Single Stage to Laythe and Back Without Refuelling/ISRU

[Firemetal]

Yeah I'm back in stock KSP. I enjoyed RO a lot but my it slows my computer down to the speed of an Ion engine which subtracts a lot of the fun from it. So my first mission back in stock was a Mun SSTO. I built this because 1, SSTOs are very fun to build and fly, and 2, I heard rumors about some parts' heat resistance was buffed and I wanted to test that. Here are some pictures.

So once I'd landed, (This took multiple tries, darn you small landing legs!) I decided that I'm not going to recover reusable things. I'm just going to leave them at the space center and refuel them when I want to use them again. If they don't land at the space center, then I'll bring them to the space center.

So onto the mission. I have attempted this many times before. But I always ran short of DV and couldn't enter Kerbin's atmosphere without burning within seconds after reaching 70km. So I eventually quit and went on to things like Jool V and Eve landing and returning. (Which I did both) Anyway. I decided to try it again. I made a similar space plane to the one that I took to the Mun, only bigger, better cockpit, quadrupled the batteries, doubled the power generation and added reaction wheels. (I'll add the craft files for both SSTOs if anyone wants me to)

So it was a simple ascent. Getting off the runway was tough because this thing really wanted to swerve to the left so in the end I just let it and went off the runway before taking off but luckily I wasn't damaged at 80 m/s and was able to take off soon after. I probably should have added more oxidizer and wasted fuel when I passed the apoapsis and started falling again. I made it up to around 2000 m/s so I was able to accelerate to the point at which the plane was going so fast, it starts ascending again, even with a low TWR.

So I decided to use the Eve-Kerbin-Kerbin-Jool gravity assist method and this went well. I got a Jool encounter right after the 2nd Kerbin assist and was able to use Laythe to get into a nice low Jool orbit. This is where things went south. I thought I was going slow enough to aero-break at Laythe but I wasn't. There is a thin line between too fast and too slow for some reason and I was just passed too fast. I then spent 400 m/s to get a better encounter in which I was going way slower than before. About two or three passes and I was ready to land. Landing was smooth and on the first try. Better than when I tried to land my Jool V Laythe Spaceplane on Laythe. That was a disaster!

Jeb got out and stretched his legs, planted a flag and then got into the plane again and took off. Since no oxidizer is needed at all on Laythe, getting into orbit was nothing compared to Kerbin. Now here I decided to try and do what all the cool kids do and try a Tylo gravity assist back to Kerbin. This didn't go very well and I ended up in a high orbit around Kerbol. Thank Kraken for F9! So I ended up using my 1000 m/s direct return to Kerbin technique which worked out way better than the Tylo assist.

Now comes the part where previous missions have failed. Return to Kerbin. Here you have to reverse the gravity assists going to Jool to bring you down to a low enough speed to enter Kerbin's atmosphere. I had 1000 m/s of DV left from the 6200 m/s I had left in LKO at the start. So I got a Kerbin assist for 200 m/s.and then after that, an Eve assist for pretty much the same cost. This brought my Apoapsis to just touching Kerbin's orbit and my Periapsis to just under Eve's orbit. This wasn't ideal but it worked. Things got to about 70-80% critical heat, but nothing exploded and after a small burn to capture, we were back in LKO... with about 350 m/s left. I was literally running on fumes.

After that, I did another pass and had about a 150 m/s plane change and then I had only one more pass to do... Only I misjudged it and... ended up dropping my periapsis into the ocean west of the KSC. Luckily, it was just off the coast of the desert west of KSC and I managed to change my course stalling only 3 times and came down for a bumpy, 1st try landing, in the desert.

Jeb got out and was recovered but I'm sticking to that rule. That plane stays in the desert until I find a way to get it back to the KSC.

So anyways, I conquered the one thing I was never able to do, and then landed in the desert. Now Jeb is sitting comfortably in the astronaut complex and his plane is sitting out in the desert awaiting rescue... To be continued I think...

But that's all for now.

Fire