Land on Duna without using oxidizer

[Spacepetscompany]

First Thing's First: This challenge may or not be as difficult as I intended it to be so please post feedback upon submitting an entry (Was it difficult? Did you feel you could do more with your vehicle than just the requirements? Etc.)

The Challenge:

-Take off from Kerbin

-Transfer to Duna

-Land on Duna

-All without using or carrying oxidizer of any kind (That means no oxidizer on board at any time throughout the trip)

-Please provide screenshots of your vehicle in the editor with cost clearly shown, on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, and landed on Duna

The Rules:

-Stock only

-Can be manned or unmanned

-Parachutes are allowed

-Solar Panels and RTGs are allowed

-May launch from either Spaceplane Hanger, or VAB

-May be in either Career Mode or Sandbox Mode (Your choice)

-May only use: Liquid Fuel, Solid Fuel, Intake Air, Monopropellant, EVA Fuel, Xenon Gas, and Electric Charge

-Have Fun

Bonuses:

-No Xenon Gas (-5,000)

-No Liquid Fuel (-1,000)

-No Solid Fuel (-10,000)

-Enter a stable orbit around Duna before landing there (-10,000) (Provide Proof)

-Return from Duna after landing (Divide cost by 4) (Provide Proof)

-No parachutes (-7,500)

Grading:

-Your rank will be determined based on the cost of your vehicle, the cheaper the better

-All final scores will be rounded up if they fall on a decimal

-Negative scores are possible

Leaderboards:

#1.gm537 (-29,413) (Return from Duna, No Xenon, No Solid Fuel, Stable orbit around Duna, No parachutes)

#2.Mesklin(-22,405) (Return from Duna, No Solid Fuel, Stable orbit around Duna, No parachutes)

#3.Zipmafia (-9,068) (No Liquid Fuel, No Xenon Fuel, No Solid Fuel, Stable orbit around Duna, No parachutes)

#4.No one (2,707) (No Liquid Fuel, Stable orbit around Duna)

#5.Epthelyn (12,058) (No Liquid Fuel)

#6.Von Ziegendorf (14,632) (No Liquid Fuel, No Xenon Gas)

#7.

#8.

#9.

#10.

Good Luck!

Edited September 28, 2014 by Spacepetscompany
Added gm537 to leaderboards

[Overfloater]

Mine's a plane, landed completely un-powered:

[redacted :-p]

And here's an earlier attempt from 8 months ago:

[redacted :-p]

Edited September 28, 2014 by Overfloater
Sorry, didn't read the rules properly.

[Spacepetscompany]

Uhhhhhhhh... I'm sorry to say, but you used oxidizer, and did not provide the cost of the vehicle, which means I can't score you...... Nice plane though!

Edited September 27, 2014 by Spacepetscompany

[Overfloater]

Ahhhh my bad. I just checked, the price is 140147,

And I didn't realize you meant not use oxidizer for the entire mission, I just thought you meant only for the landing.

[Spacepetscompany]

It's alright! But next time, please read the rules carefully before submitting something! Actually, I'll try and make it more clear in the rules.

[von Ziegendorf]

Not sure if "orbit Kerbin" is there because the challenge requires establishing stable orbit or only because it was considered a natural step. If the latter here is my entry, took me 30 minutes. It's not even optimized for low cost - 20632.

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[Monthar]

We only have to get to and land on Duna, not return and land back at Kerbin as well?

[Spacepetscompany]

Not sure if "orbit Kerbin" is there because the challenge requires establishing stable orbit or only because it was considered a natural step. If the latter here is my entry, took me 30 minutes. It's not even optimized for low cost - 20632.

Huh, I guess I assumed incorrectly that it would be way easier to establish a stable orbit around Kerbin before, attempting the injection. I'll make the change to the rules, and take in your submission! Congratulations and well done!

We only have to get to and land on Duna, not return and land back at Kerbin as well?

Yea, I thought it might be a bit too hard to have to come back too, considering the already present restrictions. Do you think it's too easy? I could always (subtract) add bonus points for returning as well, but I don't think it's necessary. Anyone else have an opinion on this?

Edited September 27, 2014 by Spacepetscompany

[Epthelyn]

It's not the most difficult challenge ever posted here, but why should it be? It's nice to have something slightly easier show up every so often. You could extend the rules or give bonuses for not using things like ion engines though; currently the challenge is pretty much "SRB to Orbit -> Ion to Duna -> Parachute to land" as cheaply as possible. A spaceplane would be a viable alternative, but the low cost for them usually comes from being able to re-use them rather than being a single-mission vehicle.

Basically it could be improved, but it's alright as-is.

Anyway, my entry - 13058 funds:

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1 SRB, 4 1x6 solar panels, 1 xenon tank, 1 ion engine, probe core and a parachute (connected to the top with a cubic octagonal strut*).

