Eve terra-forming

[Hotel26]

I am getting ready to ship a flotilla of bulldozers and earth-moving trucks to Eve for a highly-specific project.

The aim will be to build a 4x4 km spaceport platform somewhere on the equator of Eve.  The initial altitude will probably be 10km MSL.

(Something like 64 cubic km of earth to move, which ought to take less than an hour.^[1]  )

Skycranes may likely be employed to ferry equipment from lower altitudes up the slopes to the spaceport precincts.

Spoiler

[1] Kerbal Konstructs will be a major contractor in the project.

                                                                                   

The question being posed now is: "on Eve, what is the lowest reasonable altitude to launch from to make conventional VLHR^[2] SSTOs viable?

So to address the subject of payload, I am primarily/solely limited to an interest in personnel^[3] and think 4+16 in a Mk3 format would be super.  Maybe 2+8 in Mk2 at bare minimum.

Would 10km likely be sufficient or will this project need to Aim Higher??

I would particularly like to hear estimates/advice from those who are reasonably experienced in Eve ascent, but all insights welcomed.

[2] Vertical Liftoff Horizontal Return

[3] Opinion of my Space Kommand is that only personnel and science need be transmitted out of Eve's atmosphere (and science can be relayed electronically).

Edited April 19 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

So I have graded a perfectly-flat 6x6 km landing field, Eva Firma, 3100m altitude at -0.2169 +169.7142.

SSTO is most probably going to be a Mk2 capsule (3 kerbs) + hopefully 2 Hitchhikers (8 kerbs) and will be vertical liftoff, return glide capability and vertical landing under chutes.

Thus it can easily return to Eva Firma and be refueled, passengers embarked and disembarked.  Fuel trucks and fuel production will be onsite.

At departure time, the SSTO will make a short ascent trajectory over the nearby Mauve Mountain facility, currently 6415m MSL, located at -0.5147 +167.5023 and land there fore topping up before final ascent to LEO.

The launch platform therefore only has to be big enough to target for landing from nearby, plus contain a fuel depot and fuel trucks.  I think 500x500m should be sufficient, thereby reducing the amount of earth-moving.

So the the remaining question is still the key question.  How high?  Any advice about engines would also be helpful!?

I guess this can be trial & error.  My next step should probably be to get a dV budget and then make a preliminary space-glider design.

Even just 7 kerbs in & out in an SSTO config would be outstanding, so I will start with that as a baseline.

I have this funny feeling that everything about this project is going to be toad-ugly, except for the bottle of champagne at the end.

Edited April 19 by Hotel26

[BenKerman]

How can you have a bulldozer in KSP?  I've never heard of this before.  Pics?

I ascended from Eve (got a Kerbal to orbit) once.  I'm not interested in doing it again right now.

[Hotel26]

4 hours ago, BenKerman said:

Pics?

Well, here's a square island I built on Kerbin at location 70W on the equator about 50 klicks downrange from KSC:

 

Same for Eve, except it would be purple and "toad-ugly".

Edited April 23 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

Ignoring the "thing" in the middle: on its left, you can see Mauve Mountain, which has an airport elevation of 6415m.

On its right: you can see a flat, square airfield, Eva Firma, which is 5x5 km and elevation 3100m.  (No facilites as yet.)

Which brings us back to the monstrosity in the centre: Old Smokey.  A little over 3x3 km square, it accommodates a 3 km ruway and has an elevation of 20km.  You can see the curvature of Eve from it, looking over the edge; and the sky is completely black, but no stars!  From a distance, too, it does look like a Squad 'monolith'...  [albeit unnaturally elongated.  ]

 

 

So we know that the "state of the art" is to use propellers to get as high as possible and then single-stage rocket power to go to orbit, delivering a single kerbal with perhaps a packet of smokes.

I guesstimated that propellers might get one somewhere close to 20km, before kicking in the rockets.  (I figure if it's too high, we'll just bulldoze some of it over the side.  )

                                                                              

So, we don't know what the next part of the plan is.  It would be good to get an ore loading measurement on top of 'Old Smokey'. 

So any rocket vehicle that can get from 20km to 90km on Eve, ought to be able to fuel up at Eve Firma and then climb to and land on Old Smokey.  Then refuel.  It's an SSTO^[2], which signifies "Single-Stage, Take-Off twice".  Alternatively, a super-charged passenger prop aircraft can ferry pax to the top of Old Smokey and then the  SSTO^[2] craft can simply ascend to orbit from Old Smokey and return to same.  It just has to have wings.

Which will be the other side of the too-low (to orbit) equation.  How well will wings fly (glide) at 20km on Eve (too-high)?

OK, so we still have a lot of work to do.  Just call this then a mad, mad, mad, deluded scientific/engineering experiment.

                                                                              

As mentioned earlier, my KSC Kommand believes that kerbonnel is  the only reasonable "export" from Eve.  Not fuel, not equipment; not even science (which can be tele-transferred (albeit for lower points)).  8-10 out at a time would be the jackpot.

 

Edited April 24 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

For the record, the following were/are inspirational:

• How to build and pilot your own EVE SSTO!!!
• Leave Nothing Behind - EVE SSTS - Success!

                                                                                             

It kind of grows on you!...

Edited April 24 by Hotel26

[KerikBalm]

On 4/19/2024 at 12:58 PM, Hotel26 said:

Would 10km likely be sufficient or will this project need to Aim Higher??

I would particularly like to hear estimates/advice from those who are reasonably experienced in Eve ascent, but all insights welcomed.

[2] Vertical Liftoff Horizontal Return

[3] Opinion of my Space Kommand is that only personnel and science need be transmitted out of Eve's atmosphere (and science can be relayed electronically).

I have no experience with stock Eve SSTOs, that's something that has eluded me - even after stock rotors came out.

IIRC, some have been able to do HLHR SSTOs from the tallest mountain on eve (7 or 8km), I don't know if 10km makes a VLHR viable.

Myself, I have done *reusable* Eve ascent craft, with rotors, from sea level, carrying 18 tons of payload in a medium mk3 cargo bay with a cargo ramp

Spoiler

My re-usable system has a first stage that climbs on electric power to >10.5 km, lights rockets to climb at 45-60 degrees (mainly to get a high apoapsis), then the second stage gets to orbit before the first stage has fallen back into the atmosphere (or at least not too far), so I switch back to it and fly it back to the fueling station, it docks with the upper stage on the ground (after the upper stage does it's stuff in orbit and comes back), fuels up, and is ready to go again 

It's HL HR, but the horizontal speed is negligible. It's got plenty of TWR, and climbs quite steep. vertical launch and tip forward vs horizontal flight and pull up- not much difference

These would start the rocket powered climb at 10.5-11 I'm, and as I said, the horizontal velocity at the start doesn't contribute much to the final outcome.

If I could start at 11km, I could drop the rotors, the blades, the batteries, a lot of the wings and have something that performs better*

So at 11km, you definitely have some options. I don't know if vertical launch SSTOs become practical at that altitude, but I am sure that some kind of reusable system with significant payload can be made to work at that altitude 

[Hotel26]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

These would start the rocket powered climb at 10.5-11 I'm, and as I said, the horizontal velocity at the start doesn't contribute much to the final outcome.

If I could start at 11km, I could drop the rotors, the blades, the batteries, a lot of the wings and have something that performs better*

So at 11km, you definitely have some options.

This is very helpful -- exactly what I was looking for, too.  Thank you, KB.

I think, before I go any further, I will drop the elevation of Old Smokey to an even 12km.  Even if transport planes need to get some Vector assist to make it there from "sea level", it would be easily practicable.

                                                                                                              

Yes, I think this looks more "plausible"...

Edited April 25 by Hotel26

[king of nowhere]

I have seen a fully reusable grand tour that managed a purely rocket ascent from eve. it did so by landing on a 6.5 km tall mountain on the equator. from there, it was possible to orbit. so, 12 km will also give some payload capacity.

[Hotel26]

A progress report: almost "square".

Suborbital: 92 x -59 km.

Came very close, with inexpert handling of the controls.

So this vehicle, Kryptonite 3, is probably up to the job.

Payload: a Mk-2 capsule and a Hitchhiker for a total of 7 kerbals.

Returning to the surface requires something like a half fuel-load, which means that a failed ascent is going to be fatal -- unless some solid booster emergency system can reliably give the crew sections a final "kick".

 

[Aelfhe1m]

3 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Returning to the surface requires something like a half fuel-load, which means that a failed ascent is going to be fatal -- unless some solid booster emergency system can reliably give the crew sections a final "kick".

You might also try placing a decoupler below the crew section (and parachutes/heatshield) for emergencies. You'd lose the rest of the craft but the crew would survive and could be rescued from the surface using some sort of prop powered plane/VTOL or rover.

[Hotel26]

14 minutes ago, Aelfhe1m said:

You might

Thanks for the suggestion.

I had thought I had just succeeded but inspecting the screenshot closely the orbital figures were 93,822 x 86,612 m.

It looks doable now, though...   [click + arrows = slideshow]

           

Just short.

 

Edited April 26 by Hotel26

[Aelfhe1m]

I like the launch ramp!

You might want to make a custom height map to add support below the ramp and to taper off the edges of your plateaus. Very high vertical rock formations aren't exactly structurally sound after all. Use white for the upper end of the ramp, a lighter grey for the main plateau, gradient fill for the ramp and another gradient to blend the edges of the whole thing down to black.

[Hotel26]

52 minutes ago, Aelfhe1m said:

I like the launch ramp!

And I like the way you think!  (I will figure out the "custom height map" as it will have "other applications" for my space program.)

When I am done, I will publish Old Smokey (the spaceport, including the map decals) in Kerbal Konstructs Airport Exchange so that other intrepid pilots can feel the excitement terror...

And Kryptonite, of course, in KerbalX.

                                                                              

Meanwhile, Kryptonite 5 has shed some mass/drag.  I implemented the jettisonable crew section.  (It's Soviet-style: bale out when low & slow enough.)

 

Edited April 26 by Hotel26

[Aelfhe1m]

GameData\KerbalKonstructs\MapDecalMaps\SquarePlateauSloped.png is your basic tapered plateau. If you combined a couple of those in a graphics editor, adjusting the brightness of one to make it "lower" and then drew a gradient fill from one to the other that would probably make a good starting point.

Perhaps something like this?

[Hotel26]

Huge milestone to report!

@Lt_Duckweed most graciously ran a keen eye over my Kryptonite machine and made a series of key suggestions.  In addition, he supplied his version, Kryptonite 8, which I just test-flew to LEO!!!

96x94 km with 157 m/s in the tank.

I'm going to spend tomorrow studying his run-down in detail as I know I am going to learn immensely from it.

I want to also express gratitude again to @Aelfhe1m for his ideas and assistance.  This, together with Lt_Duckweed's insight have made this a Joint Project and very much fun.

I will be publishing this craft at some point soon, along with publishing the Old Smokey spaceport to the Kerbal Konstructs Airport Exchange.  Stay tuned here for those.

Edited April 29 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

Just completed testing on Kryptonite IIb and ready to certify.

After the de-orbit deceleration, Kryptonite is more than happy to fly backwards to the target (Old Smokey, seen in the background) before the final "flip-around" maneuver.

 

Acting upon advice from @Lt_Duckweed, all-up mass has been reduced from 230t to 192t.

KerbalX is having conniptions at the moment, but I will publish this as soon as I can.

Here is the very preliminary Old Smokey spaceport.

Edited May 3 by Hotel26

[Hotel26]

Happy to announce the publication of Kryptonite.

It may soon get an ECO^[1] for RCS, but currently, it expects an LEO service craft to rendez-vous with it.

So happy to finally get started with Eve!  Development of this planet will take me years [past my life expectancy date]...

[1] Engineering Change Order