My interplanetary ship design (no clue how well it will work)

[XOIIO]

Hey all, I figured I'd share my idea for an interplanetary mission, ideally to jool to collect samples and return to kerbin. I sent a ship with landers out but ran too short of fuel to get in orbit of the moons to land drones, so I figured I should send some people, but with a lot more fuel. The white tanks feed to eachother, and you can jettison them when empty. All this fuel goes to power three LN-N rockets to speed up the burn time, I used two before and it worked pretty well, but with three I will need to find a way to lift it without connecting to those as the fairings break the engines apart.

I'm not quite sure how I will get this heavy load into orbit, I took a fairly long break from KSP and my rocket making skills seem to have vanished :/

[spaceman1999]

Multiple launches and docking would be a good place to start.

[XOIIO]

Yeah, multiple launches gets a bit old though, it may be a better route.

I tried winging it though, the first attempt at the rocket and it actually worked pretty well which was surprising, so I think I will keep trying to do it in one go. It was just vertical though, I'll have to see how it works with mechjeb.

[XOIIO]

Next attempt, very encouraging, just need some more liquid fuel, probably smaller thrusters, and the orbit will circularize nicely, this is turning out to be pretty easy actually. I guess for other missions I used way too much fiel.

You also get some cool looking pictures with the hollow core.

[XOIIO]

Hrm, close. Going to give the mainsails a bit more fuel. Ran out of fuel for the last rockets at the trajectory in the second picture.

[RSwordsman]

That launcher is starting to look a little Whackjovian. Do you insist on a single launch? Personally I like orbital assembly a whole lot better.

With that said though, I think the design of the top half is great. That ship should perform admirably over a long range. And I just might have to steal the idea of putting those small landers on opposite sides of a girder. Very clever.

[XOIIO]

That launcher is starting to look a little Whackjovian. Do you insist on a single launch? Personally I like orbital assembly a whole lot better.

With that said though, I think the design of the top half is great. That ship should perform admirably over a long range. And I just might have to steal the idea of putting those small landers on opposite sides of a girder. Very clever.

Single launch worked perfectly (I like the term whackjovian though, is that from anything specific?)

I had to use my LV-N's to circularize, the 6 external LV-45's just about petered out just as I got to the point wher I just needed a small circularization burn. Adding the half size silver tanks (half of the orange) to the mainsails turned out to be absolutely perfect! I know nothing about the delta v stats though, so maybe someone can tell be how this looks for a jool mission and return. I can always rescue them later.

If you do use the lander idea, be sure to add struts on the top and bottom connecting to the girder, otherwise it wobbles a bit during launch. I also added some from the tops of the external fuel to the science station and it's rock solid. By the time you get rid of those you should be deep in space, and won't need the extra support from them.

[RSwordsman]

I like the term whackjovian though, is that from anything specific?

Relating to the forum user here called Whackjob, who is apparently known for making the most insane monstrosities ever to defile the KSC launch pad. And he's a freaking genius.

I haven't been to Jool so can't say anything about the dV requirements, but that looks like a fair amount of fuel for 3 LV-Ns (I've used more engines and less fuel with respectable results) so I think you should be fine. Noted about the struts, so that and KJR should do a fine job of keeping it together.

Edited February 20, 2014 by RSwordsman

[XOIIO]

Well, I am going to need a lot more fuel, I got all the science I needed from POL then decided to head back, because I didn't think I would have enough fuel, I was right. I also forgot to add a communication device lol. I barely managed to get back and set my trajectory to crash into kerbin, I set my science guys in the landers and undocked them, and prayed they would survive, sadly they got further than 1km away (my fault for undocking them too soon but I had no more rcs to get them back) and now they are MIA, my first two lost (if you don't count the f5 re attempts I've made in the past lol)

I did get a lot of science though, since I moved it to the main pod, so that's good and now I know more what I need to do this properly. Unfortunately I also forgot to plant a damn flag