must specify vessel weight and parts (engines and tampered fuel levels). 

- Entries must be submitted with a capable representation of pictures, or video, showing each stage separation, activation, landing, and maneuver burn (if there are too many burns, like over 15, than not all need to be illustrated, but mentioned with required delta-v).

- All entries must weight under 12.5 tons and be STOCK to qualify. Entries will be ordered in manned and unmanned. please only ferry one kerbal.

- Permitted Mods: 

• Kerbal Engineer Redux
• MecJeb (Read-out only)
• Visual mods
• UbioZur Welding

Of course, prohibited mods may be installed, but must not be used. Resizing parts is not allowed.

- Kraken drives or any glitch-based-advanteges are prohibited.

- Please name your entry. I do not want to give you my default name for your entry.

Leave comments if you think the rules need to be changed

=============================================

Entry vessels will be graded upon their weight

Plan carefully engineers

 

Top 5 Manned entries

Spoiler

1.@tseitsei89 with Titityy weighing 3.332

2.EliteGuy3 with The Nicholas-Midget, weighing 3.655

3.

4.

5.

Top 5 Unmanned entries

Spoiler

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by EliteGuy3

[Martian Emigrant]

Hi.

Sorry to be obtuse but what is "Touring"?

Flyby? Orbit? Landed?

Is that weight a per tourist weight? Do we score better with the same weight and more tourist?

Do the tourist need to be tourist? Meaning can they be say engineers and have a command chair each.

Do they need to come back?

 

ME

Edited December 8, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[tseitsei89]

http://imgur.com/a/pqnNF

 

My entry to kick things off. 4.397t on launchpad.

No fancy tricks just straight to the mun and then to minmus. Left the re-entry pod to LKO and used lawn chair for the trip to shave off weight. The landing was one of my old tricks. I saved the mass of a parachute by EVA landing in to the ocean

Not all the way optimized (didn't really need that many batteries and xenon gas) but quite good still IMO

[EliteGuy3]

6 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Hi.

Sorry to be obtuse but what is "Touring"?

Flyby? Orbit? Landed?

Is that weight a per tourist weight? Do we score better with the same weight and more tourist?

Do the tourist need to be tourist? Meaning can they be say engineers and have a command chair each.

Do they need to come back?

 

ME

I mean landing. Sorry, I fixed the rules.

 

6 hours ago, tseitsei89 said:

http://imgur.com/a/pqnNF

 

My entry to kick things off. 4.397t on launchpad.

No fancy tricks just straight to the mun and then to minmus. Left the re-entry pod to LKO and used lawn chair for the trip to shave off weight. The landing was one of my old tricks. I saved the mass of a parachute by EVA landing in to the ocean

Not all the way optimized (didn't really need that many batteries and xenon gas) but quite good still IMO

Great, I'll add your entry. YOU SURE YOU WAN THE DEFAULT NAME?

Edited December 8, 2016 by EliteGuy3

[EliteGuy3]

Well, I just hope this challenge survives:

The Nicholas-Midget!

Weight: 3.655 tons!

Take that, Luke!

Still think I had too much xenon. Like, 100 units of it. Still, it was a pretty fun thing to do. Not to mention how log I stayed awake while trying to create the imager album.

[tseitsei89]

16 minutes ago, EliteGuy3 said:

Well, I just hope this challenge survives:

The Nicholas-Midget!

Weight: 3.655 tons!

Take that, Luke!

Still think I had too much xenon. Like, 100 units of it. Still, it was a pretty fun thing to do. Not to mention how log I stayed awake while trying to create the imager album.

 How did you get the kerbal to sit in a lawn chair inside a fairing(if it wasnt kerbal in lawn chair inside a fairing in a lawn chair that I saw in screenshots I apologize cause Im drunk right now...)? If it's full stock I want to know that trick cause it obviously leads to lighter launches... 

 

And if it was not full stock but some mod to put that kerbal there thene it's a diffetent category than my entry altogether...

Now dont get me wrong I am nore than happy to acknowledge that I'll lose to someone better than me but to me (or at least my drunken brains) it looks like you are using different set of limitations than I do... More accurately: How can I put a kerbal sitting inside a fairing in a lawn chair?

[EliteGuy3]

1 hour ago, tseitsei89 said:

How did you get the kerbal to sit in a lawn chair inside a fairing(if it wasnt kerbal in lawn chair inside a fairing in a lawn chair that I saw in screenshots I apologize cause Im drunk right now...)? If it's full stock I want to know that trick cause it obviously leads to lighter launches..

I'm not sure if you know this, @tseitsei89, but you can click parts inside fairings now. Ever since 1.2. Back than, what I did was put my camera through the fairing, allowing me to see the payload. Therefore allowing me to click on things inside a fairing. Now a days, however, you can click an interior part on the exterior.

You didn't see any mods installed besides Kerbal Alarm Clock

Good night

Edited December 10, 2016 by EliteGuy3

[tseitsei89]

5 hours ago, EliteGuy3 said:

I'm not sure if you know this, @tseitsei89, but you can click parts inside fairings now. Ever since 1.2. Back than, what I did was put my camera through the fairing, allowing me to see the payload. Therefore allowing me to click on things inside a fairing. Now a days, however, you can click an interior part on the exterior.

You didn't see any mods installed besides Kerbal Alarm Clock

Good night

Oh nice didnt know that

[tseitsei89]

https://postimg.org/gallery/1klcoyfxw/d558d3c4/

Here is a 3.332t entry called Titityy 

EDIT: http://imgur.com/a/oZlP4

Imgur link also since I heard that those other links were not working in the other thread...

