Challenge: Single Stage To Mun And Back

[Herra Tohtori]

KSC BRIEFING ROOM

Good morning, males and females. I am the new deputy administrator of our nation\'s space agency. This briefing is intended to orient new astronaut recruits to our facilities and practices, as well as re-orient survivors of the previous administration to our new, streamlined ideology.

This will take a bit of background, so please be seated.

...

As you know, our space program has been increasingly short of funds ever since it was founded. It doesn\'t help that we keep losing prototypes about as fast as our engineers can build them... no, Jebediah, you\'re not allowed to use SRB\'s to commute, this is the fourth time you\'ve asked this week, and I\'m going to have to deny yout request again, it\'s not going to help our budget issues if you can get faster to work when you\'re undoubtedly going to crash your rocket boosted car to the VAB. Again.

...As I was saying, the leaders of our nation have become increasingly concerned about loose spending within the program, and since there will eventually be elections again, they don\'t want the public to think that we\'re intentionally wasting money. Yes, Jebediah, when parts of rocketry come crashing down into someone\'s potatomoto patch or explodes their barnyard animals to smithereens they tend to notice it and they usually don\'t like it very much.

...Yes, Bob, I know, our rockets are not expensive. The people don\'t know that. The politicians don\'t care about real things, they care about what people think.

Now, like the sensible, far-thinking individuals the politicians are, they have decided that the space programme needs to be more cost-conscious. That means: No more dropping expensive-looking equipment away unless it is an absolute necessity. Secondly, there are no absolute necessities. Thirdly, for every piece of KSA property lost or destroyed, a materiel loss form must be filled in three copies, processed by five separate offices in four different administrative facilities in as many cities, and then carefully filed away in the bunker at an undisclosed location.

So, do not treat these new guidelines lightly, my dear kerbals. It is not only your careers, but also the future of independent space programme in our proud nation, that is on the line here.

Now that this nasty business is out of the way, let me explain the main goal of our newest program.

We will go to the moon.

...yes. We intended to go there to begin with, Bill, but let me finish-

We will go to the moon.

With one single stage.

And then we will get you back from there. Without leaving stuff behind.

By the stupefied looks on your faces, I can see you\'re thinking the same as I was when I first heard about this. How are you supposed to get to the Mun and back without staging?

Well, no one said it would be easy.

But, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As an announcement for the engineers in this room, our government has made agreements with the following public sector space and aviation corporations:

C7 Aerospace Division

TiberDyne Aerospace

KW Challenger

Many of you might already be aware that TiberDyne Aerospace has taken over the manufacture and distribution of the equipment originally designed by Silisko Industries Doughnut Research & Spacecraft Development, as well as Sunday Punch Wobbly Rockets Selection, and is marketing them under a re-hashed product brand of NovaPunch.

We should begin receiving shipments from these companies as soon as we have some designs to put together.

You are allowed to use or intermix any parts in these product catalogues, but be advised that the turbine engines provided by C-7 Aerospace Division are aviation engines, not rocket engines. They will not work outside inner atmosphere, so lugging them around will just be waste of delta-v. Use of wings for stabilizing the craft for landing after re-entry would probably be quite sensible.

Does anyone have any questions at this point?

...

Yes, we do realize that we will probably lose a lot of VERY LARGE prototypes during the course of this program. However our analysts have calculated that due to all those parts being part of a single spacecraft, their distribution around the landscape will be less random, and thus attract less attention. Worst comes to pass, we can always say it was swamp gas or a weather balloon.

...

Yes, it will probably be more expensive overall than building a sensible, staged Munrocket design. These orders come from the politicians, what did you expect?

...

Yes, I do realize that you will probably end up landing a blockhouse-sized spacecraft on the Mun, and somehow need to get it back and through atmosphere safely, too.

No one said this was going to be easy.

We have unknown amount of time to do this until the laws of physics are altered to include re-entry heat. After that point, this exercise will probably be futile.

[Goddess Bhavani]

I wondered when someone would design a monster like the Rodger Young of Starship Troopers.

The sheer size of such a thing could probably make it to the Moon and back. If it could even lift off the pad.

The problem is making it work after spending days and weeks to construct an absolutely ginormous stack with -somehow- enough thrust to mass ratio to get there and back again.

[Herra Tohtori]

Ok, let\'s set some baseline for this challenge to kick it off. (unfortunately, image posting derps the forum again).

