Every planet's surface sample in 1 go.

[NicholaiRen]

Hello.

I'm fairly new to Kerbal space program, but I've played for a few hours and I feel like I've advanced pretty quickly.

I've landed on the mun on my first attempt, no reverts required, Minmus required me to redo the entire mission because I forgot to include a heat shield(other wise perfect), and I've even rescued a Kerbin for a contract.

Now I'm not dumb. I know all this is absolutely nothing to compare to what some of you guys have done, so I want to ask you guys a question.

 

I want to build a space ship capable of reaching every planet in the solar system and get a surface sample from each, and all of that good stuff, then return back to Kerbin to collect all the science points from it.

Now I've realized a few things from that.

1. I will have to build a rocket in orbit around Kerbin. I simply can't get that much fuel and cargo up in 1 go.

2. This mission will take days, possibly weeks(Real life weeks. Decades in game). And I will have to save often. I'm prepared to do so.

3. I will need a way to land on every planet and return. For the non atmosphere planet's I feel like I can do this. For the planets with atmospheres, I'm thinking I will need a space plane.

4. I will need solar panels.

5. This will cost me millions if I do it in career, which I plan to.

 

 

What I want, is tips.  Do I need something to store surface samples? If I get the surface samples on different landers, can I move them all back to a space plane to land on kerbin again for recovery? General tips for things so that I don't realize I've forgotten something very important during the building stage? What engines do you recommend?

 

 

I don't plan to do this now. I plan to do it later after getting much better at the game. But if I can start working on important things I'll need to have right now, I'd like that.

 

Actually, first question if you could answer, is if this is even possible. Or feasible. 

 

If not, it's a fun hypothetical idea.

 

P.S. I'm new, if this is in the wrong topic please move it.

[Vanamonde]

Since you are seeking help, your question has been moved to the help subforum. 

And welcome to our forum.  

[Jas0n]

Surface sample, and all experiments can be saved in probe cores, command pods, and science container. If you have science in separate spots, you can transfer them using a Kerbal in EVA. For bodies with an atmosphere, parachutes is also a valid option. As for engines, I would recommend the Nuclear Engine because of its high Isp.

[bewing]

Welcome to the forums.

You can get a kerbal landed, take a surface sample, refuel your rocket, and take off again, get to orbit, and maybe refuel one more time, on every celestial body with a surface ... except one.

The problem is Eve. It takes a multistaged super-rocket to get back from Eve's surface to orbit. All you end up with in Eve's orbit is some tiny little reentry vehicle full of samples, that is not capable of doing anything except going back to Kerbin and landing.

So just so long as you change your mind about getting an Eve sample, the answer is yes. You don't want to drag a rocket that's capable of an Eve landing/ascent all through the system, and once you've landed on Eve it won't be capable of going around the system.

A spaceplane or rocket can be built on Kerbin that will do what you want. Once you have high efficiency engines and good designs, you can fairly easily take a rocket from planet to planet. You don't need any cargo. So you don't need to build in space.

You probably don't need a spaceplane. They are a little more fun, but they are more complex and difficult. Kerbin is the second-most difficult planet in the system to launch from, but your whole mission is basically predicated on launching from there anyway (unless you start in space, which is a little cheaty  ).

Getting to be an experienced KSP pilot will take weeks. There are guys here who do "speedruns" who can land on every CB and return to Kerbin in less than 7 realtime hours.

I would always recommend nuclear engines for everything except Eve, if you plan on taking a long trip. The fuel and mass savings make landing, ascent, and refueling into a much more manageable problem.

 

 

[NicholaiRen]

5 hours ago, bewing said:

Welcome to the forums.

You can get a kerbal landed, take a surface sample, refuel your rocket, and take off again, get to orbit, and maybe refuel one more time, on every celestial body with a surface ... except one.

The problem is Eve. It takes a multistaged super-rocket to get back from Eve's surface to orbit. All you end up with in Eve's orbit is some tiny little reentry vehicle full of samples, that is not capable of doing anything except going back to Kerbin and landing.

So just so long as you change your mind about getting an Eve sample, the answer is yes. You don't want to drag a rocket that's capable of an Eve landing/ascent all through the system, and once you've landed on Eve it won't be capable of going around the system.

A spaceplane or rocket can be built on Kerbin that will do what you want. Once you have high efficiency engines and good designs, you can fairly easily take a rocket from planet to planet. You don't need any cargo. So you don't need to build in space.

You probably don't need a spaceplane. They are a little more fun, but they are more complex and difficult. Kerbin is the second-most difficult planet in the system to launch from, but your whole mission is basically predicated on launching from there anyway (unless you start in space, which is a little cheaty  ).

