Moho Apollo Style

[esinohio]

In a nod to Xeldrak's great challenge(s) such as Doing it Apollo Style and Death Engineering's Duna Apollo Style , this challenge seeks to recreate an Apollo style Moho mission.

I was hoping to preserve the spirit of both challenges linked above so I will be shamelessly swiping some of the points allocations and general rules. As with the Duna challenge the idea here is to use hardware that would have been available after the close of the Apollo program to complete the challenge with maximum points. Nuclear engines were still in development and points will be weighted accordingly like in the Duna Challenge.

** Completely open to rule changes, suggestions, etc. that will breathe more fun into this challenge. **

Basic mission goals for base points of 50:

• Non-asparagus, Saturn 5 style launch vehicle: 3 stages to LKO.
  
• Single launch mission. No refueling or constructing vessel in orbit from multiple launches.
  
• A separate command module and landing module must be used.
  
• All stock parts.
  
• No debug menu help of course.
  
• Return home with at least one Kerbal left alive.
  

Additional basic mission profile points available :

• 3-kerbal mission +10
  
• 2 Kerbal Lander +10
  
• 2 stage lander with separate ascent stage (descent stage stays on Moho) +20
  
• Launch escape system (LES) escape tower +10
  
• Moho lander stored behind Command module during ascent +20
  
• Moho Lander tucked away behind some sort of fairing +5
  
• Perfect Landing with no damage to Moho Lander +10
  
• Dock Moho lander and Command Module before leaving Moho SOI +10
  
• Ascent Module de-orbited back to Moho surface +5
  
• Plant at least one flag +3 (Only a single flag counts for the 3 points, no cumlative flags for more points)
  
• Splash-down on Kerbin (Water landing) +5
  
• No Nukes!! Complete the challenge without nuclear engines +15
  
• Land within 1000 meters of a Mohole +10.
  

Points for science related goals :

Science experiments/packages must be a powered probe core with at least one science experiment on it.

Deploy a satellite in Moho Orbit +5

Science package points are not cumulative.

• Deploy 1 science package +3 At the landing site.
  
• Deploy 2 science packages +5 At the landing site.
  
• Deploy 2 science packages at least 2.5km from landing site and 2.5 km from each other. +15
  
• Deploy 4 science packages at least 2.5km from landing site and 2.5 km from each other. +20
  

Burnin' rubber on Moho!

• Bring at least one rover. +5
  
• Rover can seat at least one Kerbal. +5
  
• Additional rovers +3 each. (Limit one rover per Kerbal taken)
  

Lets go exploring! Points for distances only count for rovers with Kerbals on board and are not cumulative. Score for only one.

• Drive beyond 1km of the lander +2
  
• Drive beyond 2.5km from the lander +5
  
• Drive beyond 5km of the lander +10
  
• Drive beyond 10km of the lander +15
  

And now for the dreaded point deductions.... <queue appropriate dramatic music>

• No SRBs. -10 points for using SRBs in your ascent vehicle. **Speratrons are not included in this stipulation**
  
• Kerbal fatality -20 each. If any Kerbal is left on the surface of Moho after the ascent vehicle leaves the surface or the Command Modules leaves Moho SOI, they will die.
  

Since there are few points that can be added over and over such as the total number of rovers there is no real top score. Points are rewarded for not using nuclear engines as well as deducted for using them. I was thinking this would offset some of the min/maxing that could occur with the open ended points rewarded for a few mission goals.

This should be purely about min/maxing a score based on the mission profile. Again, I'm open to suggestions concerning rule changes/additions!

Of course we want to see these crazy contraptions and every juicy mission detail possible!!! Be sure to give us pictures of all relevant points related awards. Those among us who get a chuckle at seeing a few green splats on the surface of some far flung heavenly body wouldn't mind seeing some failures as well. So warm up those IMGUR accounts and let the point frenzy commence!

** My submission will get posted eventually, I know its possible in theory but I'm having a hell of a time getting it to work!!! **

Good luck my fellow Kerbalnauts!!!

Leaderboard

Edited April 17, 2014 by esinohio
Fixing my fat finger mistakes!

[700NitroXpress]

Typo: 2 stage lander with separate ascent stage (descent stage stays on Duna) +20 Change Duna to Moho

Challenge Accepted

So Ion engines are Ok to use?

[esinohio]

Typo corrected! Thanks! As far as Ion engines go I would think those should be fair game for use. Doing some quick Google leg work I found some references to actual Ion engines that were produced and tested prior to the Apollo mission. If that works for everyone else then I'm ok with it as well.

