Sheer Idiocy, a grand tour with with Kerbalism life support and part failure

[Single stage to ocean]

"It is time that Kerbals take our first step off of its tiny, blue dot. We choose to do the hard things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard", John F Kerman said famously at one of his campaign rallies. The Kerbals were excited for the launch of the grand tour ship, and were waiting for the winner to be announced in the extra seat lottery.(Wait till post 2 for the winner to be announced) The engineers were meticulously poring over the rocket, as they rolled it out to the pad.  The countdown was started at T-1:00:00, and Kerbals around the world, watched with popcorn and snacks, waiting for the launch. At T-30:00:00, fueling was completed, and at T-20:00:00, last checks were performed on the engines. At T-10 seconds, the engines lit, and it was liftoff after a last, oh so quick health check. It took off straining against the drag, as the Kerbals watched the KSC live feed. At stage seperation, two of the orbital manuevering system engines failed to light, as the reaction wheels struggled to stop the yawing. The computer automatically disabled the symmetric engines as the rocket climbed to orbit. The main engines were deactivated as the spacecraft engineers plotted a path to the other fuel tank launched by the KSSR, part of the Determination Initiative. Soon, the spacecraft attempted to dock, but the reaction wheels blocked the port. The Kerbals watched in horror, but luckily, after some worrying bouncing, it docked. It was only revealed later that the military was planning to use a laser on one of their satellites(codenamed Object Thrower) to destroy the offending reaction wheels in case of failure. Kerbals sighed, as they celebrated with snacks and toy rockets.

Spoiler

Stress levels peaked when the reaction wheels caused issues docking. Will add to the back, and no RCS system made this hell. Plan to make my job easier by sending the 1.7 kilotons a time vs just 850 tons. This is going to be fully reusable, but the catch is that this won't go to every moon.(Don't you dare me to launch this fully reusable. The 2nd stage could do it with some parachutes, despite being mostly vacuum engines(See the rocket below)) Terrible TWR, no RCS. Take minutes to rotate, makes sense, there is only 12 r-wheel that produce mere 36 tons of force vs. weight of 850 tons. No Vernors are needed back and front with a tiny cache of LFOX.

Spoiler

Aerodynamics can go **** itself here NOTE:I doubled the upper stage size later. First stage can almost SSTO. Overpowered.

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Maria Sirona]

Eppicc But i'd like wayyy more pictures

[Single stage to ocean]

What you just seen was the first two fuel tanks, and 2 or 3 will join them. Stressful ride, 1/10 would repeat. Still, I have to. 1.7 kilotons of liquid fuel. Fully reusable, but the launcher isn't. All the old landers will be lugged around, mercifully, they will be empty after use, where any excess LFOX can be transferred for more Delta-v. Powered by Nervs with 45 ignitions and 53 minutes of burn time, but engineers  can refurbish and inspect engines, so no worries. Note to self, the initial launch, 1 out of 3, had to be scrapped after all 4 Nerv engines failed with barely any ignitions(some weren't even ignited before, some were just used once). Could barely deorbit it. This because I used Nerv engines with a low MTBF. Worried about TWR on this ship. It has engines which can last for ~3600 seconds, which at my acceleration of 0.5m/s is not ok. Will add more to increase TWR and reliability. I need a acceleration of 1m/s, which gives 3600 dv before engine failure, and then an engineer can do their thing. Budget of 6 ignitions per planet. Then will use small ion shuttles for the planets this won't reach. The hab module hasn't even been built actually, so all speculation. My Eve SSTO is to keep this fully reusable. I imagine at Duna, skilled mechanics repair the Nervs to keep this fully reusable. The Kerbals then take an small nuclear fastship back to Kerbin, which goes back to Duna after dropping them off.

The low Delta-V shown above is because crossfeed is disabled and one of the engine quads is off, I tested to make sure the upper ones were not occluded. It actually has 14-15k and more can come after I cast off excess reaction wheels and ports with EVA construction. Then the hab module and landers come, potentially reducing Delta-V to just 12k, but at 4 kilotons finished, it won't hurt much. I could store 250 tons of landers easily. My Eve SSTO is about 200 tons, and I can put everything else in a light weight package. Might reach 300 tons, streching it a bit, but it will be fine. @king of nowhere did it with just 6k Delta-V.(He did ISRU once, but the issue is that he kind of violated the rules when he did ISRU because he used the stock system, not Kerbalism's system, which takes a lot of electricity, time, and mass, not to mention unreliability and terrible deposits of stuff. Still worth a read, and he really kicked off a movement) He only refueled once, so it is ok, b/c he justified it because he pretended there was a base there(A Kerbalism base with enough power to generate 10 tons of fuel a day is almost impossible, and needs a year to refuel his craft, ignoring losses from the surface to orbit ful shuttles, with losses this would be ~2 years)

Edited May 29, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[king of nowhere]

29 minutes ago, Single stage to ocean said:

 @king of nowhere did it with just 6k Delta-V.

i did send off individual shuttles to some of the planets, though. the main ship only orbited eve, duna and jool.

[Single stage to ocean]

I'll try the same flight path, since this is my first mission, and oh, you could actually go to all of these without a refuel, if you ditch the landers, and Diggers. Still none to return so they will die, or maybe you could fit a Dolphin escape pod.

I wish Kerbalism added disease and injury, neccestetating a quick escape. If you get a cold, the Kerbal takes more resources and can infect others, but it they have sepsis, they only have a year before death(unless there is a scientist who can use a science lab to cure him/her). Again, it is fair, because a small ion fastship weighing 10 tons could evacuate them safely. If they accidentaly prick their hand with a knife, they have no debuff other than stress, which is contagious and increases all crew members stress by 5%, but if one loses a toe to frostbite on Vall(caught when spending to long in an EVA suit) on cold planets, this raises stress to 100% and doubles resource consumption for a while, not to mention cursing the kerbal with lifetime debuffs(higher stress, less toleranc of cramped space, etc.). Maybe even breaking an arm could curse the kerbal into becoming  a tourist for a while, and gives other debuffs.

[Single stage to ocean]

The Chinese module has been added. However, due to misreading of the instructions, the Chinese and Russians didn't make the bond strong enough. To avoid the media getting their hands on the story, we have classified the issue, and are sending a mechanic to reinforce the joint. The situation is severe, and SAS has been deactivated to avoid the bond breaking. The emergency reinforcement system, codenamed AUTOSTRUT(Automated Under Talked Over Structural Tamper Reinforcement Under Tormentation) was activated and will delay imminent death long enough for an emergency spacewalk to be conducted. The Soviet Union and the other members of the program will discuss the issue. 5 days are left before failure of the AUTOSTRUT system and the solar panel backup electrical system, after the botched docking destroyed 4 solar panels. This information is REDACTED. Do not share without approval from the President.

The Indian module will be added after the joint Soviet-Chinese-American spacewalk fixes the critical issue.

[Single stage to ocean]

The Soviet-China team fixed the Soviet-Chinese bond, and the Americans will fix the rest. Of note, the Soyuz was retired, this being it’s last flight before the Avangard crewed reentry vehicle suceeds it. The British are griping about not being selected, and their tabloids leaked the AUTOSTRUT debacle. Luckily, only one more bond remains, which is the most difficult. Should the Americans use the RENDEVOUS(Rad Entry New Docking Entry Very Over Useful Superpower) tool in CHEAT MENU(Cool Hot Entry Anger Tormenter Menu Entered Not Undiscovered) or not? Edit: Not gonna use the cheat menu, will just launch it all at once.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Maria Sirona]

I would have loved to see the modules launch

[Single stage to ocean]

The module was decommissioned after safety issues, nearly breaking off and exploding. Luckily, there were plenty of funds from the private sectors donations, and a replacement module was send up. I now have a 3 kiloton launcher, that is a slideshow and keeps on exploding b/c struts suck. I can fix this by attaching 4 struts to every tank, that each attach to the second stage, which is super strong b/c of my struts. Still, It has the Delta-V and TWR, but it maxes out at 1 km/s b/c as fuel burns, the first stage outer layer detaching due to inadequate structural safety. It is shaped like an onion, the first and second stages, but they don't onion stage. Still, can fix and will fix.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Single stage to ocean]

Structural issues are gone! All is good. Photo coming, just wait an hour. Not yet in orbit, and terrible rocket, takes eons to get to orbit, so far, haven’t got to orbit before falling back to kerbin, but I’m getting close. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Single stage to ocean]

BUMP.

[Maria Sirona]

15 hours ago, Single stage to ocean said:

BUMP.

?

[Single stage to ocean]

Bring up my post.

[Single stage to ocean]

Introducing Hades, a 3-4 kiloton launcher capable of launching the heaviest payloads. The second and first stages caused a mass extinction.

NOTE:All photos are from different launches,some with/without payload.

Took a literal hour to send to orbit, and almost had to use infinite electricity due to weird glitch with power consumption of reaction wheels. Luckily fixed.  Super tight and had to detach a drop tank in the VAB to reach orbit, barely any control and was stuck with an eccentric orbit, I had to fix it with fuel from the Nuclear stage. 23677 dv, and theoretically reusable(drop tanks ditched in solar/planetary orbit with smidgen of fuel left, picked up by ion probe with huge dv and refitted in orbit) You will see the Habitation module and landers soon.
 

[Single stage to ocean]

Everything gone except for the fudging laythe lander.

[LHACK4142]

 I gave a damn!

[Single stage to ocean]

Image dump here, mostly done, need to add landers.

[Single stage to ocean]

bump

[Single stage to ocean]

 

Worked quite well.

[Single stage to ocean]

The dumbest thing I have ever done. and I had to reload when i realized there was no RCS to dock.(shown) So I docked the ion tug to the monoprop module on the front of the ship, detached it, and docked it to the ion tug, then i made the tug dock to the Eve SSTO with the RCS module(Not shown)But when i switched to the eve SSTO, it was dead, so I grabbed some of the RCS from the module, attached it to the SSTO, and used it to make the EVE SSTO rotate(I could have just purloined a RTG, but it is cooler this way). Then I used the 40 monoprop in the mk2 lander can(in the SSTO) to turn the docking port to the tug, and success. It points right, but used up 20 out of 40 Monoprop in the Mk2 lander can.  Then I docked the SSTO to the outer fuel tank after docking the RCS module, also serves as an adapter. The outer fuel tank will run out after I leave EVE(I am going to keep the SSTO with me for the mostly reusable challenge I will follow)

[Single stage to ocean]

After this there was a kraken that corrupted the save. I have to restart, all from the start! Luckily, some of the crafts were salvagable after some file edting, and this is simple.