Completed Vikings in Space! (Kerbal Space Programme)

[Burning Bridges]

To illustrate my idea for thruster placement. What I want is to move a spacecraft on three axis without changing the forward direction, to make final corrections before the contact.

The hatch points to the spaceship up - direction (easy to figure out). The spacecraft is also aligned to the flight direction.

Each thruster is only used in one direction.

When I hit, J/L (left right), only the lateral thrusters will fire.

When I hit I / K (up, down) only the back and forward thrusters will fire.

H/N (forward backwards) is clear I think, here it's done by the front / back thrusters as well.

A problem right now is that the spacecraft is not (and possibly, cannot be) weight balanced, i.e up / down will tilt the forward direction. Perhaps this will go away when I use only standard SAS. Or I have to use a different arrangement, or I have to learn to handle it.

Does this make sense?

 

[Burning Bridges]

What do you think, could I only use 4 linear thrusters, and place them approximately where center of gravity is?

Another problem is how to keep the "other" spacecraft aligned. I tried to re-dock to some debris, and it was not possible because it has movement of its own, which I cannot control.

Changing direction in space is no problem without the RCS.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I like the Megalander Mk I, especially the idea to have some bottom clearance for a rover.

A problem I think is that the rover must have the capsule if you want to control it, and you would need to dock to the lander again afterwards.

 

[Hellraiser]

Megalander? Pff! Polant build Keweliusz Heavy Munar Lander! Get 3 Cosmonaut to Mun and back.

If I exchange the top nosecones on the nuclear nacelles for drogue parachutes it's probably duna-worthy. Got a large docking port at the bottom as well.

Although I would need to place the leg assembly lower to make room for a rover and probably reduce the number from 6 to 4. Burning Bridges Don't see why you would need to redock a rover, just add a separate capsule on it, either a 1 man pod or the 2 man lander. It will start empty so you'll just move kerbal to it in EVA. You'll just have to be careful not to trash it on landing if it hits the ground before the leg. Another issue is that once you drop it the center of mass will be too high and the lander may capsize. Had this problem with my Intern North Pole Outpost Radio Tower, I switched to it in the control center and when it loaded it tipped

If you use girders to make the legs wider you should easily fit a rover made out of a 2-kerbal Lander pod there.

An earlier version had a problem:

Used the weaker lander legs, it didn't end as good as expected. Either way I dropped the KeGieEr Cosmo-Habitat and Collective Potato Farm nearby after that crash so the bros could chill until a new crew arrives. They got replaced with a new crew and went back home after spending months on the Mun.

 

[Hellraiser]

What do you think, could I only use 4 linear thrusters, and place them approximately where center of gravity is?

Another problem is how to keep the "other" spacecraft aligned. I tried to re-dock to some debris, and it was not possible because it has movement of its own, which I cannot control.

Changing direction in space is no problem without the RCS.

Add a probe pod, ASAS and one or two RTGs for power to every thing you want to dock with. As mentioned you can now have multiple command pods, it's just the the first one you pick determines how much crew the craft has by default.You can launch two vessel with one rocket this way, I did it plenty of times even going as all out as a 5-in-1 orbiter+4 probe landers for Duna in one launch.

Just stabilize it before you hit the space center button (odds are it may be stable by default if you undocked it cleanly without causing spin). Pretty much everything I ever docked with stayed in one place thanks to that.

 

[Ulminati]

Failing that, using time acceleration immediately kills rotation on all objects completely. I've taken to tapping it in lieu of ASAS on wobbly constructions

 

[Hellraiser]

Yeah but if it doesn't have an ASAS and probe pod you can't stop it from spinning if you bump into it by accident.

 

[Ulminati]

The footprint on the Megalander MK1 is wide enough that it could land and remain stable without a rover. So it shouldn't capsize with a rover along that got dropped. Although the rover would have to be fairly small to fit in the bay atm.

Either way, the Lenmark space program is kind of spiralling into a skunkwork prototype extravaganza. We may have to sell it to Interplanetary Kreative Exploration Agency (IKEA) to bring the budget back in line and give us solid direction.

 

[Hellraiser]

Meanwhile Polant is doing something big, humongous in fact. That is the motto of the Space Agency of Polant "More rocket, more power, more everything!".