Kerbal Cube Mark 01 test is go!

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1917/screenshot0lt.png

'Initial ascent went well. Orbit seems likely.'

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6225/screenshot1spr.png

'Cube 1, Mission Control. Stable orbit has been achieved! First step of the program has been achieved: We have a viable single-stage to orbit vehicle! Congratulations, guys, you make Kerbalkind proud!'

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8936/screenshot4gg.png

'...what\'s that, Bob? You aredetecting oscillations in the stack prongs?'

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2479/screenshot5ml.png http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2613/screenshot6da.png

'Mission Control, Cube 1. The oscillations are getting worse. Requesting mission status update, are we go for proceeding with the mission?'

'-Cube 1, Control. Stand by.'

*clunk*

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5044/screenshot7c.png http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/159/screenshot8zs.png

'Mission Control, Cube 1. Engine number 2-2 was just detached and is floating away.'

'-Cube 1, Control. Understood, abort mission. I say again, abort mission.'

'You heard the man, Jeb, let\'s punch out before this ride gets worse...'

'Bill, you do realize that they didn\'t install any parachutes on this craft, not to mention decouplers are also missing? We\'re riding this thing down...'

'Mission control, Cube 1. Mission abort acknowledged. We\'re turning this boat around. See you back at the bar...'

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/659/screenshot9yc.png http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6188/screenshot10fh.png

'The oscillations are still quite strong, Jeb. Are you sure you can even turn this thing around...'

'Don\'t worry Bob. I know what I\'m doing.'

'How are you even going to turn it around? We don\'t have any RCS system...'

'Sure we do.'

'Uh, I didn\'t see any in the design drawings.'

'Well, dear brothers of mine, we have 63 - make that 62 since one got away - gimballed thrusters at the back. We just put them on and use them to maneuver the ship!'

'...'

'...'

'What?'

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4757/screenshot12yq.png

'Mission Control, Cube 1. We have successfully performed de-orbit burn. Re-entry well in progress. Altitude, 26000, velocity 1700, slowing down fast. Could you give us a trajectory update so that we know where we might land? It\'s dark down there.'

'Cube 1, Control. We lost you on the radar and the ballistics downlink has been damaged during re-entry. Just land where you can and hope they aren\'t mortal enemies of our country...'

'Mission Control, Cube 1. Initiating retro-burn.'

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/8325/screenshot13dr.png http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2258/screenshot14u.png

'Damn! I can\'t see a thing! How come we never had visibility problems before with the same rockets?'

'Because we were not descending ass backwards through atmosphere, Jeb, that\'s why! Now concentrate on the flying for the love of Kerb...'

'Mission Control, Cube 1. Velocity killed, starting landing sequence. There\'s just a little problem - I don\'t have any way of seeing what kind of terrain we will be landing on...'

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/8797/screenshot15z.png

'TouchdooOOOOOOOWNGHHH AAARRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH-'

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/8232/screenshot16ya.png

'Cube 1, Control. Status?'

'Control, Cu...cube 1. Landed on a hillside. Ship folded and rolled downhill. We\'re alive. Going to faint now. Cube 1 out.'

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9926/screenshot20l.png

Summary of attempt 1:

Single-stage to orbit: YES

Munar insertion: NO

Munar landing: NO

Munar take-off: NO

Return to Kerbin orbit: NO

De-orbit and re-entry: YES

Soft landing: YES

Craft status: STRUCTURE DESTROYED, PARTIALLY RE-USABLE COMPONENTS

Crew status: ALIVE AND REASONABLY UNHARMED

Attempt 1 has been classified as a successful failure. Although mission parametres were not met, the crew survived and the property damage was minimal. Some parts of the spacecraft such as top structure parts, fuel tanks, and engines have been recovered with the help of <FOREIGN NATION REDACTED> and will be re-used as fit.

[Goddess Bhavani]

LOL that is the most awesome flight log I\'ve seen.

Might want to put additional bracing at the bottom to counter the oscillations. The added rigidity might make the thing more efficient during launch too.

[Herra Tohtori]

LOL that is the most awesome flight log I\'ve seen.

Might want to put additional bracing at the bottom to counter the oscillations. The added rigidity might make the thing more efficient during launch too.

Lack of struts was sort of intentional, I just wanted to establish a baseline to what sort of fuel consumption I get with those engines and fuel tanks during ascent. What surprised me was that the oscillations didn\'t begin until I was well outside the atmosphere and tried to use low thrust setting to maneuver the ship prograde.

