Colonizing Eve in stock 1.3.1

[OHara]

Having long wanted to colonize Eve, I decided to take this contract:  "Build a new outpost that can support 17 kerbals on the surface of Eve. Have 3 scientists on the outpost."

I decided that putting 3--17 kerbals on Eve, and my goal for a colony, requires a routine way to get from surface to orbit.  I envisioned

1. Station in low-Eve-orbit 
2. Gilly miner and shuttle
3. Surface base, including mining truck with klaw
4. Re-usable shuttle between Surface base and Station

Even with the base at Eve's 7500-meter high-point, and refueling stations both at the base and in orbit, a single-stage orbiter is challenging.

Back in October 2016, @EvermoreAlpaca  posted his video about an Eve base using a spaceplane shuttle.  But then, version 1.2 "redid Eve's atmospheric pressure curve", increasing pressure at 7500 meters from 1.5 bar (in ver 1.1.3) to 2.4 bar. (in ver 1.2+).  So the thrust for SSTOs engines is lower, making them barely possible.

I got every bit of efficiency I could out of a spaceplane, angling wings until it flies itself at best-rate-of-climb out of the thick atmosphere, but always fall 200 m/s short of orbit.  Complications, like a nuclear engine hidden in the cargo bay, were never worth the extra mass.  So maybe I can catch the sub-orbital shuttle with a tug as Stratenblitz75 did. Or, I can remove the draggy wings and adapt @Kergarin's efficient rocket to also precision-land.   An electric-prop lifting stage, that recovers itself to the base, might be interesting, but tedious to test and requiring FMRS or equivalent save-game trickery to pilot the recovery.

So, having given up on the simple solution of an efficiently-flown spaceplane, I am indecisive on which more complicated solution to try, and would like to try something different than the various methods posted on youtube a year ago (most of which are now harder with the new atmosphere). 

How do you colonize Eve, or plan to ?

Edited January 13, 2018 by OHara

[netbumbler]

Excellent idea.  Yeah now you have me thinking of designing a single stage rocket for shuttling back and forth.  I would have to role play some sort of MacGuffin unique to Eve's surface to make it work for me psychologically.  Haven't done the numbers yet, but a base at the highest point would probably be a necessity and some sort of rover that can shuttle Kerbals back and forth from mining/studying/excavating my MacGuffin in the lower altitudes would be cool too...

[0something0]

I just came up with this idea but how about a rocket sled that doesn't leave the surface but accelerates the shuttle to a decent  speed at launch to decouple?

[RocketSimplicity]

3 hours ago, 0something0 said:

rocket sled

KSP doesn’t enjoy sleds, so maybe replace them with wheels? That would be much safer. Chance of failure with a rocket sled: 90%. Chance with a rocket rover (ha! Sounds weird) : 30%. Still the chances of you having a failure are still pretty high. Eve doesn’t like anything. 

[Foxster]

4 hours ago, 0something0 said:

I just came up with this idea but how about a rocket sled that doesn't leave the surface but accelerates the shuttle to a decent  speed at launch to decouple?

I don't think it would add much and would be poor launch angle. It's probably not going to survive so better to make something like that a proper disposable first stage and launch vertically. 

I'd say that a stock way to do anything useful is unlikely. It's just too marginal. A not too non-stock/non-cheaty modded way would be with one or two re-unuseable stages that you land on chutes and restock after use. You'll need the re-use mod (forget the name) that will let you control the stages to land. Will be a pig to reuse the parts though of course.    

Edited January 14, 2018 by Foxster

[ROXunreal]

If all else fails you can always send a craft with 10 lower stages for your lander to Eve orbit, and use those disposably while the upper stage would be reusable.

[Foxster]

38 minutes ago, ROXunreal said:

If all else fails you can always send a craft with 10 lower stages for your lander to Eve orbit, and use those disposably while the upper stage would be reusable.

That occured to me too. As long as you keep it to one-man then <30t for a sea-level lander is quite do-able. 

[Kergarin]

If you don't want to have any isru or since equipment on board, an ssto from the highest point ist still possible.

But it's horribly hard to land it there 

You could try a rocket boat to accelerate your plane. But I think the disadvantage of height will be greater than your advantage in speed

[SchweinAero]

I wonder if an expertly crafted, redockable (quicksave magic) electric rotor can offset its own mass in a single-stage Eve ascender. You could use it in a locked position to aerobrake, or maybe aerosteer. 

