John Glenn Memorial Challenge

Chiron0224 · December 9, 2016

Godspeed John Glenn.

This is my first time submitting a challenge but I felt that this would be a great way to honor a great man. The challenge is this, launch a one manned capsule into Kerbal orbit using a launch vehicle with restrictions inspired by the Atlas that John Glenn used in Mercury.

1. All of the capsule's liquid fuel engines must ignite on the ground.

2. The capsule needs to complete orbit and de-orbit with solid rockets

3. The capsule must sit atop a liquid fueled rocket that is not separated into verticle stages and must have extra engines that stage off during ascent (basically no verticle staging, but the rocket must have a "half stage" with one big tank and staged off engines like an Atlas).

4. Capsule must return to Kerbin safely and splash down.

Screw scoring. Let's just honor John Glenn. If you honored Glenn you go on the board.

Tributes thus far (in no particular order).

1. @tg626

2. @Jestersage

3. @Rhomphaia

4. @JacobJHC

5. @Chiron0224

6. @illectro <- Scott didn't respond directly to this challenge but I added him to the board of tributes for having the same idea and doing it on his channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9OQOgMg80s

No cheaty mods obviously and no Bluedog (you can't just build an actual atlas). Let me know if I need to tweak this challenge at all. I don't imagine it will be all that difficult for many of you, I'm mostly just doing this as a community salute of sorts

EDIT: finally did my submission https://imgur.com/gallery/LEiBn

Edited December 11, 2016 by Chiron0224
tribute board

tg626 · December 9, 2016

My entry:

Screenshot showing fuels vs fuel tanks that I added for looks.

Album

http://imgur.com/a/v3iEo

Apo 527,091m (shown in screenshot)

Extra details: Aside from stock parts used, we have 2 hard to see vernier engines (orange twitch engines) on the orange tank, 2 engines were dropped at T+ 1:40, while retros were 3 sepratrons fired in overlapping sequence and kept strapped on until after the plasma effects had stopped.

EDIT: Wait!! Tonnage!? When I read it, it was appo/1000... ah well, I saved the craft...

EDIT2: Ok, 44.597t So assuming

apoapsis height in m / mass in t
527091 / 44.597
Score = 11818.97885507994pts

Edited December 9, 2016 by tg626

Chiron0224 · December 9, 2016

@tg626 Nice! I like it better than the one I'm building right now. For scoring purposes, what's the tonnage?

tg626 · December 9, 2016

Just updated, 44.597t

Chiron0224 · December 9, 2016

48 minutes ago, tg626 said:

EDIT: Wait!! Tonnage!? When I read it, it was appo/1000... ah well, I saved the craft...

EDIT2: Ok, 44.597t So assuming

apoapsis height in m / mass in t

527091 / 44.597

Score = 11818.97885507994pts

Sorry to keep messing up the scoring. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

tg626 · December 9, 2016

2 hours ago, Chiron0224 said:

Scoring will be apoapsis height/tonnage over 1,000

Probably better expressed as:

(Apoapsis/tonnage) / 1000

Jestersage · December 9, 2016

Was doing this before you issue the challenge. Good choice by the way.

Is using the 2.5m parts better, or the 1.5m parts better for the atlas for realistic purpose? I keep having issue with launching my capsule... and some people say the diameter used for Titan is close to the Atlas.

Edit: Added album. Hope that is enough. If not I will redo the challenge as needed.

http://imgur.com/a/KG4Ri

AP: 159285
Mass: 17.798t

Scoring:8.949601

Though lower score than tg626, I am more happy with my design in terms of progression and tech level.

Special thanks to raptor9 for the EV-1 design. I took his original designs, remove the service module, and added the solid retro rocket.

EDIT: an idea is to factor in the cost of the craft. (Ap / tonnage / cost) * 100

Edited December 9, 2016 by Jestersage

Rhomphaia · December 10, 2016

Don't know that such an arbitrary scoring system is the best way to honor the achievements of John Glen . Perhaps would be better to look to such previous challenges as Doing it Apollo style and come up with a scoring system based on closeness to historical accuracy.

My ship: Should have an entry up tomorrow. was hoping for a vid but recording is playing up.

JacobJHC · December 10, 2016

I messed up a little in the design so it isn't 100% accurate. Sorry. But I still wanted to pay my respects in the form of a mission so here it is:

https://kerbalx.com/JacobJHC/John-Glenns-Rocket

Edited December 10, 2016 by JacobJHC

JacobJHC · December 10, 2016

Thanks

Jestersage · December 11, 2016

Question: Did you guys disabled the reaction wheel?

Chiron0224 · December 11, 2016

31 minutes ago, Jestersage said:

Question: Did you guys disabled the reaction wheel?

I personally didn't and the challenge doesn't require it but you are certainly welcome to in order to increase realism.

Dman979 · December 11, 2016

Scott Manley (@illectro) did this challenge on his channel.

Chiron0224 · December 11, 2016

1 minute ago, Dman979 said:

Scott Manley (@illectro) did this challenge on his channel.

yeah, I saw that. Even though he probably had the idea on his own rather than as a response to this challenge, I'll add him to the board anyway.

sevenperforce · December 12, 2016

Hmm, I think I can do this in Demo.

tg626 · December 12, 2016

On 12/10/2016 at 4:06 PM, Jestersage said:

Question: Did you guys disabled the reaction wheel?

Yes, though it's not required (as of this writing)

sevenperforce · December 12, 2016

All right, my entry! I did this in Stock Demo, almost; the only non-stock change I made was setting the SRB's .cfg to allow engine restarts, because the rockets on John Glenn's LV had multiple firings and Demo doesn't really have a better way of doing that.