Mun Bases/Colonies

[A1catraz]

I'm trying to land a permeant settlement on the Mun, but I cant seem to make a design that works. My first design was like a four legged tube. On the rocket it would be upright(the legs/landing struts facing horizontal), but on the Mun it would be the way it's supposed to be, standing up(the struts facing vertical, standing). The problem is I can't figure out how to get it from the vertical position, to standing on the surface of the Mun.

Picture link, the ship on the right-

Mun

Edited October 29, 2013 by A1catraz

[Raptor9]

A1catraz,

I've done two techniques to solve this problem: Jettisonable descent pods or skycranes.

The first one, which I don't recommend, is to mount on the top and bottom of the module an engine/rcs control pods. I say top and bottom to reference the vertical stack at launch. When you begin your descent to the Mun surface, with the module horizontal, the engine/rcs "pods" will be on each end. After touching down, I pushed one of the grouped action buttons to jettison the descent pods. It's simpler to design and execute, but it leaves debris scattered all around your projected colony site.

The configuration of the descent pods will be up to you, but mine included small rocket/mono tanks, rockets, RCS thrusters, and used the small solid rocket boosters to separate during jettison. If your module doesn't have a control pod/probe core, you'll need to mount one of those to at least one of the descent pods as well. One more tip: I mounted the descent pods to each module end with docking modules instead of decouplers for two reasons. Due to the low gravity of moons, I wasn't sure what kind of decoupler force effects would have on my module...the last thing I wanted to do was tip it on it's side after placing it on the surface. The other reason is that you now have two docking ports on each side of the module to assemble follow-on modules.

The second, and seemingly most popular technique, that I recommand using is the "skycrane" concept. If you search the spacecraft exchange section for skycranes you'll find an endless supply of examples. Basically a lander designed to carry a payload below it, hover over the surface, drop it, and then ascend back into orbit (or land nearby, or crash, whatever). The good thing about this approach is that (if you design the skycrane properly) you can accurately place the module next to others, and then ascend and grab others to bring down. It can be tricky in the fact that you will need to be fairly proficient at rendezvous and docking, and hovering over a zero-atmosphere body (unless you use MechJeb). One more thing to remember: whatever you use as the connection point (ie docking ports are what most people use), it needs to be placed over the center of gravity of your payload. Otherwise the payload will be dragging one side of your skycrane down the entire descent, using all your RCS fuel just to maintain attitude.

In a little while, I'll post some pictures of each that I built as a concept. My KSP computer isn't what I'm using to type this, so I'll have to get the screenshots from that. But hopefully this can get your gears turning about how you want to approach this problem. Great thing about KSP, people come up with all kinds of ways to solve problems.

[Taki117]

The method I used was to attach small engines to each end of my lander and attached a detachable probe core to the part I wanted facing up. When the time came I wouls switch to the probe core and land it that way.

[zxczxczbfg]

Second, simpler method: Simply turn the colony over manually when you approach the Mun. Some kind of perpendicularly-mounted engine might help.

[Guest links123]

The method of attaching small engines to each end of my lander and attached a detachable probe core to the part is safer.

[A1catraz]

Raptor9,

Thanks, I don't plan on docking anything once the colony has touched down, but thanks for that.

[A1catraz]

Quick noobish question, how do I switch the thread to Ansrewed?

[700NitroXpress]

Here's my base that I put on Duna, although it can land anywhere, moon or planet. On the bottom I used a large fuel tank with radial landing engines. The smaller legs sat really nicely on the ground and nothing broke. So if you make a base with landing engines, make sure it can leave the ground or at least hover on Kerban before you take it anywhere else. If you're trying to make a tube base like the one in the picture, then you build the entire base vertically and then flip it horizontally when you put the legs on. Alternatively you can build your base in the space plane hangar and then save it as a sub-assembly and import it into the VAB.

[Superfluous J]

Edit your first post and up near where you can change the title, you can change the tag.

[Dogface]

I am confused, because you seem to have a picture of the ship in the deployed position, so you've done it once.

I landed my base vertically, with a lander stage underneath. After touchdown, I raised legs one at a time until the base tipped over. The Mun's gravity is so low that you rarely get damage. This came as a surprise to me, as I did all my testing in Kerbin gravity. Doh.

[Guest links123]

I landed my base vertically, with a lander stage underneath.