If I ever make it back from Eve

[herbal space program]

2 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

1. There are two service bays in the front. Note that the front one is glowing; the rear and everything behind isn't.

There was a cornucopia of useful information here, but to me this seems like one of the potentially best nuggets. I'm going to see what happens if I mount my fairing base behind a service bay and in front of a pre-cooler!

[farmerben]

Thank you FleshJeb!  I have had my first successful glider/plane thanks to the recent info.  Granted most of my earlier attempts carried either full fuel or isru.  This plane is 100% functional on Kerbin with a panther, or 400 dV with a nuke.  

The payload fairing seems to be the highest temperature rated nose in stock.

Payload bays are insulators.

The inline aircooler in front or back is the best cooling part.

 

In spite  of the desire to remain high altitude, Jeb screeches in through the hottest parts of the atmosphere and does a lot of bounces below 60km and then below 40km

 

Jeb effectivelly kills off his speed above 30 km.  He takes the opportunity to show off his fancy landing gear.

Jeb can't decide between a lithobreaking or hydrobraking.  On Kerbin he can do both.  His minimum takeoff and landing speed on kerbin are close to 45mps.  On Eve he can cruise a bit with horizontal velocity of 35 mps.  Jeb trusts his wing strake duckboards which have helped carry so much heat away from his cockpit.  

Bill was right about his theory of sticking and unsticking.  If the plane can suddenly pitch more than 10 degrees then it is best to be hydrodynamically  lifted toward about -5 degrees.  The high AOA canard should be working on air to lift the plane.  Should you happen to stall near the water surface you want to nose down and pancake, 


 

 

Jeb has lots of liquid fuel, monopropellant, and snacks.  If he had the right engines and boosters, could he get home?

 

T

Edited March 1, 2019 by farmerben

[FleshJeb]

@farmerben Very nicely applied. Passing on arcane knowledge is one of the best parts of this game.

I hope you have many happy and successful journeys into what I call, "The Hot".

[Reinhart Mk.1]

@farmerben  out here making me look bad

i'll show you sir

no but really nice design, this is genuinely impressive

[farmerben]

 

After Jeb's performance, Valentina was eager to test the new concepts on Jool.  She found that heat issues were trivial compared to Eve.  At speeds over 1000mps everything handled about as one would expect.  At low speeds and low altitudes Jool was unlike anything an airplaine had been tested in before.  Aerodynamic forces alone tended to make the plane loop de loop, and Valentina was greatful to have plenty of reaction wheel torque.  Low altitude stall speed was around 15 mps, anything faster and Valentina could climb again.  

Expecting certain death when the altimeter reached zero Valentina was surprised to still be alive.  The doctors had told her a brain tumor would likely kill here in 2 years, which was just enough time to become the first Kerbal on the surface of Jool.  She rapidly got back inside the vessel.  KSP needed to know the rating of their vessel after all.  It sank into to the black goo beneath the green coulds and blew up at 250m below the surface of Jool.  

 

 

[farmerben]

 

KSP demands that Jeb do more useful missions and stop showing off.  So Bob comes up with a more useful design.  This time he has 2 aerospikes, 2 nerv engines, over a dozen vernier thrusters, and a docking port at the center of mass.  

Jeb says the thing looks too much like a badminton cock.  Bob insists that every strake serves multiple functions. 

By using nearly the equivalent of 200dV using vernier thrusters under RCS control, Jeb brings the Mk3 into a steady cruise at the coolest part of Eve's atmosphere.  From here on out he believes he can recover from any dive.  

 

Bob argues that this Mk3 has only been tested for water landings.  But Jeb is sick of explodium and he insists on aiming at some possibly rough sand dunes.

 

KSP asks Jeb and Bob for a situation report.  They proudly report discovering a new way to bring passengers or equipment to anywhere on Eve, with safety and precision.  KSP asks what science data they have.  - "Oh we forgot science instruments.  Next time bring those.  And an extra ladder.  

 

[Starhawk]

Congratulations on being chosen as one of our Threads of the Month!

Happy landings!

[Laie]

@farmerbenThese look good, I almost feel sorry for bringing up another rocket.

But, hey everybody, I did a thing! An Atlas-style rocket that can claim to actually be good for more than just style points:

Launch video: https://youtu.be/8ayogd7bxBA

It's certainly not the most efficient rocket, but works surprisingly well: A more conventional narrow stack ends up being only a little lighter, but has the typical spaghetti control problems.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Laie

[Reinhart Mk.1]

6 hours ago, Starhawk said:

Congratulations on being chosen as one of our Threads of the Month!

WE GON MAKE IT BACK TO EVE BECAUSE OF THIS ALONE! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!

[GRS]

Just your forum Mateys who always like helping, "Unity is Strength" remember...

