The Little Sipper

[sal_vager]

Kigwig barreled down the stairs to the factory floor, confused, and called to his workers.

'Why aren\'t you guys making that rocket I asked for?'

'Sorry boss' said Kodger, the old and in fact the only engineer 'Me an Kanley are doing the best we can, but all we have are nine tanks and those old wings we salvaged'

'And pipes boss, we always got pipes! what with mainly being a pipe factory!'

Kigwig glared at them both 'We need a rocket, Ker-flow-full sewerage and pipeworks needs a rocket to stay competitive in todays market, I need a rocket or I\'ll never hear the end of it from the wife, all she\'s been talking about is how Flooyd has a rocket and we don\'t'

Kodger, always calm, sighed 'Well, me and the boy have an idea but we need another engine, and it wont be as big as the Flooyd boys rocket'

'And its got pipes boss! though not as many as I\'d like'

'Alright I\'ll get you an engine, then we\'ll have a rocket?'

'Yeah we\'ll have a rocket boss' said Kodger

'Good, we\'ll show them Ker-flow-full is a player, oh yes!'

As Kigwig climbed the stairs to the office, Kanley turned to the older Kerbin 'Why din\'t you ask for a computer? we needs one of them, and more tanks'

'No boy, we don\'t need no computers for this one, we got everything we need'

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The Little Sipper

An all-stock nine (9) tank Munar landing and return vehicle.

I stripped everything I could off this ship.

I even pulled out the ASAS, you\'re going to have to learn to fly stick with this one.

Thanks to Gruntzilla for inspiring me to make a smaller rocket, even though I had a rough landing, the ship is still capable of landing on the Mun and getting home again.

Also having no ASAS to rely on will help you fly better, or kill you

Edit:

You need some fuel left to slow your final descent, the chute will only get you to about 22mps, get to below 10mps and it\'ll even land on the hard stuff

Now Updated for full 0.14 compatibility.

Here is the new Imgur gallery while I get descriptions sorted : http://imgur.com/a/tUSjn#0

The Little Sipper, just prior to touching the bare wire to the starter battery

There\'s nothing quite like a rattling spaceship to get the blood flowing

Pitchover was achieved by leaning against the wall of the capsule

Bill and Bob worked on the bolts while Jeb held her steady

I can hear hissing, can you hear hissing?

Pulling the string labeled 'throttle'

Bill and Bob are wishing they had stayed in bed

Relax guys we\'re here

Mun De-orbit burn, less fuel now, but less chance of a fire eh?

Looks smooth and flat, even Bill looks relieved

Down and safe, the wings held up, not bad for a few nails and glue

Something big hit here long ago

Lifting off for the flight home, the rattling seems to be getting worse

About to pull the throttle string hard again

Beautiful

Messed up the return again, Apoapsis was something like 18 Mil this time

Back at Kerbin, now I just need to land this tub

Trying to use the tiny wings to avoid the mountains

Whaddya mean you can\'t swim Bob? Ok I\'ll try to get nearer land

The Sipper is too heavy to land with just the chute so I\'m using the engine as well

Splashdown near the coast, another successful flight

[sal_vager]

Lost a screenshot again for some reason.

[Newt0570]

no ASAS? That small?... Can it even orbit?

*sees it land on mun*

-.-

I\'m trying this out for myself, I\'m in a 100km orbit with, I have to say, not enough fuel to get to the mun and back.

EDIT: (I\'m trying to anyway)

EDIT2: Check out that last screenshot. I was heading straight back into kerbin, when the parachute deployed, it was enough to rip off the rest of the rocket, but not my parachute! Smooth landing here we come!

[sal_vager]

Good luck, I won\'t say it\'s easy because it\'s not, I should try to do the trip and land properly but my nerves are already shot.

[Newt0570]

Good luck, I won\'t say it\'s easy because it\'s not, I should try to do the trip and land properly but my nerves are already shot.

I edited my last post.

I only passed by the mun on this mission, but it will become a successful one!

EDIT: Splashdown!

congratz on the rocket design, BTW. It\'s very optimized!

[Gruntzilla]

That is great! I thought 10 tanks was the minimum, and I didn\'t even dream of landing on the mun without ASCS. You are a true rocket master!

[sal_vager]

It took seeing your 10 tanker to realize I was making them wrong, I should have started with the smallest possible lander and worked from there.

I thought I\'d preempt any attempts to make an 8 tanker but it\'s just not got enough fuel to get home from the mun, not without some serious flying skills that are beyond me.

Soon as there are new stock parts we\'ll have a brand new challenge making smaller rockets as well, I cant\' wait

[Robo336]

*sees it land on mun*

-.-

And there is still room for boosters...

Awesome craft, nuff said.

[DrLucky]

Hey there,

Just back from giving the Little Sipper a shot at the moon myself.

My usual designs don\'t use any kind of SAS, so I\'m accustomed to hand flying it. The sipper was a dream to get to orbit, trans-lunar, and to land. I think I had about 3/4 of a tank left on the surface. Lunar ascent was easy, and I managed to hit Kerbin squarely with my liftoff burn. Tweaked the trajectory a little with my remaining fuel, and timed my arrival just about right to land in the sea off the KSC. (I figured a sea landing would be best given the weight of the re-entry stack). I deployed the parachute as high as I could to try and lose some mass with opening shock, but it sadly held together. My V was just over 22 m/s when I impacted, which unfortunately led to the demise of the crew. That was a pretty steady speed, too; I don\'t think it would have gone below 20 m/s in any case.

