Good MK1 Mun SSTO

[Jebediah Kerman Jr.]

I am halting construction of my Mun Base after framerate issues and uneven terrain have become a problem.

Bill Kerman wants to visit the base, but with an SSTO for cheapness and low part count (plus, he loves SSTOs).

Can you guys give me some good 1-seater MK1 Mun SSTO ideas, preferably with no R.A.P.I.E.R. engines?

[Aegolius13]

That's a tough mission profile.  You'll almost certainly need nukes.  Might be worth a shot to see if something like 1 Whiplash + 2 nukes would get you to orbit.  If not, you could consider a couple small rocket engines (Twitch, Cub, Spark on a stack of Oscar-B''s) to help the push to orbit.  BigS wings will be very helpful due to the free (mass-wise) LF storage.  

I'll try and see if I can cobble something together that looks like it can do it.  

 

[bewing]

Are you willing to do engine clipping, or no?

And does this spaceplane need to dock with your base?

Edited February 13, 2019 by bewing

[Aegolius13]

Here's an illustration of what I was thinking of.  It's far from optimized, and doesn't have all parts (no electric supply, etc) but it can get to LKO with at least 4,500 m/s delta-v remaining, which should be plenty for a Mun mission.  But it's an agonizingly slow trip.  Likely could remove a little LF for better performance, and not lose much / any delta-v by the time you're at LKO.  

 

[OHara]

On 2/11/2019 at 5:03 PM, Jebediah Kerman Jr. said:

Bill Kerman wants to visit the base, but with an SSTO for cheapness and low part count  (plus, he loves SSTOs).

I'm not sure I follow Bill's logic here with the part-count, but can understand wanting to use an SSTO. 

I assume that by SSTO to the Mun you mean a space-plane.
(You could  mean a rocket that gets to orbit in its first stage, literally a SingleStageToOrbit, then uses upper stages to go to the Mun.) 

Nuclear engines are probably smart, but you can use Terriers if you like, and still have 2500m/s deltaV in orbit. 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by OHara
You'll have to post here when you've made the trip, to tell us what you chose.

[Jebediah Kerman Jr.]

To answer some questions, Bill's logic never makes sense (he's a Kerbal)

The spaceplane does not need to dock with the base.

And I am not okay with clipping engines, but I am okay with clipping fuel tanks (about halfway in), but only for aesthetic reasons. Actually, I just unlocked RAPIER engines, so I don't need a low tech design anymore.

[KerikBalm]

Are you ok with a detachable lander?

One thing you can do if you want re-usability, is to make a small single stage Mun lander, and then have your Re-usable single stage craft from kerbin just bring fuel for the Mun lander.

Sometimes I'd do that with a single craft mk2 or mk3, that deploys the mun lander and recovers it to take it back to kerbin, but its more efficient to leave the lander at Mun for future use and refueling.

A small basic mun lander is also going to be lower parts than an single stage vehicle that goes all the way from kerbin to the surface of Mun.

3 landing legs, 1 fuel tank, 1 pod, 1 engine, 1 docking port (not needed if the other vessel has a claw), one solar panel... 8 parts. If you land on the engine (if the base is on flat enough terrain), you can bring that down to 5 parts, and using a claw, you're down to 4 parts.

[Jebediah Kerman Jr.]

OK, a detachable lander sounds good, but where would I put it?

[Kryxal]

It sounds like the idea is to send the lander to Mun orbit on its own, then send Bill to meet it there in an SSTO.  You should be able to launch the fueled lander with an SSTO, then the lander can head to Mun orbit for not quite as much delta-v as landing (and taking off again) will take.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Kryxal
added the bit about takeoff

[Jebediah Kerman Jr.]

OK, I'll try that.