Spaceplane on Duna

[cheeseit]

So I'm planning my next mission and it's probably going to be setting up a small base on Duna. I currently have an awesome roving lab design that can land with just parachutes with the full lab in the middle and living quarters on both ends for a total crew capacity of about 8. The problem I'm grappling with now is how to efficiently shuttle kerbals from the orbiting space station and the mobile lab.

Should I bother designing a an aircraft like design using an LV-N to reach orbit or would it be easier to just do the typical small lander to shuttle Kerbals up and down?

I guess the main question is the qualities that make an SSTO so good on Kerbin (High ISP engines+Lift=Low Delta V) not carry over to Duna?

Edited February 24, 2014 by cheeseit

[Rhomphaia]

Without the ability to use air breathing engines there is no advantage to a space plane on the ascent.

And if you are landing with enough fuel to go back up, then you would need a lot of wing to gain any advantage on the descent through Dunas thin atmosphere.

I would stick to a lander, with maybe some parachutes to assist.

[Geschosskopf]

For details on what it takes to fly on Duna, see the Flying Duna AGAIN challenge, and how few folks have succeeded at it.

My advice is to go with a conventional lander, not a spaceplane. First off, there's on oxygen so the high-ISP jets don't work at all (and even the Kethane jet has problems). This means you're going to be flying the thing like a rocket anyway, using just thrust to get to orbit. Second, the air on Duna is so thin that getting any real lift out of it is impossible without an extremely huge wing combined with an extremely low weight. This rules out carrying much in the way of payload.

But the real difficulty in flying on Duna is landing. The average terrain elevation over about 80% of the planet is around 3000m, which in Duna's thin air equates to about 16000m on Kerbin. And all this ground is extremely hilly, except in the bottoms of a few depressions, where it's only moderately hilly. Thus, no long landing strips. This means that for about 80% of the surface, the only way to survive a horizontal landing is to have such a huge wing you can fly as slowly as 30m/s at 3000m (on Duna, 16km on Kerbin). If you land in a depression, you have both thicker air and flatter ground so can usually get by with 60m/s or a bit more. But if that's the only place you can land, your choice of base locations is very limited.

[Vanamonde]

Duna's atmo is so thin that it wouldn't provide you with much useful lift, so you can blast up through it so quickly that there's no advantage to lingering there and prolonging your exposure to drag. On landing, wings can help you pick your landing site, though landing speed is quite high and locations flat enough to be suitable can be hard to find. The bottom of the Mariner-trench-analog is quite smooth, though. On the whole, flight there is more of a technical feat than a useful method of travel, so try it if you feel like giving yourself a challenge.

[stevism]

do the typical small lander.

but have fun and make it has minimalistic as you can. probe core, 3-4 rover seats , etc.

that would be the best way to conserve fuel i think.

[m4rt14n]

Or you can always stick a bunch of drogues and normal chute to slow down then cut them before landing..

[700NitroXpress]

Do a lightweight mini lander that has capacity for at least 2 Kerbals and can be remotely operated with a probe core. This is what I use to take crew from my orbiting station at Duna to my command center.

[Capt Snuggler]

have had some success using small wings with control surfaces to help guide my landers to their landing site.

[cheeseit]

Thanks for the responses guys. I was hoping that the space plane idea would work because it would look super cool. I guess I'll figure out the small lander then

Thanks again!

[psyper]

Thanks for the responses guys. I was hoping that the space plane idea would work because it would look super cool. I guess I'll figure out the small lander then

Thanks again!

Follow your dreams! Its more efficient and easier to build a small lander but if you feel it would be awesome to do a space plane then go ahead - its not impossible to get one working judging from some of the comments. After all the most efficient and easiest way to play ksp is not to leave the space centre at all