RZA XVII Luxury Munar Transport

[WUWY]

http://youtu.be/AB3docjd3as

From the makers of U GOD VII. Originally Commisioned by Wu Industries from Rock Superstar David Kerbmore of Kink Floyd for his legendary Moon Tour. Due to lack of ticket sales, the tour was cancelled and the RZA XVII is up for sale.

Some notes on flying the RZA XVII:

at exactly T+3:30, the secondary escape rockets burn out. throttle must be brought to zero before this happens, and decoupling must be done with the engines off. see video.

alternatively, the craft can be converted to ride out the burn by jettisoning just enough to rebalance with the rockets. This can be done in the vehicle assembly building by taking the 2nd and 5th radial decouplers from stage 14, and creating a new 15th stage and putting them in it. I chose not to do this for reasons of efficiency, but it looks cool and you still get plenty of power.

Assuming you havent altered it, the second stage with the 4x tri couplers will burn fine for a while, but might pull down towards the end of the fuel cycle. hitting the stage release button at this time releases the rear bottom tanks and will rebalance the ship. Do this while at zero thrust or you might lose an engine.

And finally, since the Lander stage uses only vertical symmetry, i found it was extremely difficult to design one that could stay balanced throughout the fuel cycle. As a result, you have to go very easy on the thrust at the beginning and end of the fuel cycle as the fuel inside sloshes around and changes the weight distribution. This was designed so that by the middle of the cycle, it was assumed you were in the act of landing on the moon and would need precision and lots of thrust the most. To keep the most control, have SAS on at all times, and RCS when you need it. If you\'re making non time-critical manoeuvers, its better to use less thrust with just SAS on.

That\'s it, I hope you like this ship. I just watched the movie REDLINE and was definitely going for a 'giant racecar' kind of look, and also seeing if i could really push the limits on using only vertical symmetry. If you can think of any improvements on the design I\'m all ears.

[EDIT] I just updated to .14 and the RZA XVII was having problems on the launchpad. I tweaked it and reattached the .14 compatible file for it, labeled RZA XVIIb.craft

[trbinsc]

Wow, that\'s one heck of a second post! Nice job on the rocket, I don\'t think I\'ve seen anything like it.

[Tim_Barrett]

Whoa, asymmetric stock rocket! And it flies! I think thats a first.

[RayneCloud]

You sir, are full of win. That is some epic stuff right there.

[Panichio]

Hilarious! Can\'t believe you managed to make such an asymmetrical design and still get it to the Mun and back. Well done!

[Maikie_G]

This craft has cost the lives of Elsy, Thomprim and Billy-Bobgel Kerman. I\'ve put those three on the Mun like eight times...

It looked really cool, but it lagged really hard when I launched it. I had no idea what I was doing and suddenly it exploded.

It was a very pretty and very kerbal explosion though.

[WUWY]

sorry to hear about your loss. Ive been encountering some glitches moving my old ships into .14, but i thought i had this one fixed. Its not easy to write off now that there\'s persistence.

[Maikie_G]

It\'s probably just my computer not being able to handle a stock rocket this size.

Since they\'re the first crew I lost in 0.14 I\'m going to start naming stuff after them.

[Twinky827]

I lost my lunar landing fellows in an experimental Mun rocket test, the booster overheated.... Their names were Jornand, Hudbert, and Donsy. The captain, Donsy lives on with the Donsey 2 The upgrade of the one they crashed in, The Buzz, (named after Buzz Kerman who is currently stationed in a satellite in Kerbin orbit.

[hebdomad]

I for one wish to nominate this rocket as the most Kerbal thing to ever land on the mun.

It\'s ugly as sin, its dinks more fuel than an alcoholic rocket with a death wish, throws tons of space junk into orbit and it probably slept with your girlfriend/boyfriend and or mother...

A true rock star. 8)