Are escape towers needed?

[Hodo]

Like bow ties, not needed but way cool!

No Fez's are cool.

[celem]

Yeah, i've started including them lately. Mainly because my launches are reaching a complexity (and volatility) that makes recovery without one tricky. Sure they dont do much for runaway rocket eating payload, but im more likely to suffer launcher breakup due to wobbly payload and subsequent harmonic oscillation. Here I found the classic abort (tie all launch engine toggles, pod decoupler and chutes to the 'abort') wasnt enough since the rocket may often be cartwheeling or otherwise tumbling. The ring of little boosters becomes key then. Even if your rocket snapped and engines cant be cut; your pod will beat it's TWR and leave it way behind.

When it comes to abort vs revert; I tend to revert instantly if the flight has shown itself to be genuinely uncontrolable. i.e. design fail, was tweaking something and forgot to replace something else leading to imbalance, Breakage on pad-drop etc.. If its random unluck, pilot error or a minor 'not instantly catastrophic' failure/flaw I play it out, recover the crew, then revert anyway.

The real test is when you discover a minor design flaw on something already orbiting, lets say a lander where you forgot the sci modules. But you already went to space-centre from the flight so it cant be reverted. All you really want is to fix the flaw and relaunch but you cant revert anymore.

Options:

A) Carefully and conscientiously deorbit, stage, pop chutes etc, land and recover Cost: time

Forget about it, just leave the flawed one orbiting forever, who cares? Cost: nada

C) You wanna choose B, but your OCD cant stand seeing the ship all the time on map/radar. Carefully and conscientiously deorbit, then head to the VAB as soon as the trajectory is suborbital and leave em to crater out of sight (and mind). Cost: your soul...you *******

Edited December 17, 2013 by celem

[CalculusWarrior]

I'm afraid I don't know a whole hell of a lot when it comes to rocket design and spacecraft. From the discussion, I can gather that an escape tower or an L.E.S.. is some sort of system that allows the pilots to survive a catastrophe, but could someone give me an example of how to do it in-game? I guess I'm not quite grasping the idea when capsules are usually outfitted with chutes to return as it is.

A Launch Escape System (LES) or escape tower is generally used to propel crew to safety in case something goes wrong during the first few minutes of a manned mission (that's when you're sitting on top of the most fuel, after all). The Mercury and Apollo programs both used them, but Gemini and the Space Shuttle didn't. Also, the Soyuz has a launch escape system, and it has the distinction of being the only craft to utilize it during an actual emergency (the crew survived despite being subjected to accelerations of >15g).

Ever wonder what that spike on top of the Saturn V was? It's a LES:

(This picture is a test capsule, designed for LES testing)

You can quite easily create an escape tower in KSP by simply popping a few Sepatrons on a structural component, or even utilize mods like Procedural Fairings to create towers like these: (made by yours truly)

[Paul Kingtiger]

Gemini had ejection seats as did the first few shuttle launches. They later removed them on the shuttle as they could only be used during a short part of launch.

I'm sure there's a good argument that a crew escape system (not ejection seats in this case) could have saved the Challenger crew.

[Comrade Jenkens]

I use escape towers al the time and would quite like a dedicated part for them. I have yet to quicksave since I arrived in 0.17 and don't plan to start now.

I do 'simulate' flights using the revert button but once I decide that it is a real mission I don't use it, making an escape tower invaluable.

I actually use the one from KSPX.

[rdfox]

Another reason to use an LES: It just looks cool as hell when you stage it like the real ones were/are staged--i.e., once you reach a point where you could safely abort without having to use the LES tower, it's jettisoned to reduce weight. (For Apollo, that was about thirty seconds into the second-stage burn.)

Not to mention that the thought of putting the escape rocket *on top* of the spacecraft (i.e., the spacecraft is where the flames would normally go!) seems like such a VERY Kerbal idea...

[WafflesToo]

Yes you can also set up an abort sequence who cut all engines and decouple pod from ship.

Unlike real world KSP rockets don't blow up like bombs, yes you have the danger of telescoping where something breaks and the upper stage passes through the pod, but this happens so fast and at so high speed an escape tower would not help you.

Pretty much been my experience. Most of the launch mishaps I've been a party to either happen slowly enough that if you keep your head you can work through them or are over so quickly the poor little guys never knew anything went wrong in the first place.

[goldenpeach]

Well, sometime I had to use an escape tower(in example, when the rocket is telescoping or if I messed up the launch ascent parameter in mechjeb) but those are rare occasions, mod of the time I just know there will be a problem at launch(i.e my radial fuels tanks dropped when physic came) and launch the rocket anyway, just to have a reason to use the tower!

[Hammer Tech]

I never used the towers myself- I have on occasion set up an abort sequence which shuts down the engines, locks the brakes, decouples the pod and fires solid retro-thrusters mounted on the body; and while this is probably over-complicated, but now I just use Vanguard EVA Parachutes.

[wolfedg]

This is exactly why I never liked the shuttle. There was no way out in an emergency. They should have kept the Saturn V. Ironically both shuttle disasters likely could have been avoided with a capsule based launch vehicle.

[sgt_flyer]

Like several previous people, if something goes wrong just at lift-off due to a critical flaw (read : not enough struts : p) i usuall instantly revert. Else, if something goes wrong inflight (booster colliding with the core stage, or the rocket starts to tumble, etc) i use my LES in those cases (at least to the point i'm sure the capsule's parachutes deploy correctly )

Plus, i spent too much time refining my escape towers to not include them

(Although, it could be nice to have a stock escape tower to reduce part count - or stronger separatrons (especially as 0.23 gives us ways to limit the thrust)

[Luckless]

One of my coworkers uses them on nearly all his landers, and they serve two cases.

1. Should things go squirrelly on him, then it is deployed as a fail safe to try and safely recover the crew.

2. If it is not used during the ascent stages, then it is calculated and used as part of the decent burns to kill velocity near the very end.

[Skorpychan]

Nope!

I hook the abort stage to the upper stage engines, as well as shutting down and jettisoning all the lower stages. Then once the crew are clear of the debris and explosions, I cut throttle and hit the landing chutes.

This usually flips the capsule upside-down as the drogue snaps open. Scares the hell out of kerbals, but kills velocity in a hurry. Then they float down to the ground shaken, but intact.

Unless the rocket explodes completely, then there's no hope. Or the lower stages detach and blast through the upper ones, unable to be shut down. Or a stray booster clips the capsule.

[Turvok]

So.. I feel a little out of the loop here. What exactly is an escape tower? how does it function? i've heard this term used a few times on the forums but i'm afraid to admit i have no idea how it's supposed to work. It's basically modular girder segments attached to the top of your capsule i think?

Pictures and an explanation would sure help.

[zynar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system

some good info

[Turvok]

thanks.. that helps a ton! lol

[Der Kosmos]

Usually the capsule's own engines are enough for a launch abort for me.

[John FX]

I like them because, lets face it, most people want to at some point recreate Apollo which had an escape tower. If you want to make classic rockets it`s an essential part.

[Sof]

Due to the way aerodynamics work in the game, you often don't need to have escape towers even in "hardcore" mode.

Simply hitting spacebar repeatedly and your capsule will fall off with all parachutes intact no matter the speed or direction of your rocket.

[JakeGrey]

I don't go in much for escape towers, but I do like my launch escape systems and seldom use Revert Flight. My preferred method is to simply attack some separatrons to the base of the capsule so they can pull double duty as emergency braking or de-orbit thrusters.

[G'th]

I use them for hardcore type career saves. That way I can save my Kerbals as I put rockets together.

After a while though, they do become pointless as you learn how to build a rocket that won't fall apart on the launch pad, very much less up in the air.

Frankly I'm surprised there isn't a mod that introduces the possibility of random equipment failure. Granted, that kind of functionality might not even be present in the game code, but even so. It'd be a nice feature and it'd certainly make escape towers have a real point even after you have solid rocket designs going.

[Aragosnat]

As long as people have debries set to higher then 150. Good chances are they will hit something while entering into orbit. Unless they crash alot on Kerbin.

[blizzy78]

As long as people have debries set to higher then 150. Good chances are they will hit something while entering into orbit. Unless they crash alot on Kerbin.

You don't seem to recognize just how big space is.

[Highlad]

With the planned feature of reputation in 0.24 I can imagine that killing a kerbal will damage your reputation. As such, the use of escape towers or equivalent escape systems will be more important so that your reputation remains high.

[nubcaker]

No need for them at all, but they look pretty! And I like to roleplay.