Single Thruster Challenge: Mun and back with only one engine!!!

[Carsogen]

The Scenario:

Due to a terrible oversight at Kerbal Shipping and Cakes Co. the engineers at the KSC have only received one item in their monthly thruster order! Oh no! While a great man-hunt ensues at S&C to find the one responsible the Kerbonauts must make do with only a single thruster for their upcoming manned Munar mission...

The Challenge:

Take a ship carrying one (or more!) Kerbal to the Mun and back (returning safely) using only one thrust producing part, this includes:

- Liquid Fuel Engines (including jets, rockets and Vernor engine)

- Solid Fuel Engines (boosters or sepatrons)

- Mono-propellent Engines (including RCS ports and O-10 Mono-propellent Engine)

- Any other thrust producing part such as Ion Drive or modded parts or anything really.

As this isn't so much of a competition, more like a showcase of the solutions everyone comes up with to this problem, any and all designs are welcome!!! (within reason, no parts modded to have >9000 Isp etc.)

Wanna go with a Rapier like I did? Great! Want to chuck on a Mainsail and ride that headwind to victory? All the power to you! Infiniglide or Kerbal-Ladder-Glitch Device? Fantastic!

Another idea I came up with was to ferry a ship in parts to orbit using a reusable SSTO and then dock the engine or something and it would be great if someone could try that and show us!

Really anything is allowed as long as it only uses one thrust producing part.

Please post pictures of your ship 'n' trip and let us know which engine you used and how your craft works so we can all admire it! Hope you guys give this challenge a go and have some fun!

Here's the post of me [thread=95574]completing the challenge[/thread].

Cas.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Carsogen

[Overfloater]

Here's mine:

It's that engine that weights 1.2 ton and doesn't gimball (hence the yellow gyro).

Don't mind the 2 seperatrons, they didn't contribute to the flight in any way ;]

I tried a few dozens times to do it with a capsule, but kept failing repeatedly with many different configurations.

[Carsogen]

Here's mine.

Don't mind the 2 seperatrons, they didn't contribute to the flight in any way ;]

Awesome work Overfloater! Thanks for giving the challenge a go . Really impressed that you managed to do it without a jet engine or exploity methods.

Also that use of the sepatrons is absolutely fine, and if anyone wants to employ stuff like that go nuts, just as long as they don't power your actual ship .

Cas.

[r_rolo1]

As I was one of the participants of a similar challenge a long , LONG time ago ( most of the ships there would be useless nowadays due to changes in the engines specs, mainly of the aerospikes, but the principles behind them might serve of inspiration ), I'll be sure to try it. I'll obviously gun for a Laythe one way trip at least as a test

[Lou]

Fun challenge! I did it with a "Mainsail" Engine. It's a pretty simple concept, just some drop tanks really, but it took some time to strike the right balance across the stages and the 6 ton mass of the Mainsail makes things tough near the end. In retrospect, it might have been possible to recover the whole lunar lander using more parachutes, but I took the easy way and just recovered the Command Pod (and pilot) with a single parachute. Click here for more images.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Lou

[Carsogen]

Wow that's a great design Lou! I don't think I've ever seen radial tanks done like that. It's so great to see all the awesome ways people manage to solve problems with! possibly one of the best things about KSP and the challenge forum is that there's infinitely many ways to do things and every way is valid and had its merits

Thanks for giving the challenge a go!

Cas.

[fenya]

Simple spaceeplane, in low orbit is about 3150m/s Delta, which is quite enough for a flight to the Mun with the return

Even if you don't separate fuel tanks, Delta still good enough for flight, but I decided to play it safe

(Frame from the first flight with the autopilot, it is attached specifically to calculate DeltaV)

[r_rolo1]

Well, last night I gave it a go , but it looks that my aerospike try ( with capsule ... ) got too little fuel for a return ( that or my ascent was crappy ). Anyway, if you can do it with a aerospike, it will be with a very short margin , so I'll try other options first.

[EdFred]

I did mine similar to Lou except I did a 3-Kerbal CM, a KR-2L, and 8 drop tanks from the Kerbodyne series. I'm currently in orbit with 3,255m/s of dV left. Off to the Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!

Oh, and no ladders or landing legs on mine. Just going to set down on the engine.

[Carsogen]

that or my ascent was crappy

My ascent for this with the rapier was probably the most tense I've been in KSP since my first docking especially seeing as how the main ship had about 50m/s leeway at most for the mun trip and return.

I also originally started with the aerospike but the fuel required/TWR was so finicky that I just switched to the rapier.

