Aerobraking with interstellar ships...

[Biggen]

25 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying but look like you want to plot a transfer from Moho to Eve and use Eve's  gravity to raise you orbit to Kerbin. In this case what you need its a gravity slingshot (passing behind Eve)

 

Yes, that makes more sense. I was looking at the problem by already ejecting to a Kerbin encounter from Moho and but instead of going to Kerbin Id adjust for an Eve intercept. But that doesnt make sense. Would be better to go straight to Eve as you say.

[A_name]

On 13/2/2017 at 10:47 AM, Foxster said:

Rather than asking how you aerobrake a monster craft, you should ask "Why is my craft a monster?"

Rarely is the answer to anything in KSP to add more stuff. It is more likely to be to take stuff away. 

If you minimise your lander and get rid of the crew cabin you would be able to get the whole craft to a fraction of its current size. It would then be easier to figure out how to do the aerobraking.   

You and I must be playing different games .

I'm at work so I can’t look at the pics, but there can be any number of reasons why OP prefers to have a monster craft. My Kerbals for example like to travel in style and will only travel interplanetary with proper habitation space, which means a minimum of one hitchhiker per Kerbal. Making things smaller might solve the problem, but not if you want your design to be a certain way for a reason.

[Foxster]

27 minutes ago, A_name said:

You and I must be playing different games .

I'm at work so I can’t look at the pics, but there can be any number of reasons why OP prefers to have a monster craft. My Kerbals for example like to travel in style and will only travel interplanetary with proper habitation space, which means a minimum of one hitchhiker per Kerbal. Making things smaller might solve the problem, but not if you want your design to be a certain way for a reason.

Generally I'd agree with you. It's just he said he'd only played for a month, so it could be he'd done the same thing I did a couple of years ago, and what I suspect quite a few people do, and ended up with a very large craft. Not from a particular design choice but just that was what he ended up with to try to meet his aims. 

And, yes, I suspect I do play a different type of KSP to you. I'm an engineer and my craft and missions are about efficiency, low mass, minimum time, etc. I couldn't give two figs for whether the Kerbals are comfortable or even alive. 

[Spricigo]

10 minutes ago, A_name said:

You and I must be playing different games .

I'm at work so I can’t look at the pics, but there can be any number of reasons why OP prefers to have a monster craft. My Kerbals for example like to travel in style and will only travel interplanetary with proper habitation space, which means a minimum of one hitchhiker per Kerbal. Making things smaller might solve the problem, but not if you want your design to be a certain way for a reason.

oh well..it really don’t matter if there are reasons for a behemoth able to transport the entire astronaut roster (and also ground crew) to Moho and back in a single stage. The point is: there will be consequences.

Also there can be any number of reason ...but none was stated. @Foxster advice was really reasonable with the info available. It just don't helps the OP because reasons.

[Vanamonde]

Quote

Wow, that ship is impressive! You just leave them inflated and carry on with your missions? 

Yes. I thought about inflating, ejecting, and replacing them for each trip, but it just seemed like too much trouble. 

Meanwhile, guys, it doesn't matter why OP wants to make large ships. He'd just like suggestions for methods and design. 

[Soda Popinski]

I was transporting 9 kerbals to Jool and still in the process of getting them back in KSP 0.235.  I was running RemoteTech2, and needed at least 6 on the craft to remote pilot the probes without setting up an interstellar network with a 7 minute signal delay.  So that's why I needed a big craft.  Also, I'm not a minimalist kind of guy.  I recently launched a 2700t, 23,000 m/s orbitally assembled space asparagus to rescue a kerbal I stranded on Tylo.

This was before stock inflatable heat shields were a thing, so I used the one from Deadly Re-entry (I think).  I had my 4 Nukes sticking out of the side of my tank, with the heat shield at the end.  You could put a docking port and attach new ones there.  My mission had 2 stacked, one for Jool, and one for Kerbin return.

Here's the mission report.  Skip to Part 3 to see the aerobraking.

Pic of the craft.

Pic of aerobraking at Jool.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Soda Popinski

[Biggen]

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. I ended up adding an inflatable to the rear and moved the engines onto the side using the angled type B nose cone to attach them.  The inflatable now protects everything which is nice.  Still have to decide if I want to mod it to deflate after use.

Ill also look into Eve gravity assists for slowing my arrival back to Kerbin for future missions. As mentioned, doing that essentially slows you down to Minimus return speeds (i.e. 3200m/s) which is easily handled without heat shields.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Biggen