[Reinhart Mk.1]

top of the mornin

https://imgur.com/a/3Mxe1gb

Edited March 2, 2019 by Reinhart Mk.1

[GRS]

Should better work, but you need wider touchdown area.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

5 minutes ago, GRS said:

Should better work, but you need wider touchdown area.

had it but didn't realize it was clipped with the heatshield, still nice to know this thing can land on the service bay if need be (but yeah i had to quick save lol)

[Foxster]

4 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

top of the mornin

https://imgur.com/a/3Mxe1gb

If you switch to the tracking station and back then the dropped junk including the heatshield should disappear as long as you have debris turned off. 

[SnakyLeVrai]

12 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

top of the mornin

https://imgur.com/a/3Mxe1gb

 

 

Challenge of the month:

 

Get back from Eve, not from the bottom of the sea but, this time, from the bottom of a pile of junk covering your ascent vehicle, by brute-forcing your way though it. Bonus points for every explosion it makes.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

7 hours ago, Foxster said:

If you switch to the tracking station and back then the dropped junk including the heatshield should disappear as long as you have debris turned off. 

THANK YOU! ive had this problem so many times lol

[Atkara]

19 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

WE GON MAKE IT BACK TO EVE BECAUSE OF THIS ALONE! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!

And then it will be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius 

This particular rendition has been "haunting" me, eversince I took notice of it, in an episode of the original Cosmos series, by Carl Sagan

[Reinhart Mk.1]

Current failed lander, keeps flipping around 10k. Other than that i dont even think it has enough delta v to orbit

https://imgur.com/a/PLgsaoQ

Edited March 2, 2019 by Reinhart Mk.1

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, SnakyLeVrai said:

Challenge of the month:

 

Get back from Eve, not from the bottom of the sea but, this time, from the bottom of a pile of junk covering your ascent vehicle, by brute-forcing your way though it. Bonus points for every explosion it makes.

A bigger challenge would be to build a ship that does NOT do that

[Atkara]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

A bigger challenge would be to build a ship that does NOT do that

Yup. Such a craft would have to be a spaceplane, landing on high elevation terrain (>7 km), it would have to be able to go at least suborbital on it's own fuel reserves and... here I am, spoiling it all

Edited March 3, 2019 by Atkara

[Foxster]

2 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

i dont even think it has enough delta v to orbit

Or more likely it has too much drag. 

[Laie]

7 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

keeps flipping around 10k

I see two possible reasons:

1. Aerospike has no gimbal.
   If you use an aerospike from ~10km onward, a single command pod will have a hard time controlling it. Perhaps the easiest answer is to use tailfins, but adding those halfway up the rocket can create new issues, in which case you also need fins on the first stage. You may also toss in one reaction wheel, or add RCS thrusters (and monoprop on the pod). Downside is that all of the easy solutions easily add 100+kg to the stage. However, you rocket looks as if it could easily take that.
2. New Terrier.
   Foxster has mentioned it before: Squad has forgotten to provide proper drag data for any of the new engines with variants. If you're using the new LV-909 for a last stage, the one where you can toggle between shrouded / truss mount / bare, you've got a huge problem. The model is insanely incredibly unbelievably draggy.

I don't know how I can emphasisze that enough. All thread long you've been told that struts cause drag, and fuel lines cause drag, and using the wrong type of decoupler causes drag.... Personally I don't consider any of these to be much of a problem. The drag from the new engine model, however, is on a whole new level. It's as if you had deployed airbrakes.

All that drag, up there where a last-stage engine tends to be, makes for flipping rockets.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

well gee, thanks for the pep talk

[Aeroboi]

11 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

Current failed lander, keeps flipping around 10k. Other than that i dont even think it has enough delta v to orbit

https://imgur.com/a/PLgsaoQ

At what stage does the problem occur. While I het it is the upper aerospike stage I do want to point out that the asparagus tanks are very volumetric and the dry mass of those tanks plus the engines could be beneath the top cones as you drain fuel. Under aerodynamic stress the heavier side would want to flip upside down where the engines are. One way would be to use less wide tanks (1.25m) so that you have less dry mass hanging onto the ship as you stage the outer tanks of. Some small fins at the center stage on the bottom should do the trick.

The other solution is to drag the parallel tanks further down so that the natural drag of the tanks is further down. My bet is that this should be enough to regain stability. I'm not sure about radial parachutes in terms of drag. But my guess is that they induce a lot of drag. You have a lot of them on the top of the rocket. Best is to put them on decouplers and stage them off anyway to reduce weight and their affiliated drag as you launch. Since a aerospike has no gimbal the drag of the chutes can easily flip the rocket.

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Aeroboi

[GRS]

12 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

Current failed lander, keeps flipping around 10k. Other than that i dont even think it has enough delta v to orbit

https://imgur.com/a/PLgsaoQ

Maybe some torsion issues, tall ships OFTEN suffer torsion issues, a little drag is enough to disturb the top stage, which will trigger a chain reaction that makes the rocket unstable or even flip...