Tylo Lander and Ascent stage

[TimothyC]

While not yet optimized, the Tylo Tester Mk 2 is capable of landing and returning to orbit from any body in the Kerbal system except for Kerbin* and Eve (Atmospheric entry is assisted by the addition of drogue parachutes not included in this craft file).

In orbit prior to landing:

The same:

After landing on Tylo:

Launch from Tylo:

Making orbit:

In orbit:

Tylo Tester Mk 2 Craft file

Delivering the craft is an exercise left for the reader, as the vehicle is nearly 150 tons fully loaded (for testing on Tylo I used hyperedit).

*It might be able to do so if you burn enough fuel off to get the TWR high enough prior to landing (the Kerbin TWR fully loaded is 0.89), but I have yet to test this successfully.

Note: I fly with an integrated MechJeb in the command pods/probe cores, but that has been stripped out for the version I am posting here.

[Jamie Logan]

Quite a large lander compared to my two man version.

Lightweight and efficient is the way to go, man!

[TimothyC]

*Shrugs*

I'm a big fan of keeping my crew in cabins and capsules for as long as possible.

[Immashift]

I'm honestly not a fan of landers with chairs. While they may save on mass and fuel, it looks a bit silly and it's not that practical in terms of real world applications.

The advantage to heavyweight landers is also that if you've made it for Tylo, it's likely to be capable of landing on almost anything else. I also use my heavy Tylo lander for a fuel tanker and fuel storage at my Kerbin station. I'm a huge fan of multipurpose, as well as reusable ships. For example, the lander I mentioned does not drop stages on ascent from Tylo, but rather lugs them back up so the whole thing can be reused.

[Jamie Logan]

I'm honestly not a fan of landers with chairs. While they may save on mass and fuel, it looks a bit silly and it's not that practical in terms of real world applications.

The advantage to heavyweight landers is also that if you've made it for Tylo, it's likely to be capable of landing on almost anything else. I also use my heavy Tylo lander for a fuel tanker and fuel storage at my Kerbin station. I'm a huge fan of multipurpose, as well as reusable ships. For example, the lander I mentioned does not drop stages on ascent from Tylo, but rather lugs them back up so the whole thing can be reused.

Well I guess the purpose behind the chairs was to make an efficient lander, that's all. Also I find it silly to be considering "real world applications" when playing a game involving little green men, but ok.

[CaptainArchmage]

Landing from and ascent to orbit with chairs has been considered in the real world, for moons with no atmosphere. Example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Escape_Systems

[TheSaint]

The Lunar Gemini proposal also included an open-seat one-man lunar lander. The (real life) problem with landers like this is that the surface time is limited. It's okay if you just want to plant a flag and grab some rocks. But to do real science you need more surface time than an astronaut can really accomplish without getting out of their suit at some point. The later two and three-day lunar missions would have been impossible.

I like to build my landers with cans as well, but even with that my Tylo lander was a lot smaller than that. What I did was design a lander that had enough fuel to lift off, plus about 500 m/s or so. Then I created a first stage for that lander that had nothing but fuel and engines. From Tylo orbit, the first stage fired and cancelled all of the orbital velocity, then did a slow burn down to the surface to keep the vertical velocity low. The first stage ran out of fuel about 1,000 m off the surface and the second stage landed on Tylo with enough dv to get back to orbit. It was really tight, the lander didn't have enough fuel left to rendezvous with the main ship, so they had to come get them. But it worked. I then refueled the second stage and used it as a lander on Bop and Pol. (I had another lander with parachutes for Laythe that was reused at Vall.)