[suicidejunkie]

Landing the SSTO rocket at a lower altitude / semi-random location wouldn't be a problem if you have surface based infrastructure (truck, helicopter?) to haul it up to the launch site and point it towards space.

Also, what about drop tanks with box struts for impact protection?  They wouldn't be on parachutes so they'd reach the ground rapidly, but also have the impact tolerance to not explode on contact and thus be reusable.  The aerodynamics would be terrible, but you'd just be using them to get more altitude while your speed is low anyways.

An alternative would be a rocket-skirt with the same lithobraking option, and maybe one drogue to keep the struts pointed towards the ground.  Set the rocket on it, boost, and then stage it off.  Throw in some retractable wheels so you can reposition it easier for the next use.

The main thing is it would burn fast, fall back down relatively quick and autoland while you're still in physics range, but still give you that dV margin you need.

[FlyingPete]

I think a reasonable compromise would be to have a stack of disposable first stages kept in Eve orbit. The reusable upper stage collects one before descending to the surface. Top-up with fuel refined locally, then drop the lower stage during ascent. You'd need to periodically ship a supply of lower stages from Kerbin, but all the important bits would be in the reusable upper stage.

[RizzoTheRat]

Needs FMRS again, but bear in mind a 2 stage system with recoverable first stage doesn't need to be horizontal takeoff.  Either a Falcon 9 style booster that lands down range and can then be transported back to the launch site by some kind of ground vehicle, or a winged design than can glide back to the launch site and use parachutes to land vertically.

[EvermoreAlpaca]

I have a fully reusable shuttle that can take @10 kerbals to Eve orbit and back, and can land back on the aircraft carrier that Stratzenblitz and I built and delivered to Eve.  It uses a multi-stage design, that lands each part independently on the carrier before redocking itself for reuse.  The video of this is coming...eventually. 

Shameless plug for the aircraft carrier:

 

 

Edited January 18, 2018 by EvermoreAlpaca

[OHara]

Thanks very much for all the suggestions.

On the rocket-sleds and other recoverable boosters, it turns out there was already a recent thread.  The big challenge is re-assembly of the booster to the orbiter, likely on a mountaintop.

The ability of KergarinAerospace-Omega's lander (at KerbalX) to land on Eve, refuel, and nearly make orbit, plus KER's calculations, suggests that a version without ISRU could probably make orbit, but landing upright on the 7500-m peak is very difficult.

After many trials learning to orbit Kergarin's small SSTO (link) --which needs a rather shallow gravity turn and speed controlled just below overheating-- I added just enough control surfaces to fly, backwards, with L/D<2, to the landing site.  Even with the wings and a parachute, landing it to stay upright is very difficult.  And of course, the extra weight and drag leaves it a few hundred m/s short of reaching orbit, so after learning to land it I would need to scale up the fuel and engines.  

Myself, I prefer having plenty of aerodynamic control and landing flat, so probably I will work on a two-stage space-plane, using FMRS to finish the orbit and then go back to land the first stage.

Edited January 21, 2018 by OHara

[Kergarin]

12 hours ago, OHara said:

...

The ability of KergarinAerospace-Omega's lander (at KerbalX) to land on Eve, refuel, and nearly make orbit, plus KER's calculations, suggests that a version without ISRU could probably make orbit, but landing upright on the 7500-m peak is very difficult.

...

It can  I have just build a stripped down version with some extra fuel, which can get 5 Kerbals to orbit.
But you are right, it is horribly hard to land.

[OHara]

I found a satisfactory eve shuttle design, using the advice here and on another thread (where I posted the shuttle) :

There have been more single-stages to orbit from Eve's high point in the past months:
@astrobond has posted a tiny 60-tonne single-Kerbal horizontal-takeoff single-stage orbiter
@recursive_mouse has posted a very dense 520-tonne single-Kerbal horizontal-takeoff orbiter using 6 Vectors and 2 LV-Ns thrusting while shielded from drag in a single MK2 cargo bay. 

Edited June 11, 2018 by OHara
repaired links

[Xurkitree]

Maybe you could create a permanent colony on Eve , made out of people who don't want to go back to Kerbin. Ever.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Xurkitree

[LordFerret]

On 1/14/2018 at 4:07 AM, RocketSimplicity said:

a rocket rover

I tried such a thing once. It decided it wanted to be a tunnel borer instead... the hillside refused to yield.