Challenge: Spacebar Only Rockets (aka Noob Rockets!) (aka Advanced Engineering!)

[inigma]

Inspired by this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64413-The-Auto-Orbiter-FULLY-AUTOMATIC-ORBITER-JUST-HIT-THE-SPACEBAR!!!! I challenge anyone to build a Noob Rocket to orbit, to the Mun, or Duna. Bragging rights and a place on the leader board to the first person able to do it. SSI will even offer the intrepid engineer who pulls this off with a cameo in the next SSI film.

Rules:

1. No mods.

2. Craft must be manned.

3. No SAS or flight inputs allowed.

4. Spacebar allowed

5. Number keys allowed only for staging and one-time events. No toggling. Hit a key once, that's it.

6. Shift key allowed, but not after launch.

7. Warping allowed (comma and period keys).

8. Must share craft file.

Special Awards:

So Easy a Monkey Can Do It (Under 3 Spacebar hits)

SPAAAAACE!!! (Under 10 spacebar hits)

Jebediah Certified Craft (Under 10 spacebar and action key hits)

Points:

1000 Points Noob Certified Rocket: Using only spacebar (no other keys)

1000 points for reaching any orbit (Pe above 70km)

1000 points for reaching Kerbin orbit (Ap within Kerbin SOI, Pe above 70km)

2000 Points for reaching Munar or Minmus orbit

4000 Points for landing on the Mun or Minmus

8,000 Points for orbiting Duna

10,000 Points for landing on Duna

Leaderboard:

1. Kasuha - 2000 Points, Jebediah Certified Craft | [Craft]

2. Ketsa - 2000 Points, SPAAAAACE!!! |

3.

Edited January 3, 2014 by inigma

[Captain Sierra]

Not very descriptive. Manned? Unmanned? Landing? No landing?

Going to Duna orbit and back without any docking, just staging is a piece of cake. Landing without the ability to dock to a return stage gets a bit harder, but of course nothing is impossible. A lander that doesn't dock to a return stage actually ceases to be noob level as it gets pretty tough to take off. It's certainly doable regardless of the specifics. I'll screw around with my old Duna crew shuttle to make it return capable without a transfer stage.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Its impossible. You'd have to be pointed at duna straight on. Create a 1000 part spacecraft to you get you more than 200,000 meters per second. And then wait a really long time. And than you'll die from going to fast and smash into duna.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Not very descriptive. Manned? Unmanned? Landing? No landing?

Going to Duna orbit and back without any docking, just staging is a piece of cake. Landing without the ability to dock to a return stage gets a bit harder, but of course nothing is impossible. A lander that doesn't dock to a return stage actually ceases to be noob level as it gets pretty tough to take off. It's certainly doable regardless of the specifics. I'll screw around with my old Duna crew shuttle to make it return capable without a transfer stage.

From the chalenge he listed. You can only press the space bar. You can't move your ship or anything.

[Captain Sierra]

From the chalenge he listed. You can only press the space bar. You can't move your ship or anything.

Then the question becomes: Does the kerbal need to live?

I can do it, rather I know it's doable, but damn hard. Strap a command chair to about 100 large stack separators and stage. If you get the alignment right, you can hit Duna, literally. That said, you have a window less than a second long where the inclination and orbital position line up just right. Only takes about 30 minutes from launch to impact (if you don't phase through the planet due to frame-by-frame collision detection)

[sal_vager]

This would be very hard and require expert timing, you'd essentially have to launch at the exact moment, angle and with enough force to coast out of Kerbins SoI and intercept Duna's SoI.

Forget orbiting Duna without intersecting Duna's atmosphere, and forget landing unless you want to drag your open parachutes into orbit with you, that's if they still stay open in space.

The ship this challenge is based on is only capable of Kerbin orbit, asking to reach Duna this way is asking too much I think.

Please see the challenge guidelines and have a go yourself inigma, but I think you should redo this challenge as simply getting to orbit or at most, a free return trajectory around the Mun, and allow the opening of parachutes.

[inigma]

I updated the challenge to make it more broad, and with criteria and requirements.

[Kasuha]

Assuming "programmed number keys" means action groups and since action groups allow toggling engines, I don't see serious problems getting to Duna by controlling the rocket that way instead of WASD.

But just the spacebar ... Mun could be achievable with decent timing and very crash resistant module. Duna ... huh...

[Horn Brain]

Ok, what if you build a vehicle with six engines, two pointed in opposite directions along each axis. Put all the fuel in one big tank in the center (so CoM doesn't shift). Set up action groups 1-6 to toggle one engine each. That would give you full directional control without touching the throttle (leave it on full). You could use that to get to Duna pretty easily. If you built a cage of trusses around it to protect it, you could land safely if you added a parachute to make sure it orients flat to the surface.

Landing on the Mun might be harder. You might have to choose a landing site that would leave one side of your cubic vehicle oriented normal to the surface.

I think one thing that the challenge rules could be changed to allow would be to allow us to throttle down so we can warp. I will not attempt this until I know I can warp all the way to Duna. The rule should be: no active throttle control, but throttling down to warp (and then back up again to the same level afterwards) is allowed.

