Space Whale Monitoring Station

[Synapse]

"Space whales" are a unique audible phenomenom caused by the oscillation of Kerbitons within the Kerban system. They were first discovered when early space exploration caused Kerbonauts to report "whale-like" hummings outside of the atmosphere. Since then, Kerbitonic wave theory has become an established science, but more research is needed to understand this strange occurence.

Unfortunately, instruments which detect the Kerbitons often pick up interference from nearby planets and moons. The KSC has decided to establish a deep-space monitoring station to investigate these oscillations away from planetary interference.

RULES

Establish a space station in a circularised orbit around Kerbol. Highest periapsis wins.

The station must be manned. It must have a graviton analyser, antenna and power source.

Due to the nature of the challenge, the station must not orbit a planet or moon.

Banned: hyperedit, KW rocketry, infinite fuel, cfg editing

Discouraged: kethane

Edited September 3, 2013 by Synapse

[Nachtwind]

Maybe you should just ban pretty much every mod. This is - as far as i understand - a pretty simple challange. All you have to do is to fly a manned craft into a kerbol orbit... with the help of mechjeb this is fairly simple, even more if you use mods that give you more or less unlimited Ion drive support etc..

With the current limitations pretty much is possible.. therefore: Narrow it down a bit more so it really becomes a challange

[Synapse]

The challenge is to provide enough fuel and engines to create an extremely large orbit around Kerbol. It also is to challenge the limitations of KSP in terms of how wide a orbit can be circularised.

I would like to see a infinite fuel entry, despite the requirements of the challenge.

In case you didnt understand the orbit needs to be at least beyond Eeloo.

[Nachtwind]

i did understand that.. but its still a fairly simple challange.. but well - will give it a try

[Johnno]

The main downside of this challenge is that it'll take ages to get to your apoapsis to circulize, especially if you go with infinite fuel. Doesn't sound fun at all as a challenge, to me anyway. Have you tried it yourself Synapse? Are you aware of the timeframe this challenge requires even with the highest timewarp?

[Synapse]

I have tried it myself. The method I used was to enter Eeloo orbit, match velocities, then begin to circularise outwards. Given that with infinite fuel enabled, I have made it to speeds and distances far beyond that of the system, the challenge is not that impossibly time-consuming.

That said, the main product is the station, so it's more of a creativity challenge than anything else. This will appeal to some players and not to others.

[Johnno]

The only way to do this reasonably is to accelerate to high speeds, get to where you want your orbit, kill speed and circulize. However, I don't think you realize the distances we're talking about.

The station may be the product but you'll be spending hours to get it anywhere, at insane speeds. Just accelerating to 100km/s with a mainsail on a hitchhiker storage container is taking ages, on 4x physical timewarp.

I've gone 3 ingame years at 100km/s. 100 kilometers per second. I circulized, still having 600m/s orbit speed, my periapsis is at 6.3Tm and apoapsis is at 740Tm. So I could in theory coast to apoapsis and circulize there, however, getting there would take 663000 years according to engineer. At maximum timewarp you're spending 1 day per second. I would have to let my game run for 7.5 years real life time, to get there.

So I guess I'm back to heading outward instead, rather than 100km/s I'll see how high the counter goes, without breaking. It's taking me a bit under 2 seconds to accelerate for each kilometer per second, at 4x physical timewarp. I stopped my engine at 200km/s just to do some math. Each minute of maximum timewarp takes me 1.2Tm further out, so to get to 740Tm I'd have to spend another 10 hours, of maximum timewarp, going at 200 kilometers per second.

I'm accelerating again, I'm going to aim for 1000km/s, at maximum timewarp that'd take me 0.1Tm per second, still taking me roughly 2 hours to reach my target. But to get to 1000km/s I have to spend at least 10 minutes accelerating (about 16 if I use 2s / 1km/s, it's a bit faster than that). And that's at 4x physical timewarp, of course.

(edited: got to 1000km/s and realized my math mistake, 0.1Tm per second at max timewarp; 2 hours to get to 740Tm)

Are you starting to understand why I think this is somewhat futile?