Before making this challenge I never really realised how true the whole 'just add MOAR BOOSTERS' thing was

And that's a mad spaceplane Fenya! Any tips for no atmosphere landings? I'm planning one to go to minmus

Cas.

[r_rolo1]

In the good ol days of 0.17 you could put 10 Ft-400 + mk1 capsule in top of a aerospike and still have TWR>1. Those days are long by ... and today you can at best get 7-8 , and that is really in the limit of a Mun and back mission

I'll try some ideas I have with the T-30. Overfloater has a good design ( it reminds me of some of my crazy ships of 0.16 ) but I might, just might, get something better ...

Edited October 10, 2014 by r_rolo1

[MarvinKitFox]

Here is a very basic MOAR BOOSTERS approach, despite only having one engine.

Meet the Spider-in-Asparagus-Patch, Mark II

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Not very optimised, it arrived back home with more than 3000 d/v remaining.

I just basically took the bigest engine I could find, and asparagussed on 9-ton tanks until its TWR was pretty low.

First staging event occurs at about the altitude of the water tower.

First 7 stages fall on KSC grounds.

[Carsogen]

asparagussed

My new favorite KSPism

Great work Marv! Thanks for giving the challenge a go

Cas.

[MabDeno]

My attempt ended up something like Marvin's but with less struts. My weapon of choice was the Kerbodyne KR - 2L

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Edited October 12, 2014 by MabDeno

[Carsogen]

MabDeno Crash Pads ; now made from 100 percent recycled engines, to better preserve the environment!

Great work there, thanks for giving the challenge a go.

Also I'm thinking of making a badge and participant board for this challenge. Any suggestions anyone?

Cas.

[HelmutK]

Hi all,

i use the Skipper. Simple, but works good.

[Lou]

Carsogen: For what it's worth, I think there's a lot of potential to build on your initial challenge concept. This doesn't have to be a pass/fail challenge! Think about adding a scoring system! For example, BONUS points for bringing the thruster back to Kerbin undamaged (there's just that one thruster, so it's pretty valuable). MORE points for each Kerbal you launch and bring back safely. EVEN MORE points for landing on Minmus in addition to Mun (I've come very close to doing this). FEWER points for each drop-tank-stage (lots of small stages is easy, a few bigger stages is harder). Maybe one "bracket" of scores for each thruster (getting a high score with the Mainsail is no doubt easier than using the LV-T30). Just a thought, I only bring it up because I really enjoyed this challenge!

[Carsogen]

Lou: Thanks for the great feedback, those are some excellent ideas. (I especially like the idea of putting a value on 'the one thruster' that we must carry to the depths of Mundor and back ). I've been thinking of expanding on the challenge and adding rewards for certain feats but uni is bogging me down right now (I answer forum posts on the train), but do expect a rework of this challenge and a new one over the next few weeks!

Again thanks for the feedback, it really helps to know that people are trying and liking the challenge and want to share how they think it could be improved!

Cas.

[Pds314]

Props to anyone who does this with an Ion-powered spaceplane.

[Tsevion]

Hah, a challenge where one of my videos is a totally legal entry:

[plainawesome]

While it is a good challenge concept, someone can just modify the parameters of one of the ingame engines and make it require .01 fuel per second and has a max thrust of 10000.

[Carsogen]

While it is a good challenge concept, someone can just modify the parameters of one of the ingame engines and make it require .01 fuel per second and has a max thrust of 10000.

True, but anyone could do exactly the same with any other challenge ever, and I don't see any benefit to someone doing so. It isn't about winning, it's about proving to yourself that you can accomplish this feat and trying something new and challenging. The only reason someone would benefit from cheating on a challenge is if there was some kind of overall point system for completing them, and the day that gets implemented is the day I stop making and taking challenges.

Cas.

[antbin]

Well, I'm not sure if this is going to count for a 3 Kerbal entry: I accidentally stayed on 4x time warp at the moment the parachute opened on re-entry. Ripped the parachute off the command module. Close enough to count?

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Edited November 13, 2014 by antbin

[Norcalplanner]

Is any modded part really OK? Because I have an Interstellar save with a nice SSTO craft powered by a thermal turbojet/rocket that can make it to the Mun and back with plenty of fuel to spare. Of course, the craft is dependent on the dozens of microwave transmission satellites, ground stations, and relays for all the power which makes it work...

[Norcalplanner]

Alright, here's my entry. It uses Interstellar, and thanks to the massively OP nature of that mod, is a SSTO that can also go to the Mun and back without any staging. Lots of information in the photo descriptions.

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