On-going mission: Mun Base

[Biker Joe]

Hey all,

So I decided to build a base station and land it on the Mun... first of all I know loads of people have probably done this but its a big deal for me!

This is going to be an on-going mission, I'll post updates as frequently as I can!

In designing my Mun base I had 2 options...

1) Land a small centre section first and build it up using modules

2) Design and build a smaller but still big station complete and use a great big rocket to send it to the Mun!

I went with a kind of hybrid design, a big main station but I'm going to have docking ports n it so if I ever want to build on to it I can...

Here is a pic of what I have so far...

I'm torn whether to put docking ports on the side of the each module or at the ends?

Opinions???

[Monkeh]

I'd add both. Keep your options open. Maybe have large ones on the ends, medium ones in the middle and small ones elsewhere. More options is good. When I made a mun base my lander became a rover that became the base. Here's some pictures to illustrate my idiocy.

All that before I even knew wheels had brakes, hence the unretracted landing legs acting as brakes. Doh. Also, think I was getting around 2 fps at that point. Literally. 17 Kerbals in all in that scrsenshot, pretty sure a few more were somewhere nearby, but just getting those out took ages at 2 fps.

Anyway, good luck, you got dis.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Monkeh

[Biker Joe]

That actually looks pretty cool!

My first idea was to build totally modular, with rovers making up the living sections similar to your rovers, but matching the docking port heights was turning out to be much harder than I thought so I dropped that idea and went with the one I'm currently using!

I'm currently in the process of mounting a big ass rocket to the base of the station and a sky crane system so I can land it!

[Sig]

Here I am, struggling to get a simple lander to the Mun (don't even suggest trying to get back!)

Awesome stuff!

[Monkeh]

Here I am, struggling to get a simple lander to the Mun (don't even suggest trying to get back!)

Awesome stuff!

Have a look at my Mun return mission blog if you like, see here if you want some inspiration. It's pretty much all stock with some asparagus staging. If that phrase means nothing to you, google 'kerbal asparagus' and away you go

Good luck, you got dis!

[Biker Joe]

Here I am, struggling to get a simple lander to the Mun (don't even suggest trying to get back!)

Awesome stuff!

First time I got to the Mun was all stock parts and no MechJeb, now I use Mechjeb to land the parts just to make sure they are all close together!

Trust me don't use MechJeb, the satisfaction of landing on the Mun is immense!

[Blank]

I can't even manage to crash something into the Mun. :'(

[Biker Joe]

I'm going to have to re-design the rockets to get it into orbit! they're struggling badly and all sorts of things are going wrong!

Ideas?

[JayKay]

I'm going to have to re-design the rockets to get it into orbit! they're struggling badly and all sorts of things are going wrong!

Ideas?

My first concern is how many tonnes is your payload. If it's around 100 tonnes, even your 7 booster mega-rocket would likely have trouble with it. Adding some SRBs to give it some extra take-off thrust would probably help. It's also necessary to add quite a few struts to keep the side boosters in line until they separate. It looks like you may have too many side separators as well; you should know that only one can be used on each side booster, any other support has to be done with struts, which will release at the same time as the separator.

JK

[Monkeh]

Grab yourself the engineer redux. It has a little part you clip on your ship and you get a box with your delta v and thrust to weight shown. To get to orbit you'll be needing around 4,500 m/s and a good thrust to weight is around 1.6 - 1.8. Too much over 2 and air resistance makes it less efficient.

It's not cheating and if won't fly your ship. It's a calculator, but once you have it, building things efficiently becomes a lot easier.

It's a 'must have' in my opinion.

[Biker Joe]

Grab yourself the engineer redux. It has a little part you clip on your ship and you get a box with your delta v and thrust to weight shown. To get to orbit you'll be needing around 4,500 m/s and a good thrust to weight is around 1.6 - 1.8. Too much over 2 and air resistance makes it less efficient.

It's not cheating and if won't fly your ship. It's a calculator, but once you have it, building things efficiently becomes a lot easier.

It's a 'must have' in my opinion.

Sounds good I'll look into getting that!

Here is a pic of the station during testing at KSC

[Biker Joe]

Well after a few modification to the rocket I got it into orbit around Kerbin...

Next task is to set a course for the Mun and try and land it!

Kind of ran out of fuel doing the burn to get out of Kerbin's SOI and since then I have seen this thread:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48876-The-art-of-modular-base-building

So I am ditching my current plan and going back to the modular one!