EDIT: Keeping a little fuel back to slow the descent at impact works wonders, and there\'s certainly plenty of fuel for that. So: 5 stars!

Any tips on the re-entry? That has to be the most risky aspect of the whole mission. I can\'t see how to make the crew survive consistently. So it either needs a second chute (and the attendant mass) or a different design altogether, or I need to make crew survival not a criterion for mission success.

I was randomly pressing F1 throughout the flight; some screenies attached:

First shot worth posting is the result of my TLI burn - I\'m getting better at getting direct hits like this. Not sure if I save any gas, but it sure is satisfying.

Here I am on the surface - the landing site was very near the terminator so the ship\'s shadow is sorta funny. Note the 3/4 tank of gas: the design has plenty of margin at this point.

I like these shots of the takeoff. From sites near the terminator my takeoff trajectory is very flat.

Here\'s the trajectory. I get this from a single takeoff burn to about 1250m/s

And here\'s the result - the impact zone is fairly northern hemisphere, but at 9,000 km range a little touch of cross-correction fixes that.

Coming in over Kerfrica. Night-time landing unavoidable unless I want to run the mission clock for half a month.

About to pull the chute. Note the KSC in the background. 3 kps and I didn\'t break anything off. Tell Kodger to unscrew a few bolts, will you?

And the pre-explosion shot. Just a bit too hot to survive.

Thanks for the interesting design!

[sal_vager]

Thanks for taking my craft for a flight DrLucky

When I tried to land, I used my engine and actually raised up a bit, making my chute vanish, I could have made a purely powered landing at this stage after the chutes 'free' deceleration but I panicked, it didn\'t help that i was in the mountains either, next time I\'ll be more careful.

I see in your last pic you were empty, the only way to land any capsule with stuff attached is to have power to slow the final descent, so try to keep some fuel in reserve

Even a single RCS tank, if not used to decelerate, will still blow, capsules are tough but when other parts start blowing up under you even Jeb gets worried.

Also I have tried multiple chutes on other craft, even larger and side mounted ones, and their effects don\'t stack very well.

So go easy on the throttle, you need the gas

Edit:

Yeah what you said too

I just had a quick go with the lander on its own, it took around half throttle to keep the speed at around 10mps, and i survived except the engine blew up, this was hitting land btw, water should be a lot more forgiving but at least it shows a hard landing is possible.

[DrLucky]

Just tried a bunch more suborbital flights to practice landings. A second chute wasn\'t enough; a third was, but obviously by then we\'re not getting that mass to the Mun and back. I tried replicating my 3 kps re-entry profile with an up-and-down, and I was able to shatter the craft by low-opening the chute at about 10km. As a bonus, the crew is now a delicious nutrient paste (28G shock) , but they survived the water impact at about 15m/s.

Finally, I tried the simple ruse of leaving 1 pixel of fuel in the tank and gunning the engine about 2 seconds before impact; to my surprise, I went up (and lost the chute) but I was able to bobble into a landing which stripped off the gear but was survivable.

So, yeah, it works! Just keep a little fuel back for the impact.

EDIT: Yeah, what you said

[DrLucky]

I see in your last pic you were empty, the only way to land any capsule with stuff attached is to have power to slow the final descent, so try to keep some fuel in reserve

I blew about 1/8 tank just over Kerfrica in a vain attempt to land closer to the KSC, so I had *oodles* of fuel. I just normally start all my designs with 'Chute Capsule Stack Decoupler' so I\'ve no experience in powered (Kerbin) landings. Obviously I\'ve done the Mun thing a bit. You know, I wonder if the chute is needed at all... perhaps a combination of shuttle-esque space-planing combined with 1/8 tank would do it!

But that\'s why I decided to start looking at the stock ships - broaden my horizons a bit. My craft mostly look like this:

Or this: (To be fair, this was an exercise in landing a massive thing on the Mun)

[sal_vager]

Not bad, you could shave a bit off the landers if you mounted the radial decoupler and wing as low as possible, you\'d only need 3 decouplers then, I usually add a strut to each of my wings just in case, radial decouplers seem to be just too bendy.

Also how are you getting on with solid boosters? I tried to get on with solids but I don\'t really see a use for them, a single tank and engine not only burns longer and hotter, it\'s lighter and cheaper than the number of solids and decouplers needed to manage them you\'d need to match it.

[DrLucky]

You know what? I only found out -- today -- that you can snap LTFs onto other LFTs. I did not know that. I was looking at your design and saying... 'how?'

Anyway, given how many ships I\'ve designed, I feel a little dumb, but soldiering on. So yeah, there are efficiencies to be had.

The SRB thing is a fudge. I find with my big designs, the initial acceleration and push through the first 3000m or so of air is a big waste, so sometimes I strap on a few SRBs to kick it in the pants. I don\'t really want them long-term, just enough to get going. They\'re all gone before the first minute, and you frankly can\'t match their thrust-to-mass ratio. Especially if you\'re just discarding them.

[sal_vager]

You can hard mount SRB\'s as well, I only found out by accident but if you mount too may together you\'ll get fireworks.

You can also hard attach LFT\'s to things like the ASAS, I\'m even using struts instead of radial decouplers because they weigh less.

I just wish stack decouplers weren\'t so heavy.