Eve Lifter Probable Final version

[Zosma Procyon]

After about a month of frustration, I have arrived at what will likely be my first fully deployed rocket for getting Kerbals off of that purple pain in the a$$. I have developed a vehicle that survives entry almost 50% of the time in tests. Getting through the heat and hard deceleration is the easy part, but it likes to randomly fall apart during the latter stages. Honestly because of the number of bizarre random disintegrations I've seen I now have no problem cheating on the 4th or 5th test in a series. And if the landing site is sufficiently flat and above 1.2 km ASL, it has enough Delta-V to get into a stable orbit above 100 km with dry tanks, where it will rendezvous with a tanker and/or a larger craft built specially to bring it back to Kerbin.

BEHOLD!

Note this is still a test article. To test it I hyper edit it into a low orbit over Eve, and use the lower stage to put it onto an entry trajectory. The final craft will be absolutely massive. The actually lander and liftoff stage will be launched from Kerbin with empty tanks, cutting it's mass by over 2/3. It will be fueled either in Eve orbit just before landing on Eve, or maybe landed dry and fueled by the mobile base it is intended to rendezvous with on Eve surface. I just happened to remember that the mobile base has an ore capacity of 3500, 4 big drills, and an ISRU converter. I also designed it to "dock" with the Eve Lifter via a nose mounted Klaw. Turn on crossfeed and the base should be able to fuel the Lifter in a few in game weeks, months, or years, depending on how much attention I pay to it after they're both on the ground. The Klaw is also how I plan to transfer Kerbals between the craft.

Here you see the lifter in the launch ready mode on Eve. Note the large amount of debris already let behind. Shortly after launch all of the legs and the lander pod are jettisoned. I like leaving a lot of garbage behind. Now how many Kerbals do you think this behemoth is designed to carry? 1? 2? Surely no more than 4? Nope. This baby has a capacity of 16 Kerbals, packed in like sardines. Over a year ago I discovered a method of storing Kerbals at high densities inside the 2.5m storage container, using external command chairs and the offset tool. 

One ring of 8 seats on the bottom, and one ring of 8 seats on the top. All the Kerbals have to do is physically get into the storage container, and they can board any seat, even the one on the opposite side upside down from them. Here is an older picture of an earlier use of this method.

This particular vessel carried 40 Kerbals back from several space stations and bases in the Joolian system. The only issue with this method is you cannot use the "Transfer Crew" utility to move a Kerbal from any sort of cabin to an external command chair, and that is why I affixed the lander pod.

Once all 16 crew are transferred and the rocket is fueled, time to blast off. I'm still looking for the right arrangement of fins to get the best chance of a successful takeoff. Most of my tests still end up in flips. The rocket works, and can make it to orbit, but I'm just not a good pilot. I might try MechJeb's ascent guidance function.

All in all I'm both happy with this design and tired of experimenting. If I have to cheat to get it down, I will. Cheers.

[MacLeod-Industries]

Over 50% success rate?

Probably good enough.

[klond]

13 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

Kraken Snacks®   Now in a new easy-to-open container.

 I applaud your persistance in this endeavor, even if you are a litterbug  .

Edited February 2, 2018 by klond

[Zosma Procyon]

11 hours ago, klond said:

Kraken Snacks®   Now in a new easy-to-open container.

 I applaud your persistance in this endeavor, even if you are a litterbug  .

It's a dead superheated excrementshole. Who cares what I do with it?