Edited December 2, 2013 by Biker Joe

[Biker Joe]

So I re-designed my Mun Base and thanks to the thread hyperlinked in the above post came up with a few ideas,

Made up a centre section and sent it on its way!

Successfully landed it on the surface of the Mun, now waiting it's first module and the crane to put it all together!

[Mazlem]

It's a start!

[Monkeh]

There's a famous saying that goes...

"From small acorns do huge, fps destroying, awesome looking, Munbases grow..."

...or something like that.

May this little acorn end up frying your CPU with it's Mun-spanning awesomeness.

Good luck.

(Not literally of course, that would be horrible.)

[Biker Joe]

So here is my tunnel module at KSC during testing...

Next thing is to send it to the mun!

I've also come up with sort of transport rover for the modules but it's too big looks cool though!

Also I realised that I already have 3 Kerbals on the Mun in a lander waiting to be picked up, so I made this!

Unfortunately it's too big and awkward so I'm gonna have to build another, smaller, version!

[Biker Joe]

Successfully testing the docking procedure, was planning on using a underneath docking rover but that turned out to be quite hard and ended up using the crane system that I have instead.

Next step is to send a crane to the Mun followed by a few tunnel sections!

[Biker Joe]

Just a quick update...

I built a crane system this morning and it's currently on it's way to the Mun, once it's there I'm hoping to use it to collect the other base parts when they land and use it to build up base!

[Biker Joe]

So the crane made it successfully to the Mun and is no waiting to the first of the tunnel sections to arrive so it can start getting to work!

Also I landed a rover to pick up the 3 kerbals already on the mun waiting...

Unfortunately in my haste to get it to the 3 stranded Kerbals it flipped and as I forgot to quicksave I'm gonna have to do it all again!

[Biker Joe]

Things are starting to go a little pear-shaped!

I got impatient and besides trying to figure out how to send the tunnel section to the Mun I built the section its going to connect to the base a "tri-module".

Sent it up into Kerbins orbit no problems and did a burn to the Mun, everything was fine until I tried landing it on the surface, I rely too much on MechJeb I think and just got it into a nice orbit around the Mun and turned on the landing guidance, I entered a pre-determined point only 2oo metres or so from the base and all was going fine until the final landng sequence where it kind of hovers over the surface and prepares to land, the thing went ape and started flying around on its side skimming the surface! Finaly came to rest on its side...

So I figured I could either load up before I tried landing or try and fix this... I sent the crane to try and rectify the situation but its very top heavy and ended up rolling over;.;!

But besides admitting defeat I decided I'd try and right it using the rover I have to get the 3 Kerbals at the now unused base!

Am I mad?

[Mazlem]

You should be able to get that upright. Retract the legs, turn off SAS an flip it over.

[Biker Joe]

You should be able to get that upright. Retract the legs, turn off SAS an flip it over.

Thanks I'll give that a go, if not I'll use the crane, need to collect it with the crane anyway to attach it to the base...

EDIT: I righted it fine and brought over the crane and hooked it up no bother, went to atttach it to the main module, must have done something wrong cos the module disappeared and in doing so the Kerbal that was in it... RIP Milton.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Biker Joe

[Biker Joe]

Ok so I tried using the crane system on the mun and it didn't go so well... there's just not enough gravity! so I came up the an idea using powered hinges and gantries I'm gonna make a device with which I can pick up the sections and maneuver them into place!

I'll throw up a few pics after I build it and send it to the mun!

[Biker Joe]

So after building a new Mun Crane using gantries and hydraulics from the Infernal Robotics mod I tried it out by setting up a mock of my Mun Base at KSC...

Happy Days!

My ambitious rocket to send it to the Mun!

It worked! got it into a good orbit around Kerbin and did a burn to head off to the Mun!

The new Mun Crane is now safely on the Mun's surface waiting for the first pieces to arrive!

[Biker Joe]

After the successful landing of the new crane design onto the mun I sent up the first module to attach to the mun base!

And it successfully landed on the mun!

So I sent the crane to go get it and start the docking process!

(in the background you can see munbase alpha waiting for the module!)

Unfortunately as I was going to dock the first module setting it up using the crane I somehow went to some debris part which had fallen into the mun? and the module part did the same??? so I have to go do it all again tomorrow:mad: