Decend into Jool's atmosphere as far as you dare, and return a sample to Kerbin!

[nhnifong]

Inspired by metaphor's awesome post on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1lq8do/mission_to_jools_surface_and_back/)

Let's have a competition to see how deep you dare to go into Jool's atmosphere with stock parts only.

You must collect a "sample" (use your imagination) and bring it back to KSC for analysis. Use any of the scientific instruments as your dummy sample collection payload.

And I'm off to go design my ship!

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Would anyone know the death point of Jool?

[Giggleplex777]

Would anyone know the death point of Jool?

-99 meters?

Edited September 6, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[lajoswinkler]

I think you can actually reach 1 m, but it takes forever because the terminal velocity is getting smaller and smaller as you go deeper. I'm not sure, but I think you almost come to a complete halt and then just "poof", and you're gone. You never actually see any ground. Something like falling to Kerbol.

[ihtoit]

might be an idea (hey it's just an idea) if you modified this and included a save file with a balloon probe with a docking port (Clamptron Junior?) or similar floating low in Joolian atmosphere, with the mission parameter to retrieve the balloon and return it to Kerbin? OR... make things a little more interesting, include a Kerbonaut and make it a rescue mission?

Edited September 6, 2013 by ihtoit
ideas spilling out faster than I can write them

[Captain Sierra]

Time to go finish my R.A.C.E. system mod. It has jet* engines that work in any atmosphere! That plus Tek Industries Science means I can deliver an actual atmosphere sample to an orbiting station

*engines require an atmosphere but do consume both liquid fuel and oxidizer. They are less efficient than stock jets but can work with any atmosphere.

[Blue]

Do we get extra points for doing it Stock?

[SRV Ron]

"Would anyone know the death point of Jool? "

As soon as you drop below the surface.

Note, the altimeter is unreliable once you break the surface plane.

The only way this mission can be done so far is with a mod allowing the use of floating airships that drop a sample container down to the death zone on a cable. Then, the airship climbs out to a point where a return probe can escape from the high gravity and dense atmosphere of Jool.

Edited September 6, 2013 by SRV Ron

[MarkoeZ]

Time to go finish my R.A.C.E. system mod. It has jet* engines that work in any atmosphere! That plus Tek Industries Science means I can deliver an actual atmosphere sample to an orbiting station

*engines require an atmosphere but do consume both liquid fuel and oxidizer. They are less efficient than stock jets but can work with any atmosphere.

Do we get extra points for doing it Stock?

OP:

Let's have a competition to see how deep you dare to go into Jool's atmosphere with STOCK parts only.

Interesting challenge though, gonna give it a try!!

[nhnifong]

No need to go all the way to the bottom. I'm just attempting 30 km or so because it takes an excessively large ship.

[metaphor]

Here's one that goes to -36m and back to orbit. =)

Does a kerbal with spacesuit pockets count as a sample-return mechanism? (Had already built the ship when I saw this challenge)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Also, terminal velocity at 0 m is about 20-30 m/s depending on what your ship is made of. And in the last patch they changed the lowest point from -100 to -250 m, but now when you hit it you explode just like on the Sun, so you can't land anything, even if it's glitched.

[rasheed]

Wow.... just wow.... Thats a monster of a rocket, just too barely reach jool's orbit. One question. How the hell did u get that to jool?? lemme guess, hyperedit...

[lajoswinkler]

Devs should make Jool's atmosphere a true hell, to emulate a true gas giant (or ice giant, whatever).

[ihtoit]

that's nearly half again the size of my largest ever launch (1174 tons on-the-pad for a two-stage single launch way station to Mun (payload mass: 91 tons), and that was stock.

[metaphor]

Yeah I used Hyperedit to get it to Jool, but it can get to Kerbin orbit without staging, so with enough refueling (about ~50 orange tanks' worth of fuel) it could get to Jool by itself. Engines do overheat a lot faster in Jool's atmosphere, that's why I had to keep the throttle down to 2/3.

[ihtoit]

I've found out the hard way with the Mainsails that I have to keep them at 80% or below to stop them exploding... with bursts at 100% only for short periods. Seems kind of a waste, with all that potential power available, that they should make the engine so... fragile.

[SRV Ron]

Stick a pancake tank under the larger ones. That will control the overheating a lot better. With more power available, you should get better overall performance in powering out of Jool's dense atmosphere and high gravity.

[ihtoit]

Thanks, Ron, I never knew that I'll be trying that out later on!

[magnemoe]

Here's one that goes to -36m and back to orbit. =)

Does a kerbal with spacesuit pockets count as a sample-return mechanism? (Had already built the ship when I saw this challenge)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Also, terminal velocity at 0 m is about 20-30 m/s depending on what your ship is made of. And in the last patch they changed the lowest point from -100 to -250 m, but now when you hit it you explode just like on the Sun, so you can't land anything, even if it's glitched.

Congratulation, hat off for you, I thought stock Jool was impossible. And as you say that ship is single stage to Jool but would be an bitch to refuel, using pancake tanks over the mainsails should increase performance.

I would also asparagus the LV-N to the aerospike stack they give better isp than aerospikes at 0.7-0.6 atmosphere.

And I know Jool landed Jeb on it with balloons and KAS, http://imgur.com/rFjkXcG you can not do that anymore in 0.211

The only saving grace of Jool is that its gravity is low compared with Kerbin or Eve so you can use an nuclear upper stage.

[nhnifong]

Holy crap metaphor that is cool

My attempts were all failures (dove too deep!)