Getting to be an experienced KSP pilot will take weeks. There are guys here who do "speedruns" who can land on every CB and return to Kerbin in less than 7 realtime hours.

I would always recommend nuclear engines for everything except Eve, if you plan on taking a long trip. The fuel and mass savings make landing, ascent, and refueling into a much more manageable problem.

 

 

What about an unmanned probe with communications, parachutes, and solar panels, on eve?

That could at least take a crew report and send the data back to the mother ship in orbit correct?

Is there any way for an unmanned probe to get surface samples?

Edited September 14, 2017 by NicholaiRen

[bewing]

6 minutes ago, NicholaiRen said:

What about an unmanned probe with communications, parachutes, and solar panels, on eve?

Yes, it's very easy to land things on Eve, just so long as you never plan to get them back into orbit again. Getting off Eve is the problem.

Quote

That could at least take a crew report and send the data back to the mother ship in orbit correct?

Well, technically, all transmitted data always goes back to Kerbin. Not to orbit. And a probe core can't take a crew report. Otherwise, yes.

Quote

Is there any way for an unmanned probe to get surface samples?

No. Only Kerbals on EVA can take surface samples.

 

Edited September 14, 2017 by bewing

[NicholaiRen]

Just now, bewing said:

Yes, it's very easy to land things on Eve, just so long as you never plan to get them back into orbit again. Getting off Eve is the problem.

Well, technically, all transmitted data always goes back to Kerbin. Not to orbit.

No. Only Kerbals on EVA can take surface samples.

 

Is it even possible to get a surface sample from eve?

Even on a dedicated mission?

Without mods.

[steuben]

It has been done. If you go digging around the forum for ultimate tour threads you'll find discussion and examples of ships.

They recommend doing Eve last, and packing an ISRU kit. Though I have seen reports of it having been done without an ISRU back in 1.04.

[Helmetman]

I've seen a grand tour by someone on youtube who got his sample from eve by landing on eves highest peak. 8Km + or something. If you don't have cloud mods you should pinpoint that location easily from space. With some quiksaving and loading one could get it to land there requiring something like a 15-20ton rocket if you build one efficiently. For that I would simply browse the forums, reddit and youtube for some well build eve ascent rocket designs.

If you can't land there properly try to attach some detachable wings to the rocket so it can glide controllably if you can get it atleast near the proper spot.
I would go there first and leave your mothership in a high elliptical orbit around Eve. This saves you much Delta V to get elsewhere.

Then I would use one of the other ships on the main vessel (the lightest) to rendesvouz in low Eve orbit so you save as much fuel getting your kerbal back to the mothership.

[DerekL1963]

I'd say that you should, as stueben recommends, head over the Challenges subform and dig into the Grand Tour challenge.  (The Grand Tour is pretty much what you're proposing.)  If you want to scale back the challenge (moderately, from "almost impossibly difficult" to "insanely difficult") you can also dig into the Jool-5 challenge.

You can also start with your own mini-challenge by doing this first with the Mun and Minmus to get a feel for the problem.

 

[Geonovast]

If you're looking for a big boost in science like that, and you've only played for a few hours, is your tech tree advanced enough to even try something like this?

I'm playing a science game right now (so money isn't an object, and I have fancy toys from mods to play with).  Tree is a little over half full, and I wouldn't even think of a grand tour yet.

Not saying you shouldn't try, just a concern.  Maybe give it a shot in a sandbox save first to see what's involved?

 

[NicholaiRen]

12 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

If you're looking for a big boost in science like that, and you've only played for a few hours, is your tech tree advanced enough to even try something like this?

I'm playing a science game right now (so money isn't an object, and I have fancy toys from mods to play with).  Tree is a little over half full, and I wouldn't even think of a grand tour yet.

Not saying you shouldn't try, just a concern.  Maybe give it a shot in a sandbox save first to see what's involved?

 

Mines about 3/4 of the way done. The last tier is completely untouched, the 2nd to last tier is half done, and the 3rd to last tier is almost entirely done.

I'm going on a mission to Duna to land, collect surface samples, and return to get some more science. After that, most of my tech tree should be completely filled.

I've landed on the moon and minmus, and collected surface samples from them.

I haven't hopped around on them because that feels a bit cheaty but I might do it later.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

6 hours ago, NicholaiRen said:

Is it even possible to get a surface sample from eve?

Even on a dedicated mission?

Without mods.

Yes. And it's remarkably easy.

If you want to bring that sample back home however, the difficulty goes up exponentially. 

