What it takes to beat the SLS in the real solar system! (RSS mod)

[maccollo]

It's just a really big rocket...

This is rather convenient since we actually get the actual SLS sometime after 0.24, and also somewhat redunant.

but anyway I wanted a rocket that could launch my entire RSS Mars mission in one go.

Utilizing NERVAs and kethane this requires about 80 launched to LEO... Which is alot. The SLS will be able to launch roughly that.

In order to do that I needed a big rocket.

That is an understatement. This rocket weights almost 4000 tons, and it got so fat it barely looks like a rocket anymore XD

I have absolutely no idea why it doesn't fall apart the instant it spawns on the pad O_o

http://youtu.be/h-p8Xtt7-Mc

Edited February 10, 2014 by maccollo

[theend3r]

-- deleted --

Edited February 10, 2014 by theend3r

[maccollo]

That design is just horribly inefficient. My 3-4 kT launcher can get over 5 jumbos in orbit.

EDIT: Watched it again and you use FAR while I don't, that's probably the reason although I heard that it makes rockets even easier if you do it right.

That would be a mass fraction of 4-6% O_o?

How do you achieve something like that with the crappy stock components?

[theend3r]

That would be a mass fraction of 4-6% O_o?

How do you achieve something like that with the crappy stock components?

I posted before reading, my bad.

The rocket looks good though.

Edited February 10, 2014 by theend3r

[maccollo]

I posted before reading, my bad.

The rocket looks good though.

Ah, that makes sense. Earth is not very friendly to space explorers. Those aditional 6 km/s are a real ***** XD

It's not quite as sleek as it could be. The best way to pack tanks would be to pack them in a hexagonal pattern, but I opted for a slightly less optimal circular pattern, cuz it just randomly happened to not fall apart on the lanch pad when I tried that. I was afraid that if I changed it the whole thing would magically become unstable, so it stuck like a vestigial organ

You're right about it not being super efficient tho. The first stage only has a TWR of 1.6 when it takes of.

While this is good for vanilla KSP where the terminal velocity is 100 m/s at sea level, this rocket has terminal velocity of 500 m/s at sea level. If I swapped out the 24 soldids for 12 main sail boosters I might be able to square 10 more tons or so out of it. I might actually try that, but I'm afraid that the whole thing is just gonna fall apart if I change anything at all XD.

Edited February 10, 2014 by maccollo

[Camaron]

Then save multiple instances. Save this one as Big Rocket V1. Then immediately save again as V2. That way you can always go back and play with as many different variants as you want without risking losing your working versions. One of my crafts has 16 different versions. 16 different files. Some of them are failures, some aren't.