[stock] AirBreathers to SPACE!

[Forestgreenstaff]

This is a fairly simple challenge. KSC has run out of all types of fuel except for Liquid Fuel. It is your job to get into orbit using only liquid fuel and your ingenuity.

Rules

You may only use Liquid fuel as a fuel source.

No Mods of any sort

No use of the debug menu

No Mechjeb

If anyone can do this, the amount of points you earn is equal to your orbits periapsis. Orbits around the Sun do not count. An orbit around the Mun gives you 2.5x your periapsis as points, Minnimas 4x.

You can use any method of Propulsion as long as it does not take Oxidizer, Solid Fuel, RCS, or Xeon.

Signing Out

ScoreBoard

Kasuha 104,202 Points

Edited June 11, 2014 by Forestgreenstaff

[kenbobo]

So monoprop? RCS?

[Forestgreenstaff]

You can use no RCS Fuel

[Kasuha]

Assuming we're allowed to use intake air as well (since jets won't run without it)...

It's not that long since I did it for another challenge.

It's possible to get even further by storing intake air in intakes and then running on that. But I tried to avoid that.

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[xrayfishx]

Perhaps you'd show to us how this is possible. As far as I know, air stored in intakes makes your jet engine work in space, but it doesn't actually affect the orbit. You could use a Mün gravity assist, theoretically, but that still makes Mün orbits impossible. And don't even mention Minmus.

I presume Monoprop is also not allowed, which would also make "get out and push" against the rules, leaving only decouplers. So basically it's a challenge about who can fit the most decouplers on a plane. My computer isn't that good with a high part count, not going to make an entry before I see better options.

Edit: it seems I was wrong about stored air. So air hogging is also an option (although that would be a requirement anyway).

Edit 2: I am starting to regret criticizing this challenge. Never realized how many weird solutions there are.

Edited June 10, 2014 by xrayfishx

[Northstar1989]

Perhaps you'd show to us how this is possible. As far as I know, air stored in intakes makes your jet engine work in space, but it doesn't actually affect the orbit. You could use a Mün gravity assist, theoretically, but that still makes Mün orbits impossible. And don't even mention Minmus.

I presume Monoprop is also not allowed, which would also make "get out and push" against the rules, leaving only decouplers. So basically it's a challenge about who can fit the most decouplers on a plane. My computer isn't that good with a high part count, not going to make an entry before I see better options.

Edit: it seems I was wrong about stored air. So air hogging is also an option (although that would be a requirement anyway).

Edit 2: I am starting to regret criticizing this challenge. Never realized how many weird solutions there are.

There is, literally, only one reasonable solution to the problem of getting into a stable orbit this way- and you've already seen it done with Kasuha probably better than anyone else could mange it- build a slingshot/trebuchet that transfers momentum to your Kerbal to give him additional velocity at apoapsis (circularizing his orbit, but leaving the spacecraft in an unstable orbit)

Without mods to store IntakeAir (B9 Aerospace's tanks for IntakeAir and TAC Fuel Balancer's ability to pump intake air around come to mind...) you really can't get very far with stored IntakeAir (certainly not to orbit) unless you bring up a massive number of extra intakes and stage them off like fuel tanks...

All this is assuming EVA propellent is banned, of course- otherwise with a sufficiently-high apoapsis, your Kerbal can bail out and reach stable orbit with just his jetpack, or "get out and push"...

EDIT: I just learned that the radial intakes can store a MASSIVE amount of IntakeAir for their weight. So technically, it is possible using "canned air" as well- though I'd much rather the B9 compressed air tanks were simply allowed, as it's a more realistic way to do the same thing...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited June 11, 2014 by Northstar1989

[cantab]

Yeah, plenty of ways to achieve circularisation I think:

Centrifugal force, as Kasuha demonstrated.

Munar or Minmus gravity assist, probably the only non-exploity way.

"Canned air" with the intakes.

Separator abuse.

Glitch drives. The fuel transfer drive would probably be most in spirit of the challenge: by appropriately spinning the ship and transferring fuel from end to end you can translate the ship in space.

And if you want probably the most Kerbal way: Get one ship on a suborbital trajectory, then hit it with another one to give the boost to orbit.

[Kasuha]

Yeah, plenty of ways to achieve circularisation I think:

Centrifugal force, as Kasuha demonstrated.