Now, to be more serious. A manned landing and return from Eve is pretty much the pinnacle of the stock game. Any experienced player can do so. It's your mission profile that will dictate how difficult it is. How many Kerbals do you intend to bring? Each one will again up the difficulty exponentially. Do you intend to play it straight? Meaning, no ISRU, no command seats or any kind of part clipping? This will again up the difficulty. Now do so from sea level and it's going to be that much tougher. At this point, you'll find the toughest part is not building a ship that can leave the surface and make orbit but, because the ship has now gotten so large, can it actually land safely to begin with. Not to mention that you'll have to launch it from Kerbin and get it to Eve in the first place. This can all be done, and it's a lot of fun. Your first mission will teach you quite a bit. My first Eve ship was a spectacular failure. As were the next few. However, the failures were incredibly informative and, when I was finally successful (with 2 Kerbals), it was a feeling akin to your first Mun landing. I don't need to describe that to you, I'm sure. 

Edited September 14, 2017 by Cpt Kerbalkrunch

[DerekL1963]

14 hours ago, NicholaiRen said:

For the planets with atmospheres, I'm thinking I will need a space plane.

Meant to comment on this earlier.   While there's no overwhelming reason not to use a space plane (though the thin atmospheres on Duna and Laythe raise the difficulty), there's no engineering reason why you have to.   Both of them can easily be tackled with an ordinary ballistic lander.

[AeroGav]

I think it's a question of wants, not needs. 

Space planes are difficult to integrate on a rocket stack.    They tend to upset the aerodynamics of the rocket and make it unstable.  Though of course you could just fly the space plane up by itself and have it dock with the mothership.    I went the other way on my Jool mission,  built a huge spaceplane that carried a couple of small rockets in its cargo bay  for landing places where it couldn't go.

The plane drew on the rocket's fuel tanks as it flew to orbit from kerbin,  but was able to refuel itself my mining low grav moons - and refill the rocket probe's tanks it had sapped.

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Steven-Tylo    - contains a rubbish rover, which i'd get rid of ...

 

[John FX]

It has been done, someone made a fully reusable craft that fuelled itself and could land and take off from Eve meaning it was capable of anything.

Search for `SSTO to Everywhere`

There are a lot of good tips in that thread.

 

EDIT :

Here you go

 

Edited September 14, 2017 by John FX

[bewing]

You can also use the search term SSTE. (Single Stage to Everywhere)

However, I am always dubious about whether they can really take off from Eve.

 

[Spricigo]

28 minutes ago, John FX said:

It has been done, someone made a fully reusable craft that fuelled itself and could land and take off from Eve meaning it was capable of anything. 

Well almost anything,  as he point out the Eve lander got recovered from a suborbital trajectory. Not less impressive since that is the closest I ever seen to an stock Eve SSTO. (AFAIK as close as possible)

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, AeroGav said:

I think it's a question of wants, not needs. 

True.  Space Planes can be excused under the Rule Of Cool if nothing else.  But the questioner is new and maybe unaware of the nature of his full range of options, so I wanted to make sure they were clear.

[NicholaiRen]

6 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

True.  Space Planes can be excused under the Rule Of Cool if nothing else.  But the questioner is new and maybe unaware of the nature of his full range of options, so I wanted to make sure they were clear.

Would a space plane be capable of reaching Minmus and back all on it's own?

[DerekL1963]

2 hours ago, NicholaiRen said:

Would a space plane be capable of reaching Minmus and back all on it's own?

Certainly.  Minmus and beyond.

[NicholaiRen]

2 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Certainly.  Minmus and beyond.

I have to build me one of those. 

I landed on Duna and was then stranded.

I terminated the Kerbal.

[Zhetaan]

7 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Well almost anything,  as he point out the Eve lander got recovered from a suborbital trajectory. Not less impressive since that is the closest I ever seen to an stock Eve SSTO. (AFAIK as close as possible)

@astrobond made a stock Eve SSTO.  It was flown using a kOS script, but that's just piloting unless you're an unmitigated purist--I have not seen anyone fly that ship by hand, but it is possible.  However, there is a hard limit to how low it can be and still make orbit; I believe it started at 6.9 km and made orbit with 11 m/s still in the tanks--and this was back in v1.0.4, as well.  For v1.3, all I can say is that it is still theoretically possible to make orbit by SSTO from Eve if you start above 6 km, but the only engines that can do it are the Vector and Mammoth.  They're the only ones with enough atmospheric I_sp to make the trip with a wet/dry mass ratio under 9, which is the mass ratio of the fuel tanks--and that's assuming massless everything else.  I believe the required I_sp (using the Kerbin sea level rating for the engine) is about 290s; this technically includes the Dart but the Dart lacks needed thrust and leaves zero room for other equipment, including itself.  The Vector and Mammoth have 295s and that extra five seconds is all the margin you have for everything else on the rocket.

