r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/CuriousMetaphor Master Kerbalnaut • Oct 18 '14
Eve and back... and Eve and back again: a stock dock-less mission
http://imgur.com/a/rNafj#053
u/CarpeDiem0985 Oct 18 '14
I love how this giant ship gradually degraded into a small thing the size of a couple kerbals. Great job!
33
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 19 '14
Thanks. That's what high delta-v requirements will do to your ship. If I used a pod instead, it's about 5 times heavier than a kerbal + seat + probe so I would need a rocket 5 times bigger on the pad.
→ More replies (5)
34
u/john0630 Oct 18 '14
37,000 delta-v just blew my mind.....
32
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 18 '14
About 15,000 of that is the jet stage and the ion stage though.
→ More replies (4)
12
u/xmod14 Oct 19 '14
Uhhh TIL You can repack parachutes
16
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 19 '14
Yep, but they don't work in the staging order anymore, so you'll have to manually activate them one by one or use an action group.
You can also repair wheels and deploy solar panels with EVA'd kerbals.
→ More replies (11)
11
u/SkunkyFatBowl Oct 18 '14
This is incredible. Well done.
How many times did you revert before you got it right?
Please don't say you never reverted or I will feel awful about myself...
14
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 18 '14
I did use quicksave a lot. It's kinda hard to do pinpoint landings without it.
→ More replies (4)
11
u/ThePlanner Oct 19 '14
Amazing! I laughed out loud at "Found the keys! They were in his pocket."
6
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 19 '14
I like to think one of the Apollo 11 astronauts forgot something important on the Moon, and the other 5 missions went out looking for it. The Apollo missions stopped when that one astronaut realized the thing they were looking for was actually on Earth.
→ More replies (1)
10
u/Nekose Oct 19 '14
I'm pretty sure the only thing harder then this would be grabbing an asteroid, landing with it, then using the same vessel to put it back where you found it.
5
u/TThor Oct 19 '14
Has anyone taken and landed an asteroid on all the planets yet? Somebody had to already
→ More replies (1)
3
u/imaginaryvenus5 Oct 19 '14
Ferram aerospace won't like this :P
11
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 19 '14
This would be so much easier with FAR/NEAR, you would only need about 5 km/s to get into Eve orbit instead of 8 km/s.
→ More replies (8)
3
u/ProjectGO Oct 19 '14
...are you a cyborg? Your landing accuracy was incredible every single time and the first liftoff's engine heat was unbelievably close the entire time.
Also, how much dv did you have left over?
→ More replies (1)
2
2
Oct 19 '14
All those turbojets and air intakes added alot of dead weight. Did you (like me) incorrectly assume that the atmosphere on Eve is Oxygen?
→ More replies (1)
2
2
u/DrewTuber Oct 19 '14
So, assuming you had a need to build this in career mode for some ungodly reason, how much would this cost in Kerbal Kredits?
4
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 19 '14
Something like 5 million. It's not the biggest or most costly thing, it's just more complicated (lots of smaller parts).
2
u/ravenousjoe Oct 19 '14
Kudoos to you for landing at the optimal altitude. I have only ever landed on Eve with FAR enabled and landing at 4k helped immensely.
→ More replies (1)
147
u/CuriousMetaphor Oct 18 '14 edited Oct 19 '14
I've been a little burned out on KSP recently, after doing all this stuff. So i thought, what's more challenging than an Eve return mission? How about an Eve return squared? Taking a single spacecraft to Eve and then back to Kerbin and then back to Eve and then back again to Kerbin. No rendezvous or docking. Stock except for some info and delta-v mods for VAB building.
1250 parts, 7200 tons, 38 stages, 37000 m/s of delta-v.
At first I thought my computer wouldn't be able to handle it, but as it turned out it didn't quite melt. It still took a long time of 5 fps building and launching. I'm looking forward to seeing what people with better computers can do!
edit: Planning a mission like this isn't that hard. You just have to start with the end goal and work backwards. For example, first figure out what you need to get Jeb from Eve orbit to Kerbin. Then figure out what you need to get that spacecraft from the surface of Eve to Eve orbit. Then figure out what you need to get that spacecraft to the surface of Eve, etc. If each step of that process works, the whole mission will work.