Munar or Minmus gravity assist, probably the only non-exploity way.

"Canned air" with the intakes.

Separator abuse.

Glitch drives. The fuel transfer drive would probably be most in spirit of the challenge: by appropriately spinning the ship and transferring fuel from end to end you can translate the ship in space.

And if you want probably the most Kerbal way: Get one ship on a suborbital trajectory, then hit it with another one to give the boost to orbit.

You forgot another very Kerbal approach: accelerating by transferring fuel between tanks.

[kenbobo]

I know how, use a plane.

[astropapi1]

This should be simple. Just get a good first stage that will get you into space (like Kashuna), a couple of those big blue decouplers on top, and finally, an OKTO2 probe core. Decouplers FTW!

I'll try it later.

[Forestgreenstaff]

I did not know that you could store air in intake. I built mine with a Kerbal Phantom Force drive, it is a pain to get the center of mass right...

[Forestgreenstaff]

Your Periapsis was 104,202 meters good!

Loved your idea

[Northstar1989]

Munar or Minmus gravity assist, probably the only non-exploity way.

Doesn't leave you with an actual stable orbit- which was part of my point (read my post carefully- it's right in there). Any orbit with an apoapsis high enough for a gravity-assist will keep getting encounters until it's either captured by the moon or flung back towards Kerbin or out into interplanetary space...

And there's nothing "exploity" about using centrifugal force like that. It CAN be done in the real world, and doesn't violate any laws of physics- though AFAIK if you actually do this in the real world it will push back on the craft imparting the momentum to the payload, causing it to enter an even lower orbit... (otherwise, I think, it would violate conservation of momentum...) It's much comparable to a mass-driver, and should have recoil, except the acceleration is along a circular path rather than linear...

Speaking of which, I guess it's also possible with the new [WIP] Portable/Deployable Mass-Driver Mod that I forgot about before... (if it's yet to the point of simulating recoil)

Separator abuse.

Glitch drives. The fuel transfer drive would probably be most in spirit of the challenge: by appropriately spinning the ship and transferring fuel from end to end you can translate the ship in space.

Well by "reasonable" I meant non-exploitative... (I would consider "Canned Air" exploitative, since technically you can store and pressurize air in real life)

And if you want probably the most Kerbal way: Get one ship on a suborbital trajectory, then hit it with another one to give the boost to orbit.

Aside from being INCREDIBLY difficult to pull off without extra-atmospheric propulsion, that depends on the elasticity of the collision. With a completely-inelastic collision, it's impossible. But with a sufficiently-elastic collision, it can be done. I think KSP models all its collisions as highly-inelastic though, so it might not actually be possible in KSP- unless the impact is hard enough to cause filled fuel tanks to explode (which shouldn't realistically happen to jet fuel in the absence of oxygen), imparting force to the "payload" that shouldn't really exist...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited June 13, 2014 by Northstar1989

[zarakon]

I could never get "canned air" to actually work. The engine would appear to turn on, would consume air, and wouldn't be in the flame-out state, but never generated any thrust

[No one]

Periapsis around Kerbin of 167,779. Used the "canned air" strategy.

I really wish there was a way to assign "Do not be used for fuel" to an action group, it was really tedious to click on all of them and prevent them from being used. I saved 39 units of air for space, and used 17 to get a periapsis of 167,779m. I could theoretically go find the other 22 and use them to raise it even higher, but eh.

Also, for some reason jet engines only worked for me at x4 warp. Well, they worked at lower speeds, but they performed much better at x4 warp.

I've never done anything with planes or jet engines before, so my first attempt was pretty funny. I thought that asparagus would be necessary. Then I kept ditching the entire layer of asparagus early without actually ditching individual asparagus pieces, then I removed the asparagus, then I just decided that since the last stage was the only thing which ever got anywhere anyway I should just make it SSTO.

A replica of the rocket on the launchpad: (I didn't know if it would work, it took me several tries, so no picture of the one which made it on the launchpad)

Pre-circularization, I thought I had a more zoomed-out picture but apparently I don't. The periapsis was at approximately 23km before I did the spaceburn with the canned air.

Post-circularization:

Mission Report:

Rocket, flying in space:

Screenshot of it with the mouse on the periapsis so that the number is showing: