Comfortable Mun Mission Challenge

[Pds314]

The goal of this challenge is to fly a Kerbal to the Mun and land back on Kerbin with the minimum G-force you can. No Kerbal deaths are permitted.

[sevenperforce]

49 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

The goal of this challenge is to fly a Kerbal to the Mun and land back on Kerbin with the minimum G-force you can. No Kerbal deaths are permitted.

Put a mass limit on it for sure.

[vyznev]

I did some tests, and it seems like the hardest part will be atmospheric flight and landing on Kerbin. (The Mun landing itself should be easy; there's no real reason why any part of it should have to exceed even 1 g.) With a spaceplane, a careless pitch-up in the lower atmosphere can easily result in several gees of momentary acceleration, and you'd better hope for a really flat landing field (fortunately, there's one right around the KSC!) because a single bump on landing can easily ruin an otherwise smooth flight. With a more traditional rocket mission, ascent is relatively easy to do smoothly (just mind the throttle!), but aerobraking and especially parachute deployment is a pain in the butt.   Airbrakes and spare fuel for a rocket landing might be the solution. Or maybe a Roton-style helilander...

[MarvinKitFox]

On 4/3/2019 at 8:58 PM, vyznev said:

I did some tests, and it seems like the hardest part will be atmospheric flight and landing on Kerbin....but aerobraking and especially parachute deployment is a pain in the butt...

Parachutes are a no-no.

It's rocket propulsion all the way.

And nice squishy landing legs.

 

I would be amazed if anyone gets this down to even 2g