Edited December 12, 2016 by tseitsei89

[EliteGuy3]

Great job @tseitsei89! Updating leaderboard.

[Proterus]

I just finished a successful mission with a <3 ton craft.  Well it was a test mission that demonstrated such a craft could complete the mission.  See I was testing a vehicle that fills it's own tanks on the launch pad with a convertotron , a drill and an ore tank, so obviously the 3 ton craft includes the weight of these things.  So since it was just a test I didn't actually do the tedious drilling part and I also didn't get screencaptures of it until I was already in orbit, beginning with the maneuver node to the mun.  I just want to know if it would count or not before I go  through the trouble of uploading all of the pictures of the mission.  For now I'll just show you a picture of the craft, I call it, Juniper.

 

That's the one I actually used, and here's a picture of it empty:  

 

If you're curious, here's the craft file:

http://pastebin.com/raw/Dtp6DnSS

Basically it's an asparagus build with spark engines, it starts out with all  5 of them firing, then the first staging gets rid of the bottom 3 and starts up the 2 ant engines, the next stage gets rid of the top 2 and the stage after that gets rid of the extra fuel tanks.  Anyway let me know if it would count, or if I would have to redo it.  I can upload the relevant parts of the mission and take some images of a recreation of it getting into orbit I have at least a dozen images of the mission.

 

[tseitsei89]

8 hours ago, Proterus said:

I just finished a successful mission with a <3 ton craft.  Well it was a test mission that demonstrated such a craft could complete the mission.  See I was testing a vehicle that fills it's own tanks on the launch pad with a convertotron , a drill and an ore tank, so obviously the 3 ton craft includes the weight of these things.  So since it was just a test I didn't actually do the tedious drilling part and I also didn't get screencaptures of it until I was already in orbit, beginning with the maneuver node to the mun.  I just want to know if it would count or not before I go  through the trouble of uploading all of the pictures of the mission.  For now I'll just show you a picture of the craft, I call it, Juniper.

 

That's the one I actually used, and here's a picture of it empty:  

 

If you're curious, here's the craft file:

http://pastebin.com/raw/Dtp6DnSS

Basically it's an asparagus build with spark engines, it starts out with all  5 of them firing, then the first staging gets rid of the bottom 3 and starts up the 2 ant engines, the next stage gets rid of the top 2 and the stage after that gets rid of the extra fuel tanks.  Anyway let me know if it would count, or if I would have to redo it.  I can upload the relevant parts of the mission and take some images of a recreation of it getting into orbit I have at least a dozen images of the mission.

 

How much is the weight with tanks full and without the mining gear?

[Proterus]

5 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

How much is the weight with tanks full and without the mining gear?

6.156 tons

[tseitsei89]

2 hours ago, Proterus said:

6.156 tons

I know it is not specified in the rules but IMO that is the mass we should measure since that is the mass of your craft once you actually launch it. 

Just like we dont count the mass of commandpod and support structures that are seperated before the actual launch

Edited December 24, 2016 by tseitsei89

[Proterus]

10 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

I know it is not specified in the rules but IMO that is the mass we should measure since that is the mass of your craft once you actually launch it. 

If that's the case I'd design the craft completely differently,   I'd like some clarification from the OP before I put anymore work into this design.

13 minutes ago, tseitsei89 said:

I know it is not specified in the rules but IMO that is the mass we should measure since that is the mass of your craft once you actually launch it. 

Just like we dont count the mass of commandpod and support structures that are seperated before the actual launch

I consider that mostly as a convenience to the challengers.  You could obviously build a ladder vehicle from the SPH and have your kerbal board it that way so we just count it without it because it's pointless to do otherwise.  I thought it was a clever strategy and I don't think it's too gamey considering the mining equipment ended up being 55% of the weight of the overall craft, it's not obvious that the lowest weight craft would use this strategy.  I think it helps balance out the super efficient xenon and panther engines.

[Proterus]

Actually it looks like my design was wrong, the xenon engine has more delta V in orbit than the alternative.  Just got a craft weight 2.9 tons into orbit with more delta V than the one I did the mission with.  I guess I was comparing empty weights and didn't factor in how much harder it would be to get into orbit.

[tseitsei89]

4 hours ago, Proterus said:

 

I consider that mostly as a convenience to the challengers.  You could obviously build a ladder vehicle from the SPH and have your kerbal board it that way so we just count it without it because it's pointless to do otherwise. I thought it was a clever strategy and I don't think it's too gamey considering the mining equipment ended up being 55% of the weight of the overall craft, it's not obvious that the lowest weight craft would use this strategy.  I think it helps balance out the super efficient xenon and panther engines.

Yeah this all comes down to what mass we want to measure.

And yes it is a clever strategy but very much gamey IMO too...

[Proterus]

Here's a lighter design with more delta v in orbit, 2.886 tons still haven't tested it much but I think moving 2 of the fuel tanks from the top to the bottom might be better.

 

That's more 200 more delta V than I had when I successfully did the mission earlier and I think I may have even done a pretty poor job of getting this thing into orbit.  Also the delta v maps are telling me that this is more than enough delta v to go to the surface of Gilly from LKO and back, meaning it could probably beat Turbopump's record.  I can see why one would think this is gamey, I consider Turbopump's performance to be a major feat.  I do think this might actually be useful beyond challenges though.  I think something similar to one of my earlier designs could be a good eve lander landing it on eve empty and filling it up, except replace the ants with a spark and add another asparagus stage and some parachutes to the convertotron. I think it could maybe be made under 4 tons considering most of my original 3 ton rocket was the mining equipment.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Proterus