Tylo Apollo Style - because asparagus is for wimps!

[Moar Boosters]

I like building big aesthetically pleasing rockets. Despite my username, I don't like the idea of destroying KSC every launch by raining boosters down on the lovely new research center. I like big, tall rockets, with ridiculously powerful first stages, that blast the brave Kerbals way beyond KSC before dropping a stage.

So here is my opus magum. A full Apollo style mission to Tylo, using nothing but serial staging, and chemical engines all the way. Kerbals are a peaceful species, so they've had no reason to invent nuclear technology. It's 100% stock. I use mechjeb but not the auto-pilot features, just for monitoring various orbital parameters and occasionally for a little help setting up maneuver nodes. This thing is WAY overbuilt. Werner Von Kerman has absolutely no faith in the kerbonauts piloting skills, so once it's in orbit pretty much every stage has at least 1000m/s spare delta-V.

Launchpad stats.

4160 tons. It has 6 main stages. 3 stages to orbit, an interplanetary stage, the lander, and an orbiter/return vehicle.

Stage 1 - 25 mainsails, + 32 LVT30 engines. Burn time approximately 2m 30 seconds.

Stage 2 - 9 mainsails. - Burn time approximately 1 minute.

Stage 3 - 9 Skipper engines - Burn time approximately 1 minute.

Stage 4 - 1 Skipper engine for interplanetary burn. Payload weight is 504t. The 4th stage has to fire it's engine for a few seconds to complete the orbit, so the remains of the third stage re-enter the atmosphere and don't create any junk.

On the Launchpad. I have no idea how they got it out of the VAB as it's taller than the doors.

Oh my.....

High, and over the ocean before the engines burn out.

First staging event.

Second staging event.

Third Staging event. Looks scary, but that's just the spent stage exploding.

That junk is sub-orbital. At this stage the apoapsis is in space, but the periapsis is only about 40km.

Here is is in orbit. They were so eager to get into space they forgot to wait for a launch window, so they sat around in orbit for a couple of months until it was time.

Arrival at Jool.

Aerobraking with the solar panels still extended. I chose particularly stupid kerbonauts.

Slowing down to orbit Tylo.

EVA 2 of the 3 Kerbals into the lander.

Seperating the return module. Gaaahhh!! I used the wrong type of decoupler! It's not supposed to stay stuck to the lander. I guess something has to go wrong in every mission!

I start the deorbit with the interplanetary stage, then decouple it so it slams into the surface.

Final approach!

Made it!!

Two Part Lander.

They had to do a 1km spacewalk to reach the return craft. I'm not that good at setting up the rendezvous.

Everybody made it back on board, so back to kerbin we go!

Performing the burn home.

Nearly there... can detatch the landing capsule.

Success!! About 1700 parts launched..... and I get 2 parts back..... the capsule and the parachute.

I hope you enjoyed my report. I was thinking about submitting this as a challenge, but I'm not sure how many other people are going to be willing to forgo the use of asparagus and nuclear engines.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Moar Boosters

[Pipcard]

Very impressive (and huge!) launcher and mission. It almost looks like a skyscraper/tall layer cake with rockets underneath.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Pipcard

[DonLorenzo]

That's a pretty amazing mission/ship! Nice report too!

[Moar Boosters]

Very impressive (and huge!) launcher and mission. It almost looks like a skyscraper/tall layer cake with rockets underneath.

In the world of KSP. The cake is not a lie. The cake gets you into space!

[DMagic]

Nice work. How stable was the whole thing on liftoff?

[-RanZ-]

holy crap! Did your computer melt on liftoff?

nice job!

[Moar Boosters]

Nice work. How stable was the whole thing on liftoff?

Not too bad once I figured out how to fly it.

It cant really do a standard 10,000m gravity turn. When it reaches that portion of it's flight the first stage is getting close to empty and starts producing insane levels of thrust. It can't take the stresses of the crazy thrust combined with turning....... so the only way to fly it like the real Saturn V and start the gravity turn pretty much straight after the launch, before its picked up enough speed for the turn to tear it apart.

[128MB]

Awesome massive rocket!

[ANWRocketMan]

This is... Uhm... this is... Just... gaaAAah! NO WORDS!

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

DAT LAUNCHER.

and, why the lack of atomic engines?

[Moar Boosters]

DAT LAUNCHER.

and, why the lack of atomic engines?

Just to add to the challenge really. Due to the fact everything in KSP is scaled down so much, landing on the Mun is lot easier than the effort it took Nasa to land on the moon. I wanted to do a mission that required a rocket as challenging to build as a real moon rocket. The soviet attempt involved strapping together as many rocket engines as they could get hold of, so that's what I did. I had more than 4 launch attempts to get it working though.