Surviving water landings with Crew Tanks?

[Teiwaz]

I'm trying to design a safe, stock, easy to fly launch vehicle to ferry Kerbals to and from low orbit - ideally at least 10 per trip. However, I'm having a rough time with water landings: crew tanks appear to be water soluble, which kills everyone on board. I'd rather not have to always make sure I end up on land, as I don't want to have to pay that much attention to routine crew missions. Has anyone figured out a reliable way to safely land crew tanks in the water? I've tried a number of configurations, including landing the thing horizontally to reduce the amount they're submerged, but they always just disappear, and I'm already at the point where the number of parachutes I mount on these things is just absurd. Thoughts?

[rewdew2]

i would recommend using about 6 radial parachutes per crew tank.

if you persist in having problems, make it 8.

[capi3101]

This is from a mod, right? Just asking; the stock command modules all float. If you're talking about a hitchhiker module, you might try putting something underneath it like an RCS tank or perhaps a series of lander legs; yes, you don't need them to land in water.

I suppose you could be hitting the water fast...eight radial chutes will usually slow down the payload enough. I have that configuration working with a large RGU and two hitchhikers; eight radial chutes slows that down to about 5 m/s.

How massive of a ship are you bringing down? A screenshot would be helpful.

Edited June 19, 2013 by capi3101

[Tex_NL]

One word: Parachutes! (Retro-rockets optional.)

The more chutes you add the slower you'll descent. It isn't the speed that kills, it's the sudden deceleration.

Edit: ninja-ed

[Teiwaz]

These are the stock Hitchhiker Modules, yes.

I've brought them down into the water, slathered in parachutes, as slow as ~5m/s or so: very gentle landings, but they just vanish as soon as they hit the water. All the pieces connected to them survive. The tanks themselves just seem to be, as I said, water soluble, and disappear when they hit the water, even when it's a really gentle landing. I think it's an issue with this particular part. (I may try transporting the crew in the 2 man landing cans, although that won't do any good for my mass.) They have a very low impact tolerance for their size, and especially for crew-carrying parts.

The ship isn't all that large. The crew return stage (which is all I'm testing at this point, I'm just boosting it up on solids to test its water survivability since I knew this would be a problem. Haven't built the launch vehicle yet.) consists of a 3-man pod, 2 hitchhiker tanks, and some basic equipment for orbital maneuvering, docking, and surviving dry landings.

[numerobis]

The hitchhiker and the lander can are very weak. Land them slower than 5 m/s (20 km/h) on Kerbin -- try going less than 1m/s (4 km/h), that should work.

In KSP, water is much harder to land on than soil.