So about Eve and future resource harvesting...

[Rocketeer Hopeful]

How will that even work? If in the future we are going to need to get resources back off of Eve and to be used for rockets back on Kerbin, what are we going to do without making INSANELY big rockets, even more gargantuan than ones now.

[maackey]

One word: Balloons.

[nhnifong]

My favorite ways to get off Eve are all mods. (baloons and electric propellers) Its easier, but it seems more appropriate and leave more room for invention. Whereas a rocket has to be so large that there is pretty much only one right way to do it.

[Olvirm]

Maybe they could make it so you can collect a smaller amount of the recourse by flying through the atmosphere and collecting it. Perhaps have it so you you get less than if you landed but enough to scrape by on

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

The best way might be to use a SSTO with jets. Considering Eve's ridiculous atmosphere...

Never tested this, just a idea.

[leax256]

The best way might be to use a SSTO with jets. Considering Eve's ridiculous atmosphere...

Never tested this, just a idea.

no oxygen=no jets. though I read about a different jet that is powered differently and could work in eve.

@ OP

Highly efficient engines & the possibility of airship like parts.

[DisarmingBaton5]

no oxygen=no jets. though I read about a different jet that is powered differently and could work in eve.

@ OP

Highly efficient engines & the possibility of airship like parts.

No jets, but a rocket-powered plane should work anyway. Imagine the amount of lift a wing would create!

[DisarmingBaton5]

Also, I'm not as worried about Eve. I'm worried about Tylo.

[Lumaro]

I don't think it's anything that we will have to worry about for a long time. They said that they will be working on career mode for the next few updates.

[Temstar]

You're refining blutonium from Eve's ocean. Blutonium is a fissile material so you only need a tiny amount of it for enormous reactors. Nuclear bombs for example only use a sphere of plutonium about the size of a baseball.

[Wait- Was That Important?]

I actually made a thread about this awhile ago in the suggestions forum about profitability when Eve gets resources.

The conclusions I got from the thread were thus:

1.) Eve will not be a fuel stop, as it's too impractical to ascend with any appreciable amount of weight.

2.) Eve will have Blutonium, a vital component of NERVA's and RTG's, which will only be required in small quantities yet will be very useful.

3.) Ascending from Eve will always suck until we get balloons or engines that can breath it's soupy, hellish atmosphere.

[UmbralRaptor]

I'm not sure why, but I love the idea of Eve:

1) Being a nightmare to get resources off of.

2) The resources being so useful that it's done anyway.

[Strategia]

I'm not sure why, but I love the idea of Eve:

1) Being a nightmare to get resources off of.

2) The resources being so useful that it's done anyway.

So EVE would be like Siberia, then. Chock-full of all sorts of useful resources, a total pain in the ass to develop, and yet still being utilised out of necessity.

[-RanZ-]

No jets, but a rocket-powered plane should work anyway. Imagine the amount of lift a wing would create!

that would not be efficient. If you are carrying your oxidizer you are better going straight up than using wings to provide lift

[EleSigma]

I will look elsewhere for Blutonium, Eve might have literal oceans of the stuff but the risks outweigh the benefits, at least until my space program researches some nice engines and sturdy equipment capable of operating on Eve. If I were to harvest any resources from Eve early on it would be to just swoop down into the upper-atmosphere and collect some of the gasses and fly out again.

[dharak1]

Speaking of the amount of radioactive material in bombs, has anyone ever calculated critical mass for blutonium? I mean its probably low because of the size of the RTGs in KSP but still it would be fun to find out.

[Vanamonde]

I don't think Squad dislikes us enough to make Eve the sole source of a necessary resource. Either way, remember that a big part of the difficulty of Eve right now is not getting off of it, but hauling TO it everything you need to get OFF of it again. If you have the parts and materials on-hand, it's no great feat to build a 13,000dV (or whatever the exact figure is) launch vehicle.

[Temstar]

Eve is also fascinating because its mining process is necessarily involved due to the logistics to carrying the finished product to orbit. On Duna distilling rocket fuel will be a simple matter of drilling down the surface (or better the ice cap) to reach water ice. melt it, siphon it up and split it into fuel and oxidiser via electrolysis and you're ready to pipe it up to tanker rockets.

But on Eve your rocket for the final product is going to be sitting at a launch complex on top of a 6.5km mountain top to minimise that delta-V to orbit while your ocean is at... well sea level. That means some kind of rover is needed to cart material in between the two areas. You have the economic question of where is the best place to build the Blutonium refinery (seaside vs mountain top vs mobile) to minimise tanker trip, balanced against hardware required to send to Eve.

Then there is the actual problem of refining. You have to siphon the water out of the ocean, dry out the liquids and separate out the Blutonium. On earth nuclear reactors are generally designed to run on natural or low-enriched uranium. But since the actual energy only comes from the fissile isotope (Uranium-235 on Earth, Blutonium-238 on Kerbin) it becomes economical to only lift off Eve with a final product of highly-enriched, weapons grade Blutonium with very high concentration of Biutonium-238 isotope. That means you also need a large and complex centrifuge facility on Eve to enrich the raw Blutonium.

Man I sure hope the Kerbals know their nuclear physics, because you can't just put a 500kg lump of pure Biutonium-238 on top of a rocket - you'll exceed the critical mass and either cause a meltdown or an explosion.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Temstar

[itsme86]

I don't think it's anything that we will have to worry about for a long time. They said that they will be working on career mode for the next few updates.

Not sure how career mode and resources are mutually exclusive. You're going to have to have some revenue to keep your space program from going broke, right? Seems like resources would be one of the ways to make that happen.

[EleSigma]

Not sure how career mode and resources are mutually exclusive. You're going to have to have some revenue to keep your space program from going broke, right? Seems like resources would be one of the ways to make that happen.

I believe career mode is the primary priority and resources are the secondary both are being worked on and implemented in parts. More focus is going into career mode but resources will probably come with career mode in the end. I know the information display in map mode is considered the first step to implementing resources.

[Rocketeer Hopeful]

Let's hope, great pic btw!

[suzin.felipe]

We could build a space lift from ground to a station in Evestationary orbit.

Considering what I see people build in this game and the time they can dedicate to it, why not?

[magnemoe]

One word: Balloons.

Yes balloons bring the dV requirements below 6000 m/s.