*It's cheaper to use the Stayputnik core and a cubic strut (316) than it is to use a flat-topped core (466+)

EDIT:

Craft file: http://pastebin.com/7uiTYXM2

Yes, I spelt oxidiser wrong (as oxider) when saving it

Edited September 27, 2014 by Epthelyn

[Spacepetscompany]

Alright, I'll try and add some bonuses, and thank you for your submission and feedback!

[GusTurbo]

Ion engines didn't even occur to me when I first read this challenge. I was thinking of a spaceplane that makes orbit and transfers to Duna on liquid fuel and monopropellant.

[Monthar]

I was just making sure, because I've never even been to Duna, so I have no idea how much Dv I'd need to get home.

[No one]

2707: (13707-10k for orbiting duna - 1k for no liquid fuel)

VAB:

Kerbin Orbit:

Duna Orbit:

Duna Landing:

What ended up on Duna, one unpowered probe with no working solar panels:

I could probably get lower if I lithobreaked rather than parachuting. But meh.

[Spacepetscompany]

Alright, nice job, I'll add you to the leaderboard!

[Epthelyn]

I'll have to repeat my flight and get into Duna orbit later today. Pretty sure I could achieve that even without aerobraking (once the booster is dropped it has 5324 dV, ~1500 of which has to be used to circularize).

That's if I have the patience to sit through another ion 'burn', anyway

[goduranus]

How is this not a monoprop challenge? Unlike the other fuel combos, there's no penalty for using monoprop at all

[moogoob]

How is this not a monoprop challenge? Unlike the other fuel combos, there's no penalty for using monoprop at all

I thought of that too but those little monopropellant engines have horrid delta-v. I'm still trying to find a use for either them or massed thruster blocks that doesn't involve using infinite fuel to lift a tiny probe core at relativistic speeds.

Great idea for a challenge, by the way! I'll give it a go and see if I achieve anything remotely successful.

[r_rolo1]

Hum, TBH this is more a SRB challenge than anything else. If you think about it, the cheapness of the SRB compared with the alternatives probably makes up easily for the hefty SRB penalty the OP put in ...

BTW a suggestion to the OP: making a Duna and back mission is, due to the way rockets work, far more than twice the difficulty of a Duna impactor. Only giving a ( not even ) 2x bonus is probaly skewing things towards impactors a lot

[Spacepetscompany]

Hum, TBH this is more a SRB challenge than anything else. If you think about it, the cheapness of the SRB compared with the alternatives probably makes up easily for the hefty SRB penalty the OP put in ...

BTW a suggestion to the OP: making a Duna and back mission is, due to the way rockets work, far more than twice the difficulty of a Duna impactor. Only giving a ( not even ) 2x bonus is probaly skewing things towards impactors a lot

Huh..... I guess I could try and do some math to find a good number to divide by... Though considering the challenge, I think I may just remove that bonus as a whole!

EDIT: I changed the bonus multiplier to 4, as my calculations suggest, it would cost roughly anywhere from 3 to 3.5 times the amount you need to just land on Duna, to get back to Kerbin. Rough estimate, but in my opinion it's still not worth it. May just remove that bonus entirely if no one feels it necessary!

Edited September 28, 2014 by Spacepetscompany

[Monthar]

Shouldn't a manned mission either have a bonus or at least a separate leader board? After all the command pods cost more than unmanned and need a lot more delta-v, thus much higher cost in engines and fuels.

[No one]

Shouldn't a manned mission either have a bonus or at least a separate leader board? After all the command pods cost more than unmanned and need a lot more delta-v, thus much higher cost in engines and fuels.

The same delta-v is needed, they're just much heavier.

But at the moment there's just no point in having a manned mission, unless you intend to get out and push.

[Mesklin]

There is my entry, to Dune and back: Turbojet + ion drive, no parachutes, wings used. Cost is 20380.4 and score, as I understood, 20380/4 - 10000 (no solid fuel) - 10000 (establish orbit around Dune) - 7500 (no parachutes) = -22405

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[Monthar]

The same delta-v is needed, they're just much heavier.

But at the moment there's just no point in having a manned mission, unless you intend to get out and push.

What I meant is more mass means burning more fuel to achieve the same delta-v. Of course more fuel means more mass to move.

[Zipmafia]

Ok, challenge accepted.

Will this do?

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I think it would be scored like this:

Cost of craft: 24,432

Bonuses: -33,500

Score: -9,068

Edit: Good job Mesklin, I love the return craft.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Zipmafia
Embedded Album

[Spacepetscompany]

Alright! Both Mesklin and Zipmafia are now on the leaderboard!

Edited September 28, 2014 by Spacepetscompany