Antipodal Bomber/Lander using FAR?

[MedwedianPresident]

Hello,

I am sure some of you have heard of Eugen Sänger and his Silbervogel project. It is a ballistic bomber that travels at hypersonic speeds and uses the atmosphere like a rock uses water when thrown onto it at a flat trajectory: the bomber travels at Mach 20+ (on earth) and is ''reflected'' by the atmosphere - this means that after the ballistic part of the flight, the bomber glides up again and goes on a new, smaller ballistic trajectory. The bomber then drops a nuke over the USA and lands somewhere in Japan or even completely circles the planet to land back in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel

So...do you think that using FAR, it would be possible to build a similar craft in KSP that flies at an almost-orbit trajectory and always ''hops'' up into space. Like you might already have understood, each ''hop'' is smaller than the last one due to velocity loss, and eventually the bomber stops ''hopping'' to enter a gliding trajectory to the landing site.

This also could be used on other planets with atmosphere: imagine a duna or laythe lander that scouts for landing sites and ''hops'' around the whole planet until gliding down to an acceptable landing site. Or using it as a launch platform from the upper atmosphere: I am sure the delta-v required for a rocket to enter orbit if launched from an antipodal bomber on a ballistic ''hop'' is less than 300 m/s, this means only one stage. Even a spaceplane could abstain from the main engines and would only need its maneuvering engines to correct the trajectory.

Good crazy idea?

[Wanderfound]

Can be done, and often is done by accident; pull up a bit too hard for too long when negating your initial reentry drop and you'll find yourself bouncing back into space. Also useful for when you massively misjudge your reentry trajectory and find yourself needing to circumnavigate Kerbin. A decent FAR spaceplane can glide around Kerbin several times over if it starts from the right speed and altitude.

Incidentally, apparently the original design would've been a deathtrap; not enough heat shielding, it would've fried.

[Martin0]

I've had the "bouncing on the atmosphere" effect with my latest spaceplanes using NEAR, during re-entry they reach 25km and then climb up again to 36-38km, all on their own, due to the aquired speed, but i've no idea how to do it on purpose.

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Here is the Craft File

That plane can glide all around Kerbin "hopping".

EDIT: The plane uses the Adjustable landing gear mod

Edited November 16, 2014 by Martin0

[MedwedianPresident]

Very good.

Now, did anybody try to drop a bomb from 40 km onto the other KSC using an antipodal bomber?

[MedwedianPresident]

Or imagine what could be done on Eve using this...

[Wanderfound]

Very good.

Now, did anybody try to drop a bomb from 40 km onto the other KSC using an antipodal bomber?

Barred by physics range limitations, unfortunately. Unless you want to abandon the bomber and pilot the bomb down.

[MedwedianPresident]

Barred by physics range limitations, unfortunately. Unless you want to abandon the bomber and pilot the bomb down.

I can abandon the bomber, or I can install Bahamuto Dynamics for extended physics range.

For a video, I will abandon the bomber and pilot the bomb, and then I will revert state and do another recording of how the bomber lands. Then I have two recordings: one of the bomber and one of the bomb.

[Melfice]

If you're willing to up the physics range sufficiently (and suffer any side effects that produces), BD Armory would be able to allow for that kind of bombing.

[MedwedianPresident]

Also, this technique could be used for landing-less atmospheric operations such as Jool gas collections. So...I descend into middle Jool atmosphere and then again rise into space, only needing a small burn to regain orbit.

[MedwedianPresident]

And like you already said, it could be used as a form of reentry abort for space shuttles. Will implempt it in the KSP-4 Arctus, my next spaceplane project.

This means that if the deorbit burn went bad and the predicted landing point is hundreds of kilometers short of the runway, you only need a small hop up using lift and you are on course again.

Plus, this could be included in normal reentry procedure to further bleed off velocity.

I am getting more and more ideas.

KSP-4 Arctus and the military ballistic version KNSP Arctus-Sausage (Sausage is nuclear bomb)

Edited November 16, 2014 by MedwedianPresident

[Wanderfound]

Make sure you put some control surfaces on the bomb; trying to do it with a pure deadfall is likely to be an extremely tedious source of frustration.

You might get some inspiration from Scott's recent "Rods from the Gods" revival:

[Charzy]

Descending into the middle of Jool's atmosphere would probably cause drag such that you wouldn't be able to leave the atmosphere again. Also you'd probably burn up.

[CalculusWarrior]

Barred by physics range limitations, unfortunately. Unless you want to abandon the bomber and pilot the bomb down.

Or use FMRS: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80292-0-25-0-Flight-Manager-for-Reusable-Stages-(FMRS-v0-3-00)

[Hidden Gunman]

I designed a plane with long wings that basically just wallowed at low altitude, but over 10k up it became a beast...it would zip along with jets on (more or less) idle at 2000kph, but would gradually dive and climb between 36 000m and 25 000m. No piloting involved, it just did it's thing (using NEAR).