Jet Powered Space Program!

[3ngin33r]

"How was I supposed to know that you kept all our rocket propellant, liquid oxygen, hydrazine, xenon and uranium next to my favorite barbecue spot?!?"

*Somebody* blew up all of the rocket propellant reserves of the KSC and Jeb spent our entire budget for this quarter on who-knows-what so you'll have to make do with what we do still have; The gas drained from the cars in the parking lot. 

Your goal is to explore the solar system using only air-breathing engines and less than 100 m/s of correction burns in orbit. This is mostly a modded challenge but if you want to have a go at it stock you're allowed to "bottle" some good-ole atmosphere aka. fill a tank's oxidizer approx. 1/15th of the way and use the rocket mode of the rapier engine.

 

Allowed mods are:

MK2 Expansion

The wings and only the wings from OPT spaceplanes. Stock wings will overheat at these speeds so you will most likely need them, but pretty much all engines in the mod are ridiculously op so those are strictly forbidden.

Anything that doesn't affect the performance of the craft like mechjeb or K.E.R.

Joint reinforcement if you don't want to bother with auto struts.

Mods that look to be balanced are allowed but there will be a different category for them. 

 

Rules: 

-Your craft can only use air breathing engines for the majority of the acceleration. 

-No cheating including the infinite EVA propellant.

-If you're fully stock, you can burn more than 100 m/s with no penalty.

-You can only fill oxidizer tanks to 1/15th of the way. If it can hold 150 you can only put 10 in it.

 

Scoring: 

Temporarily escape the atmosphere +10 points

Orbit of any kind +100 points

Orbit Kerbin +20 points 

Land on Minmus +200 points

Orbit Eve +250 points

Land on Eve +150 points

Orbit Duna +150 points

Land on Duna +100 points

Orbit Jool +150 points

Land on Laythe +250 points

Land on then get back into orbit from Laythe +300 points

Land on Laythe then get back into orbit of Kerbin +500 points

Land on Laythe and land on Kerbin +1000 points

-2 points for every m/s of orbital burns after the allowed 100 m/s

 

Will upload video of example mission soon here

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by 3ngin33r
Edit: Redesigned the whole page to look nicer, include clearer info and made it stock friendly(er). This is my first challenge submission so it's still a learning experience.

[Tex_NL]

On stock engines NOT POSSIBLE! PERIOD!
The images you've provided use the overpowered OPT engines you so cleverly outlawed.

Just on stock engines you CAN leave the atmosphere but you will NOT get anywhere near a Mun encounter. Let alone Minmus or leave Kerbins SOI.
There have been MANY challenges just like this one in the past and NONE ever reached an altitude much above 200km.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Tex_NL

[3ngin33r]

4 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

On stock engines NOT POSSIBLE! PERIOD!
The images you've provided use the overpowered OPT engines you so cleverly outlawed.

Just on stock engines you CAN leave the atmosphere but you will NOT get anywhere near a Mun encounter. Let alone Minmus or leave Kerbins SOI.
There have been MANY challenges just like this one in the past and NONE ever reached an altitude much above 200km.

 

I'm sorry but I guess you didn't read the part where I wrote: "pretty much impossible to do it in stock so you'll have to use MK2 Expansion for that sweet-sweet Scramjet engine." The craft only uses MK2 expansion parts and OPT wings. Or is there a rule that all challenges have to be doable in stock? 

Edited June 18, 2017 by 3ngin33r

[Tex_NL]

OK, you're right. I miss read. You indeed do allow the overpowered Mk2 expansion engines. You could have been a bit clearer about that.

[3ngin33r]

5 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

OK, you're right. I miss read. You indeed do allow the overpowered Mk2 expansion engines. You could have been a bit clearer about that.

They're not overpowered. The ones that have stock counterparts are balanced to have a similar performance and the ones that don't, have huge downsides like being dead weight under Mach 4. Edit: I made it clearer, included links as well.

Edited June 18, 2017 by 3ngin33r

[Tex_NL]

Clearly your definition of overpowered differs from mine. But that's completely besides the point, it's your challenge. I won't go into that.

What does matter is the fact the challenge still borders on impossible. There is no such thing as a stable orbit on jets only.

• Without some kind of gravity assist you will fall back into Kerbins atmosphere. Not stable.
• With a Mun or Minmus encounter you can raise your Pe above 70 km but sooner or later you will encounter Mun or Minmus again. It might be days, weeks or even years. Sooner or later you WILL encounter it again. Not stable.
• Leaving Kerbins SOI, either with a gravity assist or directly, will result in a similar scenario. You will encounter Kerbin again. Not stable.
• In case you're lucky enough to encounter and get an assist from another planet again you will run into it again eventually. Not stable.
• Without spending energy in orbit to stabilize your orbit (e,g, not encounter any SOI or atmosphere) no orbit is stable. And on just jet engines this is not possible. Jets don't work in a vacuum.
• Landing on any non atmospheric body is out of the question for the same reason, jets don't work in a vacuum. You can hit them, but a crash is not a landing.

The only three targets that are at least in theory possible are landing on Duna, Eve or Laythe. But all three border on impossible.

You'll need to leave Kerbins atmosphere at an exact speed, angle AND time to even get a Mun encounter. You'll have to hit Mun at an exact speed, angle AND time to get the proper assist to fling you all the way to Duna, Eve or Jool. And if you're lucky enough to do that you still need to hit the atmosphere at the proper angle to aerobrake and get captured. Either to land or get an encounter with Laythe, aerobrake, get captured and land.
ALL THIS has to be set-up while still blasting through Kerbins atmosphere at an insane speed. for a very simple reason: jets don't work in a vacuum and the challenge is jets only.

At least on paper is should be possible. But in practice ... not so much.
If you show me an unedited video of you taking off from KSC and land on Laythe on nothing but jets (no RCS, no rockets, no nukes, just air breathing jet engines) I'll buy a hat, take it off and eat it.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Tex_NL

[Scarecrow]

Sorry, I'm not a fan of challenges that require you to download and install a mod to take part.

[Starman4308]

Truly stable orbits are impossible even with ridiculous precision and overpowered jet engines. The only way to maneuver in space without a rocket is via gravity assists, and that necessarily requires that you end in an orbit crossing that of what you used for the gravity assist... meaning you'll encounter that body again at some point, meaning either your orbit will change, or you'll never re-enter orbit of the original body because of a terminal lithobreaking event.

Landing on atmospheric bodies is a maybe, but requires absurd precision... and overpowered jet engines.

[Captain_Rex33]

6 minutes ago, Scarecrow said:

Sorry, I'm not a fan of challenges that require you to download and install a mod to take part.

then you don't need to reply

[3ngin33r]

42 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Clearly your definition of overpowered differs from mine. But that's completely besides the point, it's your challenge. I won't go into that.

What does matter is the fact the challenge still borders on impossible. There is no such thing as a stable orbit on jets only.

• Without some kind of gravity assist you will fall back into Kerbins atmosphere. Not stable.
• With a Mun or Minmus encounter you can raise your Pe above 70 km but sooner or later you will encounter Mun or Minmus again. It might be days, weeks or even years. Sooner or later you WILL encounter it again. Not stable.
• Leaving Kerbins SOI, either with a gravity assist or directly, will result in a similar scenario. You will encounter Kerbin again. Not stable.
• In case you're lucky enough to encounter and get an assist from another planet again you will run into it again eventually. Not stable.
• Without spending energy in orbit to stabilize your orbit (e,g, not encounter any SOI or atmosphere) no orbit is stable. And on just jet engines this is not possible. Jets don't work in a vacuum.
• Landing on any non atmospheric body is out of the question for the same reason, jets don't work in a vacuum. You can hit them, but a crash is not a landing.

The only three targets that are at least in theory possible are landing on Duna, Eve or Laythe. But all three border on impossible.

You'll need to leave Kerbins atmosphere at an exact speed, angle AND time to even get a Mun encounter. You'll have to hit Mun at an exact speed, angle AND time to get the proper assist to fling you all the way to Duna, Eve or Jool. And if you're lucky enough to do that you still need to hit the atmosphere at the proper angle to aerobrake and get captured. Either to land or get an encounter with Laythe, aerobrake, get captured and land.
ALL THIS has to be set-up while still blasting through Kerbins atmosphere at an insane speed. for a very simple reason: jets don't work in a vacuum and the challenge is jets only.

At least on paper is should be possible. But in practice ... not so much.
If you show me an unedited video of you taking off from KSC and land on Laythe on nothing but jets (no RCS, no rockets, no nukes, just air breathing jet engines) I'll buy a hat, take it off and eat it.

So TL;DR you have three problems: 

-You have a different standard of what's OP which you're not willing to explain.

-A stable orbit on jets is *technically* impossible because eventually, it would get an encounter. Which is a nitpick and you know full well what I meant as does everyone else. 

-It's impossible to land on bodies without an atmosphere with only wings. No excrements. 

I get what your problem is I just don't know what you expect. I only wrote points for things that are possible. I get that it's really hard to be that precise in the atmosphere at Mach 10 so I gave the option for small correction burns in exchange for a loss of some points. It doesn't defeat the purpose of the challenge as you're still doing the heavy lifting within the atmosphere, you're just correcting your errors. Also, I got into a solar orbit that almost reached the orbit of Duna with a small relative inclination. And that was my third try. It's not *that* hard to call it borderline impossible. It is challenging yes, but are you complaining that a challenge is challenging?

[Scarecrow]

1 hour ago, Captain_Rex33 said:

then you don't need to reply

Just thought it might be useful feedback for any future challenges you might be considering, as I am sure there are others of a similar mindset who haven't replied.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Scarecrow

[Pro100kerbonaut]

Can I use b9 procedural wings?

[3ngin33r]

2 minutes ago, Pro100kerbonaut said:

Can I use b9 procedural wings?

Sure, I think it's well balanced. I'll just make a note of it.

[3ngin33r]

Update! Got an Eve atmospheric entry with only 110 m/s burn needed. Will probably land today. 

 

[3ngin33r]

Update #2

Turns out, hitting Eve's atmosphere at 5000 m/s is quite a bit hotter than Kerbin at ~3500 m/s who would'a thunk. Thankfully there's hope: 

 

Edited June 18, 2017 by 3ngin33r