[Dispatcher]

I've made self orbiting rockets before, but the results were not dependable (i.e. the inclination, ellipse shape, apoapsis & periapsis) were random, or nearly so. It involved the use of a top-heavy payload. Eventually the mass at the top began to overwhelm SAS and it would simply stray from a straight vector up. With enough dV, you either get into orbit or into an escape trajectory.

[Chrisd857]

I'm planning to make a go at this. Regarding rule 3 "No changing of direction allowed (no flight inputs)", does this simply mean that I can't use most of my keyboard, aka no QEWASD,X,HNJKLI,T? Also, I'm assuming that joysticks shouldn't be allowed.

I think I'll make a Minmus landing with keys 1-9, spacebar, and an initial pressing of shift to throttle up.

[Sirine]

Ok, what if you build a vehicle with six engines, two pointed in opposite directions along each axis. Put all the fuel in one big tank in the center (so CoM doesn't shift). Set up action groups 1-6 to toggle one engine each. That would give you full directional control without touching the throttle (leave it on full). You could use that to get to Duna pretty easily. If you built a cage of trusses around it to protect it, you could land safely if you added a parachute to make sure it orients flat to the surface.

Landing on the Mun might be harder. You might have to choose a landing site that would leave one side of your cubic vehicle oriented normal to the surface.

I think one thing that the challenge rules could be changed to allow would be to allow us to throttle down so we can warp. I will not attempt this until I know I can warp all the way to Duna. The rule should be: no active throttle control, but throttling down to warp (and then back up again to the same level afterwards) is allowed.

That change the OP title to: aka Expert Rockets!

[MarvinKitFox]

Not even shift allowed to throttle up, according to original spec?

So, are we limited to solid boosters? or is there another viable way to throttle up at the launchpad, using **only space**?

[inigma]

Shift allowed to throttle up only prior to launch. Ill update OP.

[Eric S]

I've made self orbiting rockets before, but the results were not dependable (i.e. the inclination, ellipse shape, apoapsis & periapsis) were random, or nearly so. It involved the use of a top-heavy payload. Eventually the mass at the top began to overwhelm SAS and it would simply stray from a straight vector up. With enough dV, you either get into orbit or into an escape trajectory.

When I did this, I didn't turn on SAS to begin with. Tail fins kept it going mostly straight, and a few sepratrons (thrust tweaked to burn longer) pointed sideways triggering when the second stage went off started the gravity turn. A few stages of pairs of sepratrons let me adjust my periapsis, with the only real difficulty being the fact that once the craft left the atmosphere, it didn't continue to point prograde. Other than that last issue, orbiting without pressing anything but the spacebar is actually rather easy, but as you said, not consistent.

[Kasuha]

One lazy entry. Throttle up, then 1x space -> Jebediah Certified. Or is it So Easy? Not sure. No action keys -> "extra points" (???). Counts as orbit IMO, Pe is definitely above 70.

Craft file

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Horn Brain]

That change the OP title to: aka Expert Rockets!

Whatever. It follows all the rules laid out except for throttling down to time warp (which if it won't allow us to throttle down to time warp then no one is going to the Mun let alone Duna).

[inigma]

One lazy entry. Throttle up, then 1x space -> Jebediah Certified. Or is it So Easy? Not sure. No action keys -> "extra points" (???). Counts as orbit IMO, Pe is definitely above 70.

Craft file

http://imgur.com/a/jOjx8

That works!

1000 points for reaching orbit (Pe above 70km)

1000 Points Noob Certified Rocket: Using only spacebar (no other keys)

Total: 2000 points

Commendation: Jebediah Certified Craft

heh, you've convinced me to add another 1000 points to the rules for Kerbin orbit with Ap within Kerbin SOI.

[inigma]

Whatever. It follows all the rules laid out except for throttling down to time warp (which if it won't allow us to throttle down to time warp then no one is going to the Mun let alone Duna).

Warping allowed.

[Ketsa]

Press 5 times spacebar to solar orbit, manned by Charlie Kerman who graciously volunteered for a one way trip :

http://imgur.com/a/9k2qt/embed

Javascript is disabled. View full album

PS I was not sure if activating SAS on the launchpad was ok, I did without but maybe it could be clarified.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Ketsa
had to find how to embed that imgur album...

[inigma]

Press 5 times spacebar to solar orbit, manned by Charlie Kerman who graciously volunteered for a one way trip :

http://imgur.com/a/9k2qt/embed

http://imgur.com/a/9k2qt

PS I was not sure if activating SAS on the launchpad was ok, I did without but maybe it could be clarified.

SAS unfortunately is not allowed. Great attempt though! See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64413-The-Auto-Orbiter-FULLY-AUTOMATIC-ORBITER-JUST-HIT-THE-SPACEBAR!!!! - he did it without SAS.

[SuperWeegee4000]

Pfft. I've done this hundreds of times. Except with input and other keys.

[inigma]

clarified rules.

[Ketsa]

As I said :

"I did without but maybe it could be clarified."

look at the screens.

[inigma]

Press 5 times spacebar to solar orbit, manned by Charlie Kerman who graciously volunteered for a one way trip :

http://imgur.com/a/9k2qt/embed

http://imgur.com/a/9k2qt

PS I was not sure if activating SAS on the launchpad was ok, I did without but maybe it could be clarified.

Sorry, I missed it.

1000 points for spacebar only

1000 points for any body orbit

Total: 2000 points

Commendation: SPAAAAACE!!!

craft file?