SRB distance challenge

[Othuyeg]

The name of the game this time is to get as far from KSC using only solid rocket boosters. Points are awarded based on the ground distance travelled. There are a few rules:

You may not use any other means of propulsion. No jet engines, no liquid fuel engines, no ions and no rover wheels.

You may not exploit any glitches.

You may not go any higher than 15 000 meters.

You may use RCS, if you really want to.

All stock aerodynamics are allowed apart from infiglide as it is a glitch.

Kraken may not be utilized.

Debug cheats are not allowed.

The only mods allowed are those that give you information, such as mechjeb. Nothing may change your flight capabilities.

Decoupling and staging is perfecly allowed. Tweakables are also perfectly allowed.

You need to submit a picture of your craft before launch and the flight report on touchdown.

Extra points equivalent to 2000 meters in travel distance are added if the craft lands safely without taking structural damage. Additional 1000 meters are added if landing safely on the runway at either KSC or the island runway.

1000 meters extra are added if the flight is manned. Extra kerbals (more than one) award 500 meters, however having more than 5 kerbals will not gain any more points. (1 meter flight with over 9000 kerbals will not get you anywhere, maximum points from kerbals is therefore limited at 3000 meters if 5 kerbals are on board during the entire flight) External command seats are allowed. Only kerbals that are on board during the entire flight are counted.

Special award: Travelling a distance more than the circumference of Kerbin will get you the circumnavigator award and the first one to achieve it without glitch abuse will be crowned the king of the challenge, never to be questioned and always to be respected.

Leaderboards:

Justin Kerbice 74 155m

MarvinKitFox 43 102m

Edited April 12, 2014 by Othuyeg

[Javster]

How do you measure distance? Flag placed at the launch pad?

[pauix]

I've made an attempt, but my Kerbal did not survive the flight. Is the kerbal must survive a rule or I should try to remake the ship?

[Othuyeg]

How do you measure distance? Flag placed at the launch pad?

When you get the flight report (F3), it will give you the Ground Distance Covered

Here is a picture from another challenge. This is the results screen you need to take a screen shot (in addition to the spaceship before launch)

You need to be able to see the ground distance covered and highest altitude.

I've made an attempt, but my Kerbal did not survive the flight. Is the kerbal must survive a rule or I should try to remake the ship?

This is important science. Sacrifices must sometimes be done. As long as he was aboard the entire flights, it is okay.

[monkeyman680]

Is Ferram okay?

[Justin Kerbice]

Here are my attempts:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

as you can see in the flight log, Jeb still alive, despite the Gee force he have to deal with (we might call him now 'jelly Jeb')

[MarvinKitFox]

Version IIIb, final distance 114.379km

1 Pilot, safely landed, by capsule parachute.

Score = 114.379+1000 = 115 379

Version1:

Ground distance covered: 40.1km 1 pilot, safe landing(via eject-parachute).

Version 1 is several small SRB boosting to takeoff speed, then leisurely cruise on very throttled-down superboosters.

9*RT-10 for takeoff, 3 KD25 for sustain.

Plenty of room for improvement, may try a few better runs later

UPDATE:

My Mk III flyer step up to the plate. (Don't ask where version II went. Just..... don't ask)

Pictures added to end of current album.

Did you know, F3 reported distance, and distance-from-flag WILDLY differ?

I have a pic in there where my launch point is 82km away, but F3 only shows 53.5km???

UPDATE again:

Version IIIb.

Really, just a rerun of my previous version 3 run, this time with a bit more attention to altitude, and a LOT more attention to actually uploading the F3 screenshot.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Here's the .craft, if you want to play with it. Pure stock, although I usually run it with MechJeb for the live rate-of-climb and Atmo friction display info.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r33cxomsbt2cpo8/All-SRB%20flyer%20MkIIIa.craft

Edited April 12, 2014 by MarvinKitFox
final run for version 3

[pauix]

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?

I'm more of a rocket person, so my planes are only so-so..

Ground distance covered: 40.1km 1 pilot, safe landing(via eject-parachute).

Version 1 is several small SRB boosting to takeoff speed, then leisurely cruise on very throttled-down superboosters.

9*RT-10 for takeoff, 3 KD25 for sustain.

Plenty of room for improvement, may try a few better runs later

http://imgur.com/a/BXRzQ

Here are my attempts:

http://imgur.com/a/GismE

as you can see in the flight log, Jeb still alive, despite the Gee force he have to deal with (we might call him now 'jelly Jeb')

Darn, I can't seem to get that far without unplanned disassembly.

However, I have faith in my design. If I can get the staging to work without exploding the cockpit and add a few more boosters, I might be able to travel a lot further.

[Othuyeg]

MarvinKitFox, I had hard time judging if the safe landing was achieved as stated in the rules, since your craft itself definetly did take some heavy damage, but only after being decoupled from the command module. Since I specified that decoupling is perfectly fine, I am going to give you the points for the safe landing. (However, my initial idea was for the "safe landing" to be one where the majority of the craft lands safely.)

[pauix]

Here goes my first attempt. Since all my SRB-powered spaceplanes had the annoying habit of flipping out of control, I went for an SRB-powered car. The thing didn't go as far as the planes did, but I think I'm off to a good start!

Here's a picture of the car at the runway:

And here's a picture of the flight result. Not bad for the first iteration that managed to survive a full run:

Edited April 12, 2014 by pauix
Wrong "car at the runway" picture :/

[MarvinKitFox]

MarvinKitFox, I had hard time judging if the safe landing was achieved as stated in the rules, since your craft itself definetly did take some heavy damage, but only after being decoupled from the command module. Since I specified that decoupling is perfectly fine, I am going to give you the points for the safe landing. (However, my initial idea was for the "safe landing" to be one where the majority of the craft lands safely.)

Frankly, Dont.

Ejecting the command, and chuting down may be safe, but "safe landing"? nope.

I kept my Kerbal Pilot alive, and did the distance.. No more.

New entry complete, previous one updated.

[MarvinKitFox]

...and no rover wheels.

Special award: Travelling a distance more than the circumference of Kerbin will get you the circumnavigator award and the first one to achieve it without glitch abuse will be crowned the king of the challenge, never to be questioned and always to be respected.

No rover wheels.

Umm, my MkIII uses a cluster of rover wheels, purely for the loadbearing aspect. And they get decoupled and dropped during takeoff. Problem?

As for your special award..

AROUND THE WORLD!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR M... Ahem.. kof koff..

I mean to say. "Good gracious, that would be impressive."

Staying under 15000, means staying under 400m/s. Realistically, staying under 250m/s

It would take four and a half hours!

[Othuyeg]

As for your special award..

AROUND THE WORLD!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR M... Ahem.. kof koff..

Well... I have high hopes for the community.

I actually have an idea on how it could possibly be done, however it would be a super duper tidious way.

[Justin Kerbice]

As for your special award..

AROUND THE WORLD!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR M... Ahem.. kof koff..

I mean to say. "Good gracious, that would be impressive."

Staying under 15000, means staying under 400m/s. Realistically, staying under 250m/s

It would take four and a half hours!

I don't know how can you reach this number of 400 m/s, some people made planes going faster under 1000m altitude.

It's a challenge, there possibly one crazy people around who'll made such amazing "flying thing" or not.

My 3rd attempt:

Edited April 12, 2014 by Justin Kerbice

[MarvinKitFox]

Final entry, at least for today.

Version IIIb, final distance 114.379km

1 Pilot, safely landed, by capsule parachute.

Score = 114.379+1000 = 115 379

I don't know how can you reach this number of 400 m/s, some people made planes going faster under 1000m altitude.

It's a challenge, there possibly one crazy people around who'll made such amazing "flying thing" or not.

Remember that this challenge requires altitude below 15000, and SRB ONLY propulsion. SRB's ISP is *vile*

To maintain 400m/s at 15k, you need to overcome about 11m/s of drag. Circumnavigate at 400m/s = 9625 seconds, thus total delta-v needed = 105875 == TOO MUCH!

To maintain 250m/s at 15k, you need to overcome about 2.3m/s of drag. Circumnavigate at 250m/s = 15400 seconds, thus total delta-v needed = 35240== actually still too much, but within realm of possibility. Would need a.... 17? stage SRB-powered flyer for that.

In reality, you need to add several thousand for your initial ascent, less-than-optimum flying, etc.

For example, my own trip of 114km is 1/25th of the way around the planet. And has 6750m/s on the launchpad. At *my* efficiency (or lack thereof), i would need a total delta-v of 168750 to circumnavigate. hehehe. that would be more than 300 stages, with the first stage massing... erm... omfg! massing more than several galaxies.

[Justin Kerbice]

Remember that this challenge requires altitude below 15000, and SRB ONLY propulsion. SRB's ISP is *vile*

To maintain 400m/s at 15k, you need to overcome about 11m/s of drag. Circumnavigate at 400m/s = 9625 seconds, thus total delta-v needed = 105875 == TOO MUCH!

To maintain 250m/s at 15k, you need to overcome about 2.3m/s of drag. Circumnavigate at 250m/s = 15400 seconds, thus total delta-v needed = 35240== actually still too much, but within realm of possibility. Would need a.... 17? stage SRB-powered flyer for that.

In reality, you need to add several thousand for your initial ascent, less-than-optimum flying, etc.

For example, my own trip of 114km is 1/25th of the way around the planet. And has 6750m/s on the launchpad. At *my* efficiency (or lack thereof), i would need a total delta-v of 168750 to circumnavigate. hehehe. that would be more than 300 stages, with the first stage massing... erm... omfg! massing more than several galaxies.

This looks like to consider using FAR, right ? Cause the drag model is not very good.

Look at the 1st page of this thread, in my album, my last stage of the last thing I made fly at 910.5 m/s (speedometer sucks quite a lot for precision but as vertical speed is close to -60 m/s I guess, even at -100, the last stage move at least at 800 m/s, twice your calculated limit, but with a lot less dV for sure)