[SHOWCASE] The Escape Tower Exchange!

[sal_vager]

Do you have an escape tower system? Course you do! You need something to decorate the top of your rockets while your Kerbals scream their way to orbit

And sometimes it even saves their lives

Here's something I like to use when the top of my craft seems a little bare, and knowing there's some serious power up there helps my Kerbals sleep at night.

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Sub-assembly (pastebin)

Though they tend to wet themselves when it's actually used though...

[Goldham]

Well thats a bit overkill. I like it. Don't have any pictures of escape towers because well I never use them.

[andrew123]

The UNSC does not condone the use of escape towers, but the prototype ODST pods as a vessel full of kerbals falls screaming towards a shield world.

The top rocket is just for the trial and error phase.

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Edited March 4, 2014 by andrew123

[kola2DONO]

Hmm, i do not usually have escape towers, mostly because i let the uneductaed and underpayed workers test rockets while the experts like jebediah always ride fully tested rockets.

[Redrobin]

Well, I use escape towers, but only in my real world rockets, sorry that I don't have dedicated pics to them:

Most of my launch escape systems are just an upside-down decoupler and a few separatrons.

And holy $@#&*, that escape tower might be a bit over powered.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Redrobin

[sgt_flyer]

well, most of my escape towers end up looking more or less like this

although, i use a trick on those : 2 of the topmost separatrons are not using symmetry. they have the same angle, but one of the two is slightly more outside than the other - this gives the escape system a slight assymetric thrust, making the command pod veer away from the rocket without any input (i also disable the command pod torque in the abort sequence, to prevent the SAS from messing with the trajectory )

Launchpad abort test with the assymetric thrust escape tower :

Edited March 2, 2014 by sgt_flyer

[Parallax]

I usually just have a decoupler and a parachute on the main command pod, and set up the emergency button to pop those off, if something goes wrong on launch.

[Elthy]

Funny that you post this thread now, i just build a Launch Escape System that i though was so cool that i build a whole SLS+Orion style spacecraft around it. I allways had problems to build good looking escape towers when i wanted to fit a dockingport under it, it allways looked like this:

But with a little clipping i got this:

The escape tower is afaik from KSPX, the small things on the top are the stronger sepatrons from KW-Rocketry. There are four of them, but i used symetry on only one pair to enable asymetric thrust on abort and tower seperation...

[Universe]

Do you have an escape tower system? Course you do! You need something to decorate the top of your rockets while your Kerbals scream their way to orbit

And sometimes it even saves their lives

Here's something I like to use when the top of my craft seems a little bare, and knowing there's some serious power up there helps my Kerbals sleep

Though they tend to wet themselves when it's actually used though...

Oh my goodness! As said above...YOU GOT ENOUGH POWER??!? Apparently, judging by those gees that you're pulling, your space agency enjoys scraping two dimensional kerbal remains out of the seats!!!!!

....and I usually settle for two to three separatrons........

[Rhomphaia]

A test fire of mine

[Ravenchant]

Do you have an escape tower system? Course you do! You need something to decorate the top of your rockets while your Kerbals scream their way to orbit

John Stapp would be proud

I use this puny thing for most designs:

[Giggleplex777]

This one's from 0.19:

Edited March 9, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[Jouni]

I don't have that much use for escape towers, because most kerbals I launch into space stay there. If I happen to need more crew than is available at my LKO stations, I usually use SSTO crew shuttles to launch them.

This is the only escape tower I have built in 0.23. The part count is pretty high, but at least there is enough thrust for most emergencies.

In this test, something goes wrong right after the launch.

The abort sequence shuts down the Mainsail, even though that's not usually necessary.

With the sepratrons forming a large fraction of the mass, drag usually turns the pod facing retrograde.

I prefer to separate the escape tower when the sepratrons still have fuel left, so that it gets far away before I open the parachutes.

Yet another safe landing.

[Mesklin]

[Majorjim!]

Hi fellow escapees!

Some great launch escape systems here. Some people seem to think them pointless but personally I love making these.

Heres my two stage soyuz escape tower.

MJ

[Kurotenshi]

I usually build my LES tower similar to this, to give my rockets that extra bit of pointiness.

The bottom 8 are the actual functional seperatrons, the top 4 are used to jettison the tower during the gravity turn or after a successful escape. Everything is bound to action groups

[The14th]

With all this buzz regarding K-Drives, I thought I might have a go at creating my own prototype craft. To that end, I decided that if I was going to start playing with unholy forces, I was going to need to include some safety features for my test pilot.

I wanted to combine the features of an escape tower with sgt_flyer's escape ring design - so that I'd have options for aborting both on assent, and much later on during the mission. I've also just recently installed Procedural Fairings.

This is what I've come up with. I admit that I may have over-engineered this!

Escape System Test Bed

I started with a capsule and Orbital Escape Ring pretty much as described by sgt_flyer in the Open Source Construction Techniques topic.

Then I attached the open node of an upside-down Interstage Adapter from the Procedural Fairings mod to the outer stack decoupler.

I divided the separator rockets into two even groups, marked as © and (D) on the diagram.

I set the the action groups as follows:

To the ABORT group, I assigned:

• (A) - The inner stack decoupler - i.e. The TR-2V and not the TR-18A
  
• © - The first group of separator rockets.
  
• Also start up the pair of LV-1R engines that make up part of the standard Orbital Escape Ring.
  

The next action group I call the RELEASE group (which I assigned to the 0 key)

• ( - Jettison the four fairings connected to the Interstage Adapter.
  
• (D) - The second group of separator rockets.
  
• © - Include the first group of separator rockets (might as well include them if they haven't already been fired off)
  

Finally I set up LANDING group which just jettisons the usually spent Orbital Escape Ring, and deploys the parachute.

SCENARIO ONE: Abort during assent.

Activating the ABORT group detaches the upper section and fires the first group of separator rockets.

Then, when clear activating the RELEASE group jettisons the escape tower fairings

and fires the second group of separators to distance the debris from the capsule.

I'm then free the jettison the un-used orbital escape ring and deploy the parachute at my leisure.

SCENARIO TWO: Assent normal.

The RELEASE group by itself is used to jettison the tower without detaching the capsule.

All separator rockets fire (as none were used) providing more force in situations where the craft might be rapidly accelerating.

SCENARIO THREE: Orbital Abort Required.

With the escape tower gone, the ABORT group now activates the Orbital Escape Ring as normal.

Of course, all that will be for naught if the drive tears a gateway to a universe of chaos and hell... Still it's the best I can do on a budget.