Edited September 3, 2013 by Johnno
Fixed math, made mistake

[Synapse]

Yes, I've seen Scott Manley's video on light speed as well (I've actually reached light speed using modded cfg files). As I said, this is about the creativity of the station, rather than a challenge of patience.

I'm tempted to just delete the thread though

[Johnno]

Then I guess you need to change the challenge's rules to reflect a design and creativity contest, rather than one where patience wins.

[SRV Ron]

Maybe you should just ban pretty much every mod. This is - as far as i understand - a pretty simple challange. All you have to do is to fly a manned craft into a kerbol orbit... with the help of mechjeb this is fairly simple, even more if you use mods that give you more or less unlimited Ion drive support etc..

With the current limitations pretty much is possible.. therefore: Narrow it down a bit more so it really becomes a challange

Given the size of the rocket to launch just a probe into that orbit without using slingshot assist, (Did this with one probe sitting idle in orbit around Kerbin.)

The final orbit;

The probe with some fuel left;

Took about two years Kerbal time to reach this distance.

Placing a functional station that is years away from resupply due to the distance and delta V needed to intercept, will be a challenge, Nova Punch mods or not. ( I do have stock probes that will duplicate this.) Hydroponic gardens and nuclear batteries will be a must.

Edited September 3, 2013 by SRV Ron

[mellojoe]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/38066-the-Restaurant-at-the-End-of-the-Universe?p=484836&viewfull=1#post484836

Here's my submission, sort of. I put a restaurant at the end of the universe some months ago. Milliways was in a 400B orbit. Completely stock. This was before I knew about MechJeb and about infinite fuel and all that. I basically stuffed as much fuel and boosters as I had ever done, launched it, and watched where it took me. It has power in the form of RTGs, and it has radio dish antennae. It does not have the science equipment, I don' think. But, pretending it has that, we can easily repurpose this flying restaurant into a science lab.

The rest of the thread is there to see the progress from my first attempt into my larger ship.

This save was destroyed/deleted with one of the version upgrades.

Edited September 4, 2013 by mellojoe

[Tex_NL]

...

Banned: hyperedit, KW rocketry, infinite fuel, cfg editing

Discouraged: kethane

Banning hyperedit, infinite fuel and cfg editing I understand. I even understand why you prefer people not to use Kethane. But why in the name of Jool would you ban KW Rocketry? It's one of the best balanced mods ever! Yes, the tanks are a bit bigger compared to stock but they are heavier. Yes, the engines are a bit stronger but they are again heavier and/or less efficient. Please explain why.

[Johnno]

I would like to see a infinite fuel entry, despite the requirements of the challenge.

Here you go, nothing except infinite fuel + patience (and engineer for info).

[Xeldrak]

I'm working on it....just 20 more years....

[Kappa73]

working on it also, just not sure if this can be right, MJ orbit info says Time to apoapsis 5604y 354d... it could be that my gravity slingshot from Jool was a bit too good heh =)

Edit: the deep space listening station is still on its way, dunno if can wait that long tho. In the meantime i decided to launch second, identical rocket with another station, and took it on a lower orbit...

it won't have enough fuel to circularize tho, somewhat elliptical orbit will have to do...

Edited September 6, 2013 by Kappa73

[Kappa73]

all right i give up, this is what i ended up circularizing at, still way ahead of the apoapsis i got from jool slingshot:

everything is stock except for Mechjeb for sanity reasons.

[YarTheBug]

[...] this is about the creativity of the station, rather than a challenge of patience.

I'm tempted to just delete the thread though

Please don't delete the thread, Synapse. This is an excellent challenge. Anyone who doesn't have the patience to try it should exercise some restraint in critiquing it.

I'll give it a try. I've got a video uploading for a challenge that took an hour of 100,000 x timewarp. When you consider flying the maneuvers and such, it was over 2 hours. The fact that I broke the game meant another hour of testing and proofing before I had my entry completed. KSP is not JUST about patience, but it is MAINLY about patience.

Cheers!

- Yar

[edit: If you do decide to change the rules (which I'm not in favor of), you might choose: Unmodded, Modded (within reason), and unlimited fleets]

[YarTheBug]

Great challenge, Synapse!

Video uploading

1,000,000,000,000m circular orbit.

4 prisoners researchers

Also serves a dual purpose as a err... Correctional Facility...