Spaceplane to sun? Or another shuttle?

[627]

Hi,

so I tried to put a space station near the sun, almost made it with 1mio PE and 3mio AP when I ran out of fuel.

So now I have two problems, first I need to get some fuel down there to circularize just below 1mio km.

And after that I need a shuttle transport system that can bring 4-8 kerbals and return to kerbin in one trip. And that gives me a headache. Getting fuel to the sun seems to be a question of moar boosters with a one way trip, but returning will need some toughts on efficiency.

Have to say, I never used mechjeb or any delta-V calc apps. Got to every body in the system and planted flags everywhere and the sun station was the last thing to do before .25 hits.

So.... any ideas?

[Wanderfound]

Hi,

so I tried to put a space station near the sun, almost made it with 1mio PE and 3mio AP when I ran out of fuel.

So now I have two problems, first I need to get some fuel down there to circularize just below 1mio km.

And after that I need a shuttle transport system that can bring 4-8 kerbals and return to kerbin in one trip. And that gives me a headache. Getting fuel to the sun seems to be a question of moar boosters with a one way trip, but returning will need some toughts on efficiency.

Have to say, I never used mechjeb or any delta-V calc apps. Got to every body in the system and planted flags everywhere and the sun station was the last thing to do before .25 hits.

So.... any ideas?

Stock aero or FAR?

A nuke-driven passenger spaceplane capable of reaching Kerbol shouldn't be too hard. If you want, I'll design you one for FAR.

Getting fuel there is just a matter of a few big tanks, a nuke and a lot of patience.

[Hannu]

You need about 30000 m/s dv to roundtrip. Theoretical limit of mass ratio is 8, which gives dv of 16300 m/s if you use LV-N engines. So, you can not do it without stagings and huge ships.

[Tex_NL]

To get to low solar orbit you could use a gravity assist from Eve or Moho to slow you down. Getting back to kerbin with a gravity assist would be a lot harder.

You could build a mining facility on or around Gilly or Moho to refuel your low solar station. That way you won't have to carry the fuel required to get back home.

[Sirrobert]

Well you're probably going to need Mechjeb or Kerbal Engineer or something to calculate deltaV if you want to reliably make something that can make the trip.

Besides that, it's probably just a matter off nukes with alot of fuel

[QuesoExplosivo]

Just use a Kraken drive!

[Pecan]

Every mission can be broken down into three sections: launch, transfer and mission. Design backwards.

Whatever your mission is dictates your payload.

The only engine worth considering for transfering significant payloads is the LV-N, tiny ones can use ions.

Launching that can use a plane or a rocket - resusable or otherwise.

If you insist on keeping your launch-section attached to your transfer section for the duration of the mission it just becomes extra, useless, mass.

For efficient and cost-effective reusability it is best to use a SSTO (plane or rocket) to launch things. Your transfer/mission sections then decouple from that in orbit. At the destination the transfer section places the mission payload and returns, docking with the launch section for landing and recovery.

[Wanderfound]

The other thing to keep in mind is that the SSTO's cost almost nothing to fly. You could construct an epic crew transfer stage in orbit with multiple flights.

[metaphor]

You would have to use ion engines to get into that low of a solar orbit and back to Kerbin in a single stage.

[627]

I use pure stock. Launch from Orbit is enough for me, even staging is fine, as long as the ship gets down to the sun and back to kerbin.

I've thought about ions but I don't think that is practical... I mean for that trip I don't want to ride a chair all the time

So payload is one 4 crew cabin...

[Sirrobert]

I use pure stock. Launch from Orbit is enough for me, even staging is fine, as long as the ship gets down to the sun and back to kerbin.

I've thought about ions but I don't think that is practical... I mean for that trip I don't want to ride a chair all the time

So payload is one 4 crew cabin...

Well in that case, enjoy praying you have enough fuel to make the trip

[metaphor]

I use pure stock. Launch from Orbit is enough for me, even staging is fine, as long as the ship gets down to the sun and back to kerbin.

I've thought about ions but I don't think that is practical... I mean for that trip I don't want to ride a chair all the time

So payload is one 4 crew cabin...

Well, it's pretty much impossible with any other engines, even with multiple stages. It might barely be possible with nuclear engines, but you would need something like 100-1 mass ratio. If your crew cabin arriving back at Kerbin was 5 tons, the whole vehicle would have to be around 500 tons leaving LKO (with multiple stages).

[Wanderfound]

I use pure stock. Launch from Orbit is enough for me, even staging is fine, as long as the ship gets down to the sun and back to kerbin.

I've thought about ions but I don't think that is practical... I mean for that trip I don't want to ride a chair all the time

So payload is one 4 crew cabin...

Do not try to do this as an unrefuelled round trip. Send a big fuel tank there first, then follow it with a crew transport that has enough fuel for the one-way trip.

[Pecan]

I use pure stock ... So payload is one 4 crew cabin

What stock cabin seats 4?

[Wanderfound]

What stock cabin seats 4?

Hitchhiker or new SP+ crew cabin.

I'd use an SP+ one, a bunch of big tanks connected by docking ports or decouplers for droppability and a single nuke. Send a loaded replacement collection of drop tanks to Kerbol first.

Use cheap rockets to lift the tanks into orbit empty, then fuel them up with a spaceplane tanker. Give the whole thing a push up to escape velocity with a spaceplane tug before lighting the nuke. You could probably even get away with adding small wings to the crew cabin so it can glide straight to KSC on return.