Later evolutions of the ship have struts all over the place as well as RCS system, but I have encountered new and exciting problems with the design... namely, somehow it goes through some random rotation when left alone and disintegrates itself when left unattended... ???

[Goddess Bhavani]

Lol! Disintegrates if left alone!

I think Scotty needs to divert more power to the structural integrity fields! hehe

[foamyesque]

C7\'s engines aren\'t allowed,.but his fuselages are?

[Tim_Barrett]

C7\'s engines aren\'t allowed,.but his fuselages are?

I was about to say....

[Herra Tohtori]

C7\'s engines aren\'t allowed,.but his fuselages are?

Pretty much, yeah. You can use C7 equipment if you wish (I can think a few uses for his rather crash tolerant fuselages and wings as well as RCS thrusters) but I wanted to put a limitation to using the aero engines in atmosphere only.

That said my... design, I guess you could call it that, is acting strangely once its out of atmosphere. It starts to rotate by itself and tends to vibrate itself to pieces when I use the main thrusters. And then the pieces rip apart regardless of strutification... >

I might need to think about changing my vehicle type, it already caused a serious radioactive contamination when it disintegrated before achieving stable orbit and all the nuclear engines that version was using rained down somewhere in northern Karkraz...

[foamyesque]

I think you may be overthinking this, Herra. I have some ideas that I\'ll try out this evening.

[Iskierka]

You know, the gain in efficiency using C7\'s engines, even his newer ones, is relatively negligible. Most of the efficiency gain is with his fuel tanks.

Knowing this, I got to the mun and returned with a single stage, within 6 hours of the moon update being posted. Parts used were stock pod, C7 Mk1 fuselages, a KW challenger piece to split into five stacks, stock gimballed engines, I forget which lander legs, and slightly modified challenger RCS: I had to remove the fore-aft thrust from it, because it was firing pointlessly and wasting fuel when the main engines were more than capable.

So ... yeah. Challenge is currently broken, unless you meant for the only difficulty to be in setting down carefully, which isn\'t that hard if you have any practice.

[Herra Tohtori]

You know, the gain in efficiency using C7\'s engines, even his newer ones, is relatively negligible. Most of the efficiency gain is with his fuel tanks.

Knowing this, I got to the mun and returned with a single stage, within 6 hours of the moon update being posted. Parts used were stock pod, C7 Mk1 fuselages, a KW challenger piece to split into five stacks, stock gimballed engines, I forget which lander legs, and slightly modified challenger RCS: I had to remove the fore-aft thrust from it, because it was firing pointlessly and wasting fuel when the main engines were more than capable.

So ... yeah. Challenge is currently broken, unless you meant for the only difficulty to be in setting down carefully, which isn\'t that hard if you have any practice.

Okay, fair enough. I didn\'t expect the fuselage parts themselves to be so much better than other fuel tanks, but I guess it makes sense if they don\'t need to carry oxidizer with them. Apparently I didn\'t think it through very thoroughly.

Feel free to post your vehicles anyway. Might as well just look at different categories of vehicles that can make the trip and return safely.

My goal is to make as ridiculously big single stage spacecraft as possible, just because I find it rather kerbalicious behaviour.

[Goddess Bhavani]

For some reason I find it hilarious when you mentioned the thing just vibrating to pieces. Maybe outer space was too cold and it started shivering. Lol.

[MC3craze]

I\'ll try this later.

[gabyalufix]

Not an official entry, but here\'s something that I did a while ago that was kinda like this.

My plan was to gently drop a small mun base onto the mun, using a 100% re-usable, boosterless space plane.

Lots of wings.

The Mun base was simple. Just one of those 3m external tanks with the patio on top, and that awesome orange core module.

The plane doesn\'t have vertical landing legs, so I had to be REAAAAALLY careful making the drop. Plus, the station is full of fuel and will explode if I drop it too hard.

After that, we go home.

Technically not single-stage, since I drop the engines before landing. I did this because I was having trouble getting them to survive the landing, one or two of the bottom ones would tear off from the water whenever I tried. So I mounted 4 heavy parachutes to each and jettisoned them after I hit atmo. I figured a recovery ship could go out and pick them up separately.

I\'m way to lazy to aim for the KSP launch facility. I just aim for blue.

[foamyesque]

I was about to say....

So Timmy, you gonna try this?