[regex]

No nukes, huh? Glad we have those ARM parts now, the launcher for a three-Kerbal mission would be ridiculous without. I'll put in an entry sometime this weekend, hopefully.

[Mike the Mechanic]

Since Moho is very close to Kerbol, shouldn't there be some considerations about radiation shielding? I mean - I can redo the Munar Apollo Mission I did for the initial Apollo Style Challenge, but shouldn't this challenge have some unique feature? Besides having radiation shielding, the kerbals will spend some days in transit, some habitation must be necessary too I imagine. Also, how about landing in some specific place, like close to the moholes? Throwing something in them should give some reward too. These are suggestions, because the rules up until now look a little - let's say - conventional. I will definitely participate though, I haven't been to Moho for a long time and the new parts provide some interesting options ...

Edited April 11, 2014 by Mike the Mechanic

[700NitroXpress]

So, if we do use asparagus staging, what then?

[esinohio]

Going asparagus staging for the launch vehicle will negate the core part of the challenge so let's keep that as out of bounds. I don't think either of the challenges specifically forbid it on the upper stages though. Ill check on that later when I'm home.

As for adding points for pin point landings near a Mohole sounds good to me. I guess my own love hate relationship with Moho is tempering adding much more to what I already thought was a monsterous task. Shall we say +10 points for landings within 1000 meters of a Mohole?

[Rakaydos]

Would the Stock Rebalance mod be permitted in this challange? It lowers the ISP of the arm parts, while making stuff like the Mk 55 more powerful.

[700NitroXpress]

Ok, the MX-I is ready to launch, 3 stages to LKO. Although the third stage can achieve Kerbin SOI escape velocity. The rest is ion powered and there's a lander tucked inside the fairing.

[esinohio]

I was hoping to keep this mod free. Just makes it easier for everyone involved you know? Personally I have no issues with mods but for others they can be a polarizing issue. So well just keep this as stock as possible for maximum possible community participation.

[Whirligig Girl]

Now do Eve Apollo Style.

[700NitroXpress]

Mission test 1 failed, need more fuel to slow down once I get to Moho. Should be able to get back with Ion power.

[Mike the Mechanic]

Burnin' rubber on Moho!

Bring at least one rover. +5

Rover can seat at least one Kerbal. +5

Additional rovers +3 each.

If I drop a ton of rovers with seats, I can get an infinite amount of points, right?

I hope I'm not going on your nerves with my pesky questions, I mean well

Edited April 12, 2014 by Mike the Mechanic

[cantab]

I think scoring in Duna Apollo style had a cap on rover count. That should be instated, or an alternative might be to score for only as many rovers as you land Kerbals.

Also, we have effectively 45 points lost for using nukes, since they're listed twice, that should be fixed.

And some other scoring suggestions:

Penalty for each stage dropped, not counting the lander or science probes, after leaving Kerbin's SOI. To discourage use of a multi-stage CSM, and missions that keep the launcher's third stage to help with Moho orbit insertion, since that's not how Apollo did it.

Bonus for hitting Moho with the third stage, like the later Apollo missions did, but only if it was dropped before leaving Kerbin's SOI.

Bonus for making a direct transfer to Moho, as opposed to a longer route that uses eg an Eve gravity assist.

Bonus for landing somewhere with an amenable temperature (if surface temperature varies between day and night) or near the terminator where the temperature would be amenable (if the temperature in-game doesn't reflect the day/night cycle).

[Moar Boosters]

I think this rocket is going to be big enough.

[esinohio]

Sorry for long delay.

If someone could take this over, would be great or it can just get tabled for now. Was in accident and in hospital. Typing is out. Two broken hands/arms. This phone is my only means of speech to text right now and just getting one coherent message out I is near impossible.

Watch out on those roads! Darn POS drunk driver.....

[Moar Boosters]

Sorry to hear about your accident, I hope you recover quickly.

I'm going to carry on with the challenge because I spend most of last night building that giant rocket. I expect I'll be able to get a moderator to edit people's scores into the OP if people start submitting.

[esinohio]

Thanks so much more. Torcher is having your clicker finger out of action. Thank god at least for thus phone. This.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Watch out on those roads! Darn POS drunk driver.....

Damn, sorry to hear that! hope you have a speedy recovery...

And this is why I think we need to spread out into space - we can most of the idiots behind! ^.^ (the drunk drivers and so on...)

[Moar Boosters]

I redesigned my rocket. When I woke up today I decided it wasn't big enough.

It comes equipped with a 2 stage lander, 2 rovers (because that's the only way I know to balance them), and 4 science packages with ant engines which will hopefully be able to fly 2.5km.

It's also got a hitchiker container and a processing lab in the command module. I'm not doing any actual science, but I figured if NASA were to go interplanetary, they're not going to have all 3 guys in a tiny capsule for the whole journey.

The first stage has 50 engines, or 112 if you count the clusters as multiple engines. 18 KS 25x4's - 2 on each stack attached with cubic struts. The strap-on boosters stay attached, and they're powered with 8 x LFB KR-1x2, and 24 rockomax 55's. They're fine tuned so the side boosters and main stack cut out at almost the same time, and then everything is discarded together.

The second stage has 9 KR-2L's engines.

The third stage has 1 KR-2L and 8 mainsails, and should be enough to complete the orbit, and do a large portion of the transfer to Moho.

The 4th stage has a single KR-2L, and over 5000m/s dv, for completing the transfer burn and then slowing down once we're in Moho's SOI. The spacecraft doesn't re-arrange itself like the apollo missions did, but this extra stage was included in the Soviet N1 rocket, so it's still very much within the design capabilities of the apollo era.

It says it's got a crew capacity of 11 but it's a classic 3 man, 2 man lander mission. It's just counting all the seats in the hitchhiker container and the rovers. If it's successful all we're going to get back is a 3 man capsule and some parachutes.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Moar Boosters

[Moar Boosters]

I've made some progress.

The first staging event is "interesting". The new giant decoupler makes the entire stage explode into about a million pieces, but by some miracle the rest of the rocket survives.

Many of the parts flew above the rocket, so they were incredibly lucky for them to escape this staging event unscathed. Originally this was going to be a test run just going to the mun, but this made me change my mind.... It's Moho or Bust for these 3 lucky Kerbals.

The second stage came away intact.

Starting the transfer burn to Moho.

The third stage seperated without issue.

The KR-2L engine had a weird effect when in space.

Transfer burn complete...... there's no turning back now!

[cantab]

Really looking the part. Can't wait to see it down on Moho.

[Moar Boosters]

Approaching Moho now. I've gotten a much better encounter than previous missions. "Only" 3300m/s to go straight into a polar orbit, and easily enough thrust to complete the burn due to the lack of Nerva engines.

I just hope the upper stages all actually work. I haven't done anywhere near enough testing on this rocket, I don't even know if the fairings are going to decouple cleanly.

[Moar Boosters]

The mission was a complete success! I will add up my score tomorrow.

Moho looks pretty intimidating up close.

The fairings came away perfectly. They're going to stay as spacejunk orbiting moho.

The LES doubles up as a satellite.

Satellite in low polar orbit, looking at the northern mohole. That's the landing site. Well...... just next to it.

The full ship.

Kerbals EVAing into the lander.

Separating the command module.

The stage is deorbited so crashes into the surface, and helps the lander on it's descent as well.

Here is the lander. 4 science packages on the top, and 2 rovers underneath. The descent stage is powered with a poodle, the ascent stage has a single lv909, and the probes are powered with ant engines.

I landed with a suicide burn.

The first landing spot was a bit too steep to release the rovers.

So I moved to the bottom of the hill.

Releasing the rovers.

The mission flag!

The rovers were rubbish, so I threw one of them into the mohole for science.

All the science probes were deployed without problems. Three of them went quite far, around 15km each and landed safely.

The 4th went around 4km straight down.

It's time to leave, here is the ascent stage taking off. The 1 remaining rover can stay there for historical purposes.

Goodbye mohole!

Rendezvous with the command module.

Ascent stage docked, transferring the kerbals to the command module.

They got a nice dramatic view of the Sun as they left.

Home sweet home!

We don't need these bits anymore.

Somebody forgot to take screenshots during re-entry. They also miscalculated the water landing pretty badly! I'm going to blame the 3 kerbals.

They traveled about 10 billion miles to find this magical floating tree!

Edited April 14, 2014 by Moar Boosters

[regex]

To think that all that came back of that enormous craft was a single pod... Nice work!

My Kerbals are currently on Moho waiting to ignite the lander return stage. I've decided to try my hand at videos so it'll probably take me a bit to get my entry completed what with editing and all.