Put A Bus In Orbit Around Kerbin

[The Jedi Master]

Inspired by this thread. As they are actually seriously considering starting a Kickstarter project for it once SpaceX gives the go-ahead, I supposed that it would be nice to try it in KSP.

These are the only rules:

1.Rocket must look and work like a Falcon 9 rocket

2.Bus must look like, ya know, an actual bus

3.No debug menu or hyperedit (mechjeb is OK, though)

There are no points or leaderboards, this is just for fun. Launch away!

[Liowen]

Hmmm not sure if my Lighthouse would count as a bus, but it has bn to Mun and back with 26 Kerbal. The newer version will carry 34 to Minmus, provided I get the kinks worked out of it before Saturday.

Here is the original Lighthouse on the launch pad.

[Tw1]

I tried to fly a bus into orbit once.

This one didn't work so well.

[Bushrod]

your attempt and what kind of bus? do you want a school bus or and double decker?

[SirJodelstein]

challenge accepted. Very cool thread btw, totally recommended for an entertaining read full of geekdom.

Edit: This is fun. Sneak peak:

Yeah, and difficult. The rocket is not even remotely centered below the 35t bus, so some more engineering is required to prevent tipping over. Working on it.

Edited December 6, 2013 by SirJodelstein

[The Jedi Master]

your attempt and what kind of bus? do you want a school bus or and double decker?

Your typical school bus. The kind you see on cartoons all the time.

Doing my attempt... right now!

[Moar Boosters]

Sorry guys, I can't do this.

I'm taking the train.

It was supposed to be able to land, but I didn't do any testing and the orange VTOLs just make it do backflips.

[RadHazard]

Here's mine. I used KerbPaint to paint my rocket white and Procedural Fairings for the looks, but the whole thing is otherwise stock.

On the pad (the fairing is larger than scale, but I can't fix that without 3.75m rocket parts):

Liftoff:

Booster cores separation:

Fairing and first stage core separation:

And... Orbit!

Bill prepares to deorbit the second-stage booster:

Jeb driving the space bus:

BONUS IMAGE - Kraken attack (this was the first time I launched, the second time worked fine):

It's equipped with a LV-909 and a FL-T200 fuel tank for orbital maneuvers, along with a small RCS tank. It's almost perfectly balanced both engine-wise and RCS-wise for both translation and rotation, so if you were careful with your fuel use you could probably rendezvous it with another orbiting spacecraft, although it doesn't have a docking port. Sadly, KerbPaint doesn't support recoloring the structural panels, so I couldn't paint it school bus yellow.

Edited December 6, 2013 by RadHazard

[zorque]

I went with the school bus style.

Gets to orbit just fine. Enough fuel left for a lunar encounter (mebbe not a SAFE one, but you can get there).

Easter egg: The bus is actually a fuel tank. It has a docking port for in-orbit refuels, the rear tail pipes are thrusters, and it has vertical thrusters for a soft low-grav landing. Batteries are hidden in the engine compartment to power the wheels and lights, as well as the comms antenna and the SAS hidden behind the windshield.

-Mike

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[SirJodelstein]

Success!

Launch video: here. Thanks to the Hull camera plugin, the launch almost looks like a launch webcast :-)

[lajoswinkler]

Sorry guys, I can't do this.

I'm taking the train.

You've earned it!

[Whatshtisthis]

Your typical school bus. The kind you see on cartoons all the time.

The magic school bus?

[The Jedi Master]

The magic school bus?

That's actually the first thing I thought when I saw the original thread.

[xzxvrx]

When the that thread started I made a bus, I made the floor out of wings so it could actually fly. I even made it capable of launching Cubesats out through the back, sadly when i was trying to delete a part I accidentally pressed the "New" button without saving. Now I really want to build another...

[Runboy]

Ughh... This looks awesome,but i'm just too lazy to do dis...

[Mazlem]

Not quite a Falcon9 style but I threw a bus up up there anyhow.

[Mike the Mechanic]

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I admit, it's not a Falcon X replica, since it has to go all the way to the moon, also, it's supposed to be a "mashrutka", a Russian small bus, but anyway - enjoy ...

I don't speak Russian, but I am from eastern Europe (originally anyway), so you will have to excuse the (sometimes) stereotypical captions

Edited March 30, 2014 by Mike the Mechanic