Also the big lander legs are FAR superior to the crappy thin ones. Had the Keweliusz lander (the whole thing as it landed on the Mun+2 drogue parachutes instead of nosecones) softly land on Kerbin without breaking the legs at about 14 m/s. Well the legs gut stuck below the ground due to buggy collision but they were intact.

 

[Ulminati]

Mjölnir IV SSTO manned spaceplane. Kerbin to Orbit in just 6 minutes.

For a cleaner, more beautiful ascent. Boom & Ouch Mjölnir.

- Power supply
- Docking port
- Docking lights
- Landing gear
- Safety Parachutes
- Hybrid Jet/Liquid engine
- RCS
- Avionics
- Cockpit
- Excess thrust to carry payloads of up to 1 ton (mounting bracket sold seperately)
- Synthetic leather interior

Preorder now for as low as LKR 5.999.995,-*


*Ships to most major Kerbin countries, excluting Polant and Kermany

 

[Ulminati]

The final version of Mjölnir is slightly different than pictured above. Instead of one large liquid tank and 2 rocket tanks, it uses 1 rocket tank and 3 medium liquid tanks along with a fuel transfer assembly to move everything around. It made it to a 88km-104km orbit with 92.34 fuel units, 40.58 oxidizer and 104.32 RCS propellant. Should be enogh to do orbital maneuvers/drop a payload/rendezvous with a space station, deorbit and land safely using the remaining fuel in the jet engines.

I have about 400 screenshots in my KSP folder, spanning about 5 different projects I'm messing about with. Not sure whether to do a full overview of all the iterations Fläksar/Mjölnir went through or just the most recent one. The older versions mostly either spun out of control or ran out of fuel before making it to orbit. Nothing too hilarious.

 

[Hellraiser]

Why does it have parachutes and so many of them in fact?

It appears the B&O cannot into re-entry, where as the second prototype version of the Jakanese Wakizashi did indeed manage to successfully glide down to the surface from orbit*. The third prototype version with slightly repositioned frontal canards, RCS and rear landing gear under the wings for better takeoff and landing stability, is expected to be the final model that will go into serial production. All of this possible because Jakan discovered a shocking truth about aviation, apparently the center of mass and lift don't need to match. Also you need control surfaces behind the center of thrust (who knew?).

Thankfully the modular design allowed for wings to be placed in the back, the bottom rudder winglets have been scrapped as did the X shape winglets at the center. Instead two horizontal front winglet canards were added. While manual control of the craft became slightly more difficult, superior Jakanese ASAS automated flight software has no problem flying the craft. Images of the new Wakizashi are expected to be released soon by the impeiral totally democratic constitutional monarchy of Jakan news agency. Estimated weight is about 8,4 tons including the satellite payload**, 81-83km altitude circular orbits are easily achievable with just enough rocket fuel for deorbiting or LKO docking rendezvous maneuvers***.

And I hear gaijin communist spies from Polant may have acquired some know-how from KAMIKAZE labs and the SAP is now using it to build their own 3-cosmonaut spaceplane.

*however the the wings hit the ground when it was slowing down after touchdown. A minor setback easily fixed by repositioning the landing gear.
**mass may increase as RCS capability is added
***I think I can get 100 km orbits by increasing ascent angle to between 15-20 degrees just before the rocket engines engage

 

[Ulminati]

Why does it have parachutes and so many of them in fact?

Do you have ANY idea how many times Stereotypical Villain would've died if I didn't place parachutes on all my designs? The area around the Lenmark Spaceplane development facility is littered with the wreckage of stuff that spun out of control or ran out of fuel. The Mjölnir has made successful reentries without them, but since they're reusable (although kerbals have to EVA to pack them up), they make the reentry process a lot smoother for very little added weight.

I'm also willing to bet this is very close to the lightest SSTO craft you can have that can still bring a Kerbal to dock with a space station. Sure, you could strip chutes, battery, light, some of the RCS, replace the shielded docking port with a regular one etc. But in the end you'd only shave off a few Kerbalgrams. It's also an aesthetically pleasing craft and remarkably stable during ascent and reentry. The only time I had to put hands of keyboard was during takeoff and while doing some fuel transfers because pipelines didn't work the way they were meant to. Paint it black and it'd look like something Katman would be proud to patrol Kotham City in. The Jakanese design looks like it's glued together by whatever spare parts they had lying about.

 

[Hellraiser]

Tell me the total mass of that (or just post the craft file and I'll check it myself using mechjeb) and I bet the Jakanese can make a lighter by 1 or 2 tons (and top secret or MacDarthur will nuke them, again) manned craft that can dock with another vessel/station in LKO (80-90km altitude) before Sunday. And deorbit, with no refueling in between. I already see at least two ways in which I can cut weight over yours.

Also the Wakizashi final version will look much more stylish and the yet to be named secretu manned spaceplane will be even prettier.

 

[Ulminati]

Tell me the total mass of that (or just post the craft file and I'll check it myself using mechjeb) and I bet the Jakanese can make a lighter by 1 or 2 tons

Sneaky potato tries to steal TOP SEKRAT Lenmark design. Besides, the ship pictured above is the MK III. SV is currently testing the MK VI. Aesthetically it's nearly identical, but lots of tweaks have been made. I've also reached the conclusion that radially mounted rockets are inferior to the Aerospike for a SSTO Spehssplane. Since jet engines can get me to 20km - 1.6km/s for a very small amount of fuel, the aerospikes better ISP makes up for slightly larger mass. (1.5 Kerbalton compared to the 0.9 Kerbalton I'd have to use to get equivalent thrust out of radial engines is worth it to get 30% extra ISP). 10 small rockomax thrusters add more drag than one aerospike.

[edit]

Tallying up everything* on a calculator, the Mk VI ticks in at just under 14 Kerbalton, Hellraiser. I can make it to a nearly-circular 100KM orbit with 50 fuel units remaining for maneuvers and reentry

*including battery and parachute (can be removed without affectign anything but safety), all 8 RCS thrusters, hidden avionics, orthogonal strut to mount avionics, fuel lines, landing gear etc.

 

[Hellraiser]

Oh please, the top secretu weaboo manned spaceprane will be more efficient. Just wait and see.

 

[Ulminati]

We will see. I'll be passing the design on to some colleagures from my old university (also Lenmarkians) to hear their input.

[edit]

The Mark VII shaves 0.5 Kerbalton off the total weight by switching the 2x turbojet + 1x aerospike for 1x turbojet + 2x LV-909.

It doubles time to orbit and requires firing the LV 909 during ascent at a few critical junctures to gain enough airspeed to continue climbing. But once it reaches it's 90KM parking orbit, it has 112.4 fuel units left and equivalent thrust/ISP as the MK VI

 

[Ulminati]

Lenmark has been working on Project Spehssplane for quite a while. The goal: Bring a Kerbal into orbit and land safely on Kerbin without discarding any parts of the craft in the process. The MKVII Mjölnir was the 7th iteration of the 5th design to finally meet mission parameters in an acceptable fashion. The failures of the previous designs were not nearly spectacular enough (ran out of fuel, glide landing. Sometimes crashed, sometimes landed safely) to be worth documenting. However, since (I think) this is the first time a Kerbal-piloted Spehssplane has been successfully launced on Kerbinus Kodexia, Lenmark has graciously declassified the mission logs.

03:00 - Under the cover of dark, Stereotypical Villain takes off using a single turbojet engine. The plane barely takes off before running out of runway due to drag from landing gear.

Short controlled bursts from the LV-909 are necessary to bring the plane to 10KM altitude in a reasonable timeframe, where drag becomes less of an issue. Previous tests have shown the Turbojet engine to flare out at around 21-22KM altitude regardless of how many ramjets are mounted to it, so once this cruising altitude is reached, the plane levels out and begins building up surface speed.

Maximum surface speed achieved, the liquid thrusters engage to help carry the spehssplane into Low-Kerbin Orbit

Low-Kerbin orbit achieved with plenty of fuel to spare. Note that the indicator is from one of the side tanks, so twice the amount of fuel and oxidizer remains. Plenty to do a rendezvous if desired.

However, SV hasn't had breakfeast yet, so mission control decides it's better he just takes a nap for a couple of orbits until the sun rises in Lenmark. Deorbiting takes only a short burn from the liquid rockets to dip periapsis into the atmosphere for aerobraking. After this is done, the remaining fuel is moved to the center-rear tank to fuel the jet engine and help balance the centre of mass.

Reentry looks promising. The initial deorbiting burn left the ship in a height of 50km abov the Space centre, but aerobraking is decelerating a lot faster than anticipated. (I really wish the orbit map could account for drag. Maybe someday).

As the sun rises over central Keuropa, the Mjolnir looks like a harmless luxury jet owned by a .com Kerbalweb billionaire playboy.

Even with the suboptimal deorbiting trajectory, there's fuel enough left to cross vast distances on jet power alone.

Final approach. The turbojet engine clipped the runway during landing and broke. This is a common problem with the long profile of the engine. Engineers are instructed to move the sides of the fuselage slightly further back on the mass production model to get the landing gear further back and give more leeway during final approach.

SV made it home in time for eggs & bacon. Huzzah!

 

[Ulminati]

Burning Bridges Hellraiser
It's not the .craft file (I can upload it if you *really* want), but I think this is way more instructional.


KEGO™ Mjölnir Spehssplane model kit assembly instructions.

Keep angle snap on at all times and symmetry except when placing something directly above/below centre fuselage.

1: Attach the 4 fuel tanks to the cockpit. 3 parts liquid to one part jet. Make sure the tanks form as deep a "Y" shape as possible. The turbojet will nest inside the gap. The deeper gap, the further back your landing gear will be and the more protected the turbojet during touchdown.

2: Attach a Turbojet engine to centre fuselage and a pair of LV-909s to the side tanks. Note the fuel line direction goes from centre to side tanks, allowing liquid fuel engines to drain oxidizer from the frontal tank.

3: Attach ramjet intakes on the front of the side tanks, docking port in front of cockpit and tailfin(s) to help steering. Note the ramjets are turned upside-down and the tailfins tilted inward for a more "badass" look. That's the kerbal version of "red 'uns go fasta!"

4: Place landing gear underneath the plane. You can add a flashlight under the docking port (I did) to illuminate things you're trying to dock with if no sunlight is available. Note the orthogonal strut. An upwards-pointing avionics pachage is placed there, intersecting the cockpit. It's a bit of a hack, but a necessary one. Other solutions could be ditching the docking port to place the avionics (meh), making a custom ASAS module with the avionics properties (Scott Manleys solution), or wait until it hopefully gets added by the devs in .19 or whatever.

5: The wings consist of 4 parts each. A small canard placed below the wing to increase maneuverability, a structural wing placed along the centre torso so that it intersects the ramjet intake, a delta wing placed on the side tanks and a steering surface behind the delta wing. The canard can be skipped (It wasn't present in the original MK VII), but it makes the whole thing handle a lot better.

6: Final touches: A pair of RCS propellant tanks, a pair of parachutes (better safe than sorry). RCS nozzles are placed on the wingtips, directly above and below the turbojet mounting point and in a 45-degree angle cross directly behind the docking port.

7: The Mjölnir does not use staging. (Engage stage lock during launch just to be on the safe side). Instead, it relies on control groups. Set both parachutes to "deploy" in the Abort group; The turbojet engine to "toggle" in Custom 1; The two LV-909's to "toggle" in Custom 2 and the Ramjets to toggle in custom 3.

Attach the stickers from the sticker sheet to make your Mjölnir look Awesome™ and you're ready to go!

To launch, increase throttle to full. Press the "1" key to spool up the jet engine. Once you reach the end of the runway, gently pull up in a 20-30 degree angle and engage SAS. Raise your landing gear with the "G" key to decrease drag.

Begin ascending in a 45-degree angle. Note that your prograde vector will not match your heading marker. The prograde vector should be at the 45 degree point. It will be necessary to make minor adjustments to keep it from drifting.

Once you reach the 10KM mark, you want to lower your ascent angle to build up lateral velocity in the thinner atmosphere. Your maximum cruising altitude will be 20km, and you want to be moving horizontally at this point (neither gaining nor losing altitude).

Accelerate until you reach approximately 1100 m/s surface speed. Then hit the "2" key to engage your liquid engines and begin climbing anew, approximating a 45-degree angle. Once your jet engine flares out, disengage it with the "1" key and close the ramjet intakes with the "3" key to minimize drag.

Continue climbing using liquid engines until your apoapsis is ~90-95 km, then cut engines.

Use a maneuver node to plan final burn for circularizing your orbit.

If you followed these steps, you should now be in Low-Kerbin orbit with plenty of monopropellant, and two quarter-full tanks totalling 110 fuel and 89 oxidizer.

When deorbiting, perform a retrograde burn to get into the atmosphere ~50km above your target. Reopen ramjets and transter (alt+click side thank, then alt+click middle tank) fuel and oxidizer to the forward centre tank. Once you enter atmosphere, you should slow down rapidly. Reengage jet engines at ~12km and steer the craft home. If you can't find a suitable landing site, try to break as much lateral velocity as possible, then kill engines and hit backspace to deploy parachutes.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Looks like a very stable little spaceplane.

Dyna-soar anyone?

It's a long time since I built spaceplanes, these are from an earlier version, I think it was 0.17

There were no working intakes, and vehicle assembly for planes was p.i.t.a.

 

[Ulminati]

Well, I've installed plugins now. First batch is ISA mapsat, protractor, graph-o-tron, mechjeb and bobcat.

I've started a fresh game to reduce clutter in space. Mechjeb is really, REALLY stronk at automating some of the tasks I've already done dozens of times. I definitely recommend you use mechjeb for stuff you already know how to do, as it'll save you a lot of time. But I STRONGLY urge you not to use it for maneuvers that aren't trivial for you already. You'll never learn otherwise. In future updates, Mechjeb will be OFF unless otherwise noted. All missions to new places will be done manually.

Since it's a new save, Kerbin will need a Kraftworld for me to use as a refueling platform. It's also going to be a test of Mechjeb. This is the MK II Kraftworld Kore Komponent:

Similar to the Kommunity Kraftworld, except the probe has been replaced with a MechJeb probe body. I've also made a few minor tweaks. Battery stack is smaller, struts are moved around to make the hub more rigid. Spotlights have been added to illuminate docking ports and solar panels are mounted around the main tank.

It's all fitted around a fairly conventional launch assembly. 8 SRBs and 4 mainsail engines in stage 1. SRBs decouple when fuel runs out. Mainsails decouple when they run out. A 4x LV-45 cluster powers the centre column into orbit.

To get into orbit, I simply opened the Mechjeb pane, toggled Ascent autopilot. I entered my desired orbit parameters (150km periapsis/apiapsis, 0 degree inclination), left all other values as default. I then pressed engage, followed by spacebar and leaned back.

And the thing flew itself into a beautiful 150-kilometre orbit all on its own. I had to transfer a wee amount of fuel from the Kraftworld tank to finish the circularizing burn, but it was no biggie.

Next up was the Science! module. I learned from the previous iteration of the Kraftworld and went with an altogether flatter design to keep the whole thing from getting too wobbly. The Science! module features 4 giant solar panels, a pair of satellite dishes, as well as an assortment of measuring equipment. (basically, every module I had in the Science section).

I launched the rocket the same way as I did the Kore Komponent. Except, when I finalized my orbit, I aborted the mission and told it to restart. This allowed mechjeb to know exactly how long the insertion maneuver would take. I then ticked the "Time Launch to Rendezvous" box, selected the Kraftworld Kore and got a neat little countdown, telling me when the ideal launch window for an immediate rendezvous would occur.

Again, once the timer hit 0, all I had to do was hit space and go grab a beer while the autopilot did the ascent burn for me.

Which got me within 1.5km of the Kraftworld. Pretty good. My manual rendezvous encounters usually place me somewhere in the 1-2km range. But I do those from a parking orbit instead of directly from ascent. This saved me about 15-20 minutes of fiddly maneuvering to finish a maneuver I've already done manually about two dozen times.

For the final approach, I switched to Smart A.S.S. This window basically allows me to pick and maintain a direction based on my orbit or my target (if I've set one). For the approach, the interesting directions are Rvel - (Relative Velocity Minus) and Tgt + (Towards target). Pointing at Rvel- and burning matches my velocity with my target so we're static compared to each other. Tgt+ then allows me to close with the target. Minor adjustments are necessary. (I used Rvel- to stop at 1km, 500m, 250m and 100m and adjust my approach vector). Used to be I had to eyeball the Rvel- vector based on how my targets marker moved across the screen, which was an inexact science at best.

Once the Kore Komponent was within 150m, I killed relative velocity again and switched control to the Kore Komponent to line up a docking port with the approaching Science! module. I then engaged SAS in the Kore Komponent (but not RCS) to ensure it wouldn't drift before switching back to the Science module.

Once I had a docking port targeted, I used Par- (parallel difference decrease) to ensure my science module continually pointed directly at the docking port (which offset my terrible RCS thruster placement). I then switched to docking mode and used RCS controls to do the final docking approach.

I topped off the tank in the Kraftworld with a fuel transfer, then decoupled the tug for de-orbiting. In hindsight I should've just let it remain on the Kraftworld, as it was a neat secondary fuel reservoir. Oh well...

I switched to the tug and used RCS to maneuver it free of the Kraftworld. Then burned retrograde to de-orbit it.

Graph-o-tron confirms all the scientific equipment made it up intact

Kraftworld Kodexia 2.0 now shines as a beautiful symbol of progress from the Heavanz.

 

[Hellraiser]

Ulminati behold the top secretu Kippon spaceprane!

Fully orbital, flies like a dream (as much as a keyboard-controlled spaceplane can).

9,53 tons of mass, 1,5 of which are the DAMN WHEELS. How the fuck does a single wheel with all the suspension/breaks weight 500 kilograms?!

They're heavier than RTGs, and I was wondering what made the Ion Gliders were so heavy. Anyway intakes are only 100kg each and make up for the added dry mass by letting you burn more jet fuel and save on oxidizer.

It gets to a periapsis outside of atmo using less than 50% of its oxidizer. After circularizing the orbit (although with a 78km apoapsis) had more than 25% of its initial oxidixer. Currently sits in orbit waiting for the Secretu Stationu to get into a proper position for rendezvous, because fuck launch windows let's end up half an orbit behind the target and times warp x50 until we catch up. Has about half jet fuel left (I know it is the same thing as rocket fuel just without oxidizer). The station is in a 87-89 altitude equatorial orbit so it should get there easily. I think I can squeeze a lot more out of it with a proper ascent (I think the current one was sub-optimal slightly and could have gotten to 1800 or more m/s on the jets).

Not bad for its maiden flight, although all the derping with the Wakizashi helped a lot obviously. According to mechjeb radial engines and double LVs are pretty equal in performance for this mass of fuel. The Mjölnir Spehssplane has twice as much fuel from what I can tell so the LVs are way better in its case, but it definitely is heavier.

I need to replace the kerbal portrait with something more appropriate of Black Cat on future screenshots. To the kerbalizer!

Grab the .craft file here

Also I think I'll grab the Kethane mod as it appears it got fully updated for 0.18 finally. It's going to make refueling those stations on other planets a bit easier once probes find potato gas deposists there and the Kerbals start drilling. Also adds LARPing potential.

 

[Ulminati]

good god, that thing is hideous!

According to mechjeb, the Mjölnir is 14t fully fuelled and 8t in orbit. I've made it to orbit - with practice - with 190 fuel units remaining. I then deployed an ion-powered mapsat satellite, docked with my new space station in a 150km parking orbit and landed at Kerbal Spaceport. All without refueling.

It turns out my ascent profile on spaceplanes after the 20km spool up was way too steep and cost me precious fuel.
I could easily scale back the fuel tanks by 25% if I wanted to settle for LKO and rcs for maneuvers. But I like the generous fuel budget on the Mjölnir, as I want to deploy satellites in inclined orbits for better mapsat coverage.


If jet engines work on eve (I think its atmosphere is pretty thick), I could probably fly the Mjölnir there and back again if I left some refuelling tanks in orbit around Kerbin and Eve to top off the plane after ascent. Gonna look that up -- It sounds like a pretty cool mission to do next. Failing that, maybe Duna.

 

[Hellraiser]

Clearly Gaijin cannot appreciate efficient oriental aesthetics. It is still lighter than yours

spoiler about Eve landing

Jets don't work on Eve, all that atmosphere has no oxygen Theoretically Polant has an Eve return-capable lander, practