[stock] SSTO Rocket

[GusTurbo]

I used debug but radial attachment point allows noclipping without debug.

I'm a fan of that technique.

[lump]

Just to let you guys know i have a bigger, more powerful SSTO dubbed Goliath. i think she may be able to make it to Bop and back but don't expect that too soon, as a test flight i flew here to Duna with a two man lander, which was attatched at launch, flew the lander down, waited 3 days and returned it to her, she still had 2000 liters of fuel left so probably could have gone to Eve before coming home but kerbin was in a good position so i went for it, stopping off at Minmus before sending two of the kerbals home.

And that was just the test flight!

Pics:

The Goliath lander on Duna, this lander has enough fuel to Kerbin in case of a disaster

coming up to the Goliath you can see the name is fitting, i basically got my old design and up-scaled it

The part count is a round 140 parts with the lander (100 without) which I'm trying to reduce, but its OK for now.

Her engine cluster, as you can see time warp combined with a misfire destroyed the maneuvering thrusters (the central cluster)

Goliath returning home without the lander due to an issue with the communications beacon on top of it, preventing docking it's ok though, the crew where transferred before we left, but the fuel wasn't

She can carry well over ten tonnes into orbit and then to other planets with her, you know what that means, i can send at least 4 habitation modules to Laythe, That's a colony of 16 Kerbals in one trip, with fuel to return!

She's pretty good considering i exclusively build SSTO rockets as i find staged rockets too easy. I think stripped down she has well over 3500m/s delta-V once in orbit maybe even over 4000m/s, for version two I'm giving here re-entry abilities so she can land again and be refueled

Edit: this is a big maybe BUT i may be able to go to Eve and Bop, and land, getting me most of the achievements with this craft, if i had enough fuel lest i could do a powered landing as well, although it would take ages for the right launch window so don's get your hopes up, i'll probably just go to Bop.

Edit2: Just took my first trip to Jool, it did not go well, my inexperience with Jool showed as i wasted most of my fuel in correction burns, i still had 700 left but that's not much at all. on the way i did drop off 4 probes around the place though, proving the Goliath usefulness. In fact it can carry more fuel to Duna than my previous ship even started with, 2000 Liters when my old ship started with 1800, it truly is ridiculous, my next challenge is to make a smaller SSTO with much the same capabilities so i have a small,medium and large interplanetary SSTO.

Edited April 21, 2013 by lump

[GusTurbo]

That thing can't get to the Mun and back, can it? There was a challenge back before the forum crash where it was deemed impossible, but looking at the capabilities of your craft, it seems doable.

[lump]

That thing can't get to the Mun and back, can it? There was a challenge back before the forum crash where it was deemed impossible, but looking at the capabilities of your craft, it seems doable.

who me, i've laded on the muns of other planets with this ship. let alone our mun, although due to its sheer size it might have problems slowing down, the smaller one certainly could, i used to test my SSTOs y lading on minmus and returning, but then they got too powerful.

if people want i'll post the craft file.

in fact this craft reminded me of Apollo as it has a two man lander while one guy stays in orbit.

To be honest, the amount of time i've spent on SSTOs i should hope one can reach the mun, after all, i am self proclaimed SSTO god ;D

Edited April 21, 2013 by lump

[GusTurbo]

I was mainly wondering if the huge lifter part, not the smaller lander, could land on the Mun by itself. I take it the answer is yes?

[lump]

I was mainly wondering if the huge lifter part, not the smaller lander, could land on the Mun by itself. I take it the answer is yes?

it has the power yes, even with just the nuclear engines, but if you wasted to you could activate the other thrusters to help slow down.

by the way i have created a contender for the Goliath mini, it has around parts and can go much the same distance as the regular, expect screenshots tomorrow

[lump]

double post

[Sputnik-1]

Flight engineer gives info with no autopilot.

[tavert]

That thing can't get to the Mun and back, can it? There was a challenge back before the forum crash where it was deemed impossible, but looking at the capabilities of your craft, it seems doable.

"Deemed impossible" with flawed math. Here's my post from that challenge, resurrected thanks to Google cache:

----

Skepticism was warranted, but this is actually possible (barely) with a stock design: http://imgur.com/a/6bUK3

This was a damn tricky design to actually pull off. For rockets with only a single type of engine, the max possible single-stage delta-V is 6611 m/s (vacuum, for an LV-T30 with zero payload and enough fuel+tanks to give TWR=1; the best atmospheric number is 6405 m/s for aerospikes). But if you mix engines, then you don't need TWR > 1 for all engine types, as long as the nuclear engine has enough thrust to land on the Mun with all the dead weight of empty tanks and inactive engines.

What I wound up with was 4 solid boosters, 4 LV-T30's, and one LV-N. The taller fuel stacks drain first so 2 of the T30's burn out at high altitude, giving better weighted-average ISP, and lower TWR which makes the final circularization burn shorter (the last 2 T30's burn out partway through circularization). The only thing I forgot was a decoupler below the pod, as shown the parachute broke off :-( I also broke the rules (so I won't bother counting a score) by having Mechjeb fly my ascents, do circularization burns, help on the landing (to hold vspeed at the end of the suicide burn that had to start at 24km since the TWR was so lousy), etc. I'm an engineer, not a pilot! I was mostly out to determine whether this is possible, and repeatability on the ascents is vital for fine-tuning borderline designs like this one.

Conclusion: You can actually get to the Mun and back without using airbreathing engines (or ions) and without any staging, but it's a ridiculous way to do so.

----

Back in the present, I have a slightly redesigned version that uses massless aircraft gear instead of legs so it can carry enough chutes to survive landing back on Kerbin, but I don't particularly feel like flying it manually.

[GusTurbo]

Ah, now I remember. Amazing job.

[lump]

One tip i would say is to add maybe one more nuclear rocket, the tip is to be able to use only them at a low enough altitude to save lost of fuel but not use so many the benefit becomes redundant

on another note I've made a Goliath mini and micro:

The mini can do mush the same the normal, but with smaller payloads and half the parts (good for lesser computers)

The micro has maybe 500m/s less but can still get to almost any planet and back (Jool is a patchy area here)

now the Goliath brand fleet is mostly assembled i can send a big Goliath to a planet with enough fuel to refuel any of the smaller Goliath as they pass through, my biggest SSTO fleet is coming together.

I am now making a super small Goliath (the names not very fitting anymore) for local travel

[tavert]

One tip i would say is to add maybe one more nuclear rocket, the tip is to be able to use only them at a low enough altitude to save lost of fuel but not use so many the benefit becomes redundant

Who, me? I was trying to avoid making it any heavier than it absolutely needed to be. Even your "micro" is what, 175 tons? I'd be curious to see its total delta-V though (or more importantly, what it has left once it reaches orbit).

My feeling was that engine mass costs delta-V, although the improved TWR might make up for it a bit on the Mun landing and takeoff...

[lump]

The micro is just short of escaping the solar system, it can get a 67 year elliptical orbit with average piloting.

BTW i made a ship to go to the moon rather like yours, mine was lighter though and had parachutes and less fuel, once landed it had almost 200 fuel left to get back to Kerbin which should be plenty, it had 4 aero-spikes with 4 large thin tanks each and 4 nuclear rockets with 1 medium thin each, i landed it in the moon but because it was dark it crashed, soon i'll post pics of the micro hopefully getting to Duna and maybe landing on Ike.

the thing i said about the nuclear engines is a fine line, even one extra nuclear engine can prevent the ship from ever achieving anything, like i said fine fine line.

[lump]

Ok the micro can land on Ike with 400 fuel left, thats around 1000m/s which is maybe enough to get home if i flew perfectly, although if i did that the whole way i would easily be able to get home. so it can go to duna, drop off a probe and if your feeling frisky, land on ike before returning home, if i went to Eve i could land on gilly and come back easily.

this should put a perspective on the micro's power, if it was the mini i could have landed on Ike and returned easily, maybe even on Duna and return if i packed parachutes.

