How do I get this thing on the Mun?

[Hero]

I recently got my very first spaceship on the Mun, and now I'm starting on a Mun base. So I decided to start out with a living quarters.

The problem is that I can't get this thing on the Mun. I've tried so many times it's embarrassing how much I failed. I can't even get into an orbit. Anyone have tips for a newb on how to get heavy ships to the Mun?

Thanks

[Atanar]

Looks like you got 2 lV 909 engines under there. If that's supposed to land it on the Mun, I think you should add 2 more of them. Also, your landing stage needs to have a good alignment of the center of mass and the center of thrust, the pic looks like you don't have that. Lastly you should look into this thread for different landers:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/34802-Help-with-transporting-rovers

[Markus Reese]

1. Getting heavy ships to space, recommend you look up something called asparagus staging. It is where you have fuel tanks and engines feeding other ones. This way as you use up tanks, you jettison engines along with it as you need less thrust. Once in orbit, it wouldn't take too much to make a nice burn to the moon.

Like said before, the best thing is to use is to trial and error the positioning of four or six vtol engines along the side. Make the lander just as you have it then position and move the engines to balance it. If one side pitches up, then move it either in or the other out a bit. Just place it onto the launch pad and try to lift. If you can lift on kerbal, then can land on the moon. Be sure that you use the same fuel tank and engines for all points else it will imbalance as fuel drains out. Below is a picture of a vtol setup that I use. The hardest part is getting used to the way that the navcom uses unless you have a secondary pod to control from.

It is a much older version of ksp, but the same principles work...

Edited June 10, 2013 by Markus Reese

[rryy]

In the VAB, place a radial decoupler (preferably the structural pylon if you don't want to leave the decoupler "remains") over the center of mass of the module. Then, place an I-beam on top of the decoupler as close to being on top of the CoM as possible. Then, build a skycrane thing on top of it to land it on the Mun, and once the module is safely landed, decouple the skycrane and crash it into the Munar surface.

To get the module and skycrane to the Mun, I suggest you flip the craft upside-down so the skycrane is at the bottom. This will just make building the lifter to take it to the Mun easier.

[Zephram Kerman]

Since you mention having trouble getting it to orbit, it might help to rearrange the lander for symmetry. If the payload is asymmetrical, that would make the launcher hard to control during the gravity turn.

[Markus Reese]

Since you mention having trouble getting it to orbit, it might help to rearrange the lander for symmetry. If the payload is asymmetrical, that would make the launcher hard to control during the gravity turn.

Oh, that is a good call. The individual engines on the bottom would cause a possibly significant mass offset depending on how it is set up.