Moonlifter

[geb]

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the Moonlifter heavy cargo rocket:

Sadly this variant has not yet proved itself capable of boosting the Mun into a stable orbit by brute thrust alone. It comes close, but needs to abuse a rather cheaty exploit to go all the way.

While lifting the lander stage away from the Mun at the apokee of a suborbital flight, I discovered that rocket exhaust can send the moon part spinning away at a huge relative velocity. As far as I can see, an exhaust pushing on an object doesn't give a force, it gives an acceleration. My guess is that mass is ignored. If so, you could use a rocket as a repulsor beam to shunt huge objects around. The Mun has immense temperature tolerance, so you wouldn't need to worry about it exploding.

I think it should be possible for a very small craft to repeatedly catch up with the Mun, position itself nearby, and then give a blast of the main engine, shunting the Mun faster and faster with each blast. Working like that might allow a really huge delta-V on a tiny fuel budget. It needs further testing.

[foamyesque]

That's an interesting exploit you've found. I should give that a try.

[AstroAndrew]

Despite my measly few posts, I've messed around with this game for about 2 months, placed satellites into circ orbits, and instead of immediately landing, decided to 'Knock them out of stable orbit' with the command pod + SLR engine. So tipping objects/moving them is definately possible. Don't have any vids yet sry. GL with your idea, it should work from what I've done to satellites. Doesn't take much speed to move stuff up there.

[AstroAndrew]

As stupid as this sounds, have you tried softly 'colliding' with the mun? B/C colliding into the sats works but its very tricky.

Not trying to spam, thought you might need some ideas.

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

How dd you put an asteroid on your rocket? Thats so cool!

[FishInferno]

How dd you put an asteroid on your rocket? Thats so cool!

1. He used a mod (asteroids didn't exist yet)

2. This is a long-dead thread let it rest in peace

[Climberfx]

Man, this is the real Necro deal! 2011??? Maybe some Moderator should close it!