Accelerando's Wacky Things That Resemble Spacecraft

[Accelerando]

Now a general-purpose thread for my rinky-dink creations, and stuff!

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Large Munar Lander: Selene

I\'d always wanted to create a spaceship in KSP that looked authentically as though it could support a few people for more than a few days at a time, but could never find a command pod big enough (or enough 'equipment/scientific' parts labeled 'life support'), so since I haven\'t yet seen any mods that add this sort of thing, nor am I particularly well-learned in the ways of 3D modelling as yet, I decided to do what most people would do: Build it out of parts I could grab from elsewhere! To that end, I stuck a fuel tank below the command pod decoupler and separated it with a fat block of RCS from the fuel tank that actually supplies to the ship\'s engines, and lo, I had my Big-ified Munar Lander.

Designed with a load of extra life support and some extra baggage room, Selene can accommodate three Kerbals for extended periods of time, or accommodate more than three Kerbals for a very short time sure to end in a fiery death for anyone unable to cram into the reentry module fast enough. While a little on the weighty side, Bill and Bob both were cited as remarking that 'a little extra security never hurt anyone'. Jeb was unavailable for comment at the time, but evidently remained very happy throughout the course of the vehicle\'s shakedown run.

FIRST VOYAGE

Selene rides Odyssey, the Intrepid SLS\'s deep-space boost platform, into parking orbit around Kerbin.

Post-TMI burn, and leaving Kerbin.

On approach to the Mun.

'We goddamn love gray rocks!'

Approaching Kerbin once more. As you can see, a considerable amount of time has passed since initial Munar touchdown. This was thanks to a few superfluous deceleration burns prior to reaching the Munar surface, and a number of RCS shenanigans to compensate for lost fuel.

Primary capsule separation, and preparation for re-entry.

Chute deployed.

Homeward bound! Aaaaaand... touchdown!

So there you have it; I hope it\'s worth your time! I\'ll admit the design probably compensates fuel efficiency with its use of the verniering pods included in Tiberion\'s NovaPunch pack, so you might be better served by removing those altogether, but it\'s all your call. Just remember, Bill and Bob are counting on ya! Jeb -- well, I can\'t speak for him.

Modpacks used:

• 
  [li]Tiberion\'s NovaPunch pack[/li]
  [li]JordanCox\'s Intrepid 1.3 pack[/li]
  

Selene Mk. II: Electric Boogaloo

Upon his return from the Mun, Jeb wouldn\'t stop complaining about how boring it was just looking out the window onto a bunch of grey rocks. Why, he wondered, couldn\'t we drive over those rocks? With rockets? Thenceforth the engineers at the VAB, and their supply of fearless laborers (or perhaps just nearly blind, and unable to see the towering menage of parts just waiting to topple and fall on their heads) set out to construct a rather clumsy, but functional, rover attachment for the lander.

Success!

With that accomplished, they shoved the three Kerbalnauts into that roundish cone thing on top of the rover, and sent them flying!

Okay, to seriousness. Selene Mk. II is, as noted, a scaled-up version of Selene Mk. I meant to carry a rover. Fun times to be had here! I certainly enjoyed cruising around the lunar dust flats in this stylish buggy, affectionately dubbed the Mikia IV after a good friend of mine.

In-flight, landing.

Rover deployment.

Cruisin\'!

Should you ever grow bored of rolling over grey dirt, the detachable Mei Long capsule carries enough fuel to take you back to Kerbin. Convenient.

Requires:

• 
  [li]the Down Under modpack[/li]
  [li]C7 parts[/li]
  [li]NovaPunch pack[/li]
  [li]WhiteMonkey pack[/li]
  [li]KW Challenger parts[/li]
  

[supertoaster98]

pics are broken

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

And I thought that mine was large enough...

[Thunderbird]

FYI pics tend to break if you take them while in windowed mode

[Ferrit]

Nice lander!

And I\'m with you, always like a rocket that can keep it\'s crew alive for a while longer than usual. Once get the hang of Blender I hope to make some Habitation modules in various sizes and configurations (though this will have to wait for real life).

Keep it up and welcome to the forums!

[mincespy]

Pics Broken...

[Ferrit]

Pics Broken...

Right click and \'show picture\' solves it for me

[JupiterII]

Right click and \'show picture\' solves it for me

This

[Tim_Barrett]

A realistic lander would have an orbiting counterpart to attach to after you leave the Mun. (like apollo)

Too bad docking isn\'t supported yet.

[Saaur]

A realistic lander would have an orbiting counterpart to attach to after you leave the Mun. (like apollo)

Too bad docking isn\'t supported yet.

Because of technology limitations, that\'s the way we had to do it on Earth, yes. But if your lander is capable of direct flight home, why bother?

[Tim_Barrett]

Because of technology limitations, that\'s the way we had to do it on Earth, yes. But if your lander is capable of direct flight home, why bother?

It may work now, but when resources come into play, especially oxygen (or any other breathing equivelant for kerbals), we may all have to go back to the drawing boards.

Also you must take into consideration that it is possible to get there on an average of about three hours. On the apollo missions they were there for two days I believe.

[Accelerando]

It may work now, but when resources come into play, especially oxygen (or any other breathing equivelant for kerbals), we may all have to go back to the drawing boards.

Also you must take into consideration that it is possible to get there on an average of about three hours. On the apollo missions they were there for two days I believe.

I did something like that recently, hefting a miniature space station (you might call it the service module, except that this thing already had a ginormous service module to push the entire thing into TMI).

Anyway, considering a single-stage crewed default parts mission to the Mun is possible in this game (four fuel tanks, a standard nonvectoring engine and a command pod, which I presume is able to support three Kerbals for at least a few days\' time), I\'m not sure how well Earth realism will apply to spacecraft leaving Kerbin -- barring, of course, any mods meant to make things as difficult as they are IRL.

Sorry for the long reply time; I\'m terrible. And as for the complaints of broken pictures, I\'m not sure why that\'d be the case... I\'ve viewed this thread from multiple computers, multiple locations/IPs, and they show up for me (if not the first time, then after a refresh or two). Again, sorry! Have a Munbase.

[blurrr 2]

I want to see the rover so much, but the pics don\'t load.

[Accelerando]

I want to see the rover so much, but the pics don\'t load.

Argh. Okay, I\'ll try uploading as attachments this time.

[semininja]

I can see the images using Chrome, but only if I open them in a separate tab. They don\'t like to show in the forum...