To put it in perspective:

Micro-probes/small landers, small moon landings

Mini-small rockets/medium landers, medium moon/small planet landings#

Goliath-medium rockets/large landers, not recomended for planet landings due to immense size(bring lander) is possible

BTW As i said before the Goliath can fuel the Mini with more fuel than it started with in orbit, the mini can also do the same to the Micro. so if you bring a Goliath into, say a Duna orbit you should be able to fuel 1-3 Micros with it, or 1-2 Minis, it takes 2-3 Goliath to fully fuel a Micro though(but a fully fueled micro could go 10 times further than the current one, say to all the inner planets and back).

Edited April 22, 2013 by lump

[lump]

As a demonstration of the Mini's superiority I flew it to duna with two hitchiker containers, after achieving orbit i dropped the containers into the atmosphere, i then got the lander i transported by the goliath and landed it by the colony, the Mini has enough fuel to get back to kerbin, which is what i will do tomorrow, as well as post pics.

[Climberfx]

I Have this! But i use Mechjeb, so i did for fun, because it not have enough dV for maneuvers and nether RCS and ASAS.

So, just get orbit (80 km), and go back to land on the KSC, on Rocket.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8z4vavx4rwvu78k/Dragon.craft (Mechjeb)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tqfblowmtt...%20Stock.craft (Stock)

Edited April 24, 2013 by Climberfx

[Climberfx]

I Have this too! But i use Mechjeb, so i did for fun, because it not have enough dV for maneuvers only this time.

This one have the RCS fuel and ASAS.

This time, the orbit was 100km...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0h6a12nc1sj4eu/Falcon.craft (MechJeb)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/riisfhcaw0...%20Stock.craft (Stock)

[Prack]

OK, so i might have lost my engine on landing, but all in all, i don't think it went to badly for what amounted to a self propelled fuel tank.

P.S. No Kerbals were harmed during this flight

P.P.S. Not saying anything about the spanner incident during production. . .

[Climberfx]

I have this one too.

So, here is an version of the STAR, the STAR ICE Junior with Payload (around 2.2 units).

I think, from the 3 of then, STAR ICE, Junior and Baby, this one got the most balance from power and extra fuel to hold a bigger cargo. And still have enough fuel to expend. In orbit and on atmosphere.

What you think?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/orx3r2e3fwxonte/Star%20Junior%20Payload%20Mj.craft

[lump]

Climberfx, you got some nice SSTOs there, came a bit late but they're still pretty sweet.

btw, i think I've cracked the SSTO rocket code to the point of almost formula,if i scale it up or down i get scale results meaning i can use it to make different sized SSTOs.

the Goliath mini can take five tonnes into orbit, halve of the normal Goliath, which is enough for a colony on Duna .

Pics of the Goliath mini:

at launch

main engines about to run out

off to Duna

landing the colony pods

solar panels deployed for the first ad last time due to them colliding with the probe body at noon

Taking the lander from Goliath down to populate the pods

sending a rover to join the fray

the power generated y this panel still takes halve the day to charge the batteries

the finished colony took three launches if you include the defective lander

[Climberfx]

Thanks

Why you don't use the Rover wheels? would use less need on energy.

Or these are old pics, before .19?

[lump]

Thanks

Why you don't use the Rover wheels? would use less need on energy.

Or these are old pics, before .19?

i'm using .18 as it crashes less, plus this rover can go at 200 m\s which helps pick up distant Kerbals

[SDIR]

I know this is not part of the challenge, but, I am in need of a very small 3 man ssto for my space station, hopefully under 15 tonnes, no mods. Can anybody help me?

[lump]

SDIR i will get on it right away

[dragoncannon]

I have mechjeb, but I'm more or less flying manually... I submitted this for my own venturestar challenge and It is the first 2 episodes in my series. I also have 3 one man pods, does that count for the points? If so... 80 pts....