@NicholaiRen:  I'll say this for you--if you want to advance quickly, you've well and truly vaulted the bar if you're going to try an Ultimate Grand Tour.  I've seen most of these kinds of missions done with a mothership that carries different landers.  Eve gets its own dedicated lander, and usually Tylo does, too.  Laythe may get a plane but anything that can land and return from Tylo can land and return from Laythe if you put a heat shield on it.  You can usually get away with a general-purpose lander for the other planets--though a lot of missions took several if for no other reason than that landing legs break.  A lot of these missions start by going to Eve:  Eve land-and-return takes so much rocket that it's worth going to Eve first just to get rid of the mass of the Eve lander.  I saw one mission that put the mothership in orbit of Gilly, took the lander to Eve, returned, grabbed another lander, and went to Moho before coming back simply because it would take too much fuel to go to Moho with the mother.  You don't have to set it up that way, but you can.

If you want to use planes, know that it's difficult to design a single plane that will fly well in every planetary atmosphere:  you can often get away on Laythe with designs meant for Kerbin, but if you take the time to make planes that are designed for the planets they're going to fly over, I think you'll find them fun.  Duna planes, for example, require a lot of wing (to make up for the lack of air) but they're an absolute joy to fly.

[NicholaiRen]

5 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

@NicholaiRen:  I'll say this for you--if you want to advance quickly, you've well and truly vaulted the bar if you're going to try an Ultimate Grand Tour.  I've seen most of these kinds of missions done with a mothership that carries different landers.  Eve gets its own dedicated lander, and usually Tylo does, too.  Laythe may get a plane but anything that can land and return from Tylo can land and return from Laythe if you put a heat shield on it.  You can usually get away with a general-purpose lander for the other planets--though a lot of missions took several if for no other reason than that landing legs break.  A lot of these missions start by going to Eve:  Eve land-and-return takes so much rocket that it's worth going to Eve first just to get rid of the mass of the Eve lander.  I saw one mission that put the mothership in orbit of Gilly, took the lander to Eve, returned, grabbed another lander, and went to Moho before coming back simply because it would take too much fuel to go to Moho with the mother.  You don't have to set it up that way, but you can.

If you want to use planes, know that it's difficult to design a single plane that will fly well in every planetary atmosphere:  you can often get away on Laythe with designs meant for Kerbin, but if you take the time to make planes that are designed for the planets they're going to fly over, I think you'll find them fun.  Duna planes, for example, require a lot of wing (to make up for the lack of air) but they're an absolute joy to fly.

Actually, I was thinking of using planes for Eve and Laythe(still not sure, but Laythe has a thick atmosphere right?), and then a special type of space plane for the others.

For the special space plane. I want to use a reaction wheel, and RCS thrusters, to allow me to land on planets with virtually no atmosphere. When I need to slow down, I'll burn retrograde, and when I need to land I'll use RCS Thrusters to keep me up right when I land. And then if I can figure out how to use mining equipment(I just got them) then I'll try to find a way to refuel the space plane so I can refuel the rocket.

 

Basically, I think space planes are much more advanced and cost efficient then landers. Plus, I absolutely despise landers. I don't know why. I just hate them. It's probably how I design them tough.

[AeroGav]

Out of Kerbin, Laythe, and Duna,     Kerbin is by far the hardest to get to orbit from .   If you can make orbit from Kerbin you can certainly do it from Laythe or Duna.

Duna is the hardest to land on,  you need loads of wing area, beefy landing gear and even then , vernor lift engines to bring the stalling speed down further.    Some folks use parachutes too which they pop on touchdown.   I've not done it myself but from the videos i've seen they help keep the plane going prograde on rollout, since the biggest risk is hitting a bump and skidding, causing a wingtip to dig in.  They also shorten the rollout which helps, though not as much as just keeping you straight does.

Couple of videos of me landing stuff on Duna will give you an idea what you're in for.   These craft have a lot of wing area but still come in very fast on Duna's thin air.  Quicksave above the surface and be prepared to crash a few times till you get the hang of it.

 

I also have just put a mk2 spaceplane guide in the tutorials section.      Stick to mk1 part for this task, but most of what i wrote in that guide still applies.

The spaceplane can be used as a lander on moons with low grav and no atmosphere.      Medium grav,  atmosphere-less planets you can more or less get off so long as you don't try to take off with a full fuel load (which you won't need anyway)  but you'll need a  dedicated lander for Tylo and Eve.     

Eve is a monster.  Even with a multistage rocket, you'll need a pretty damn big one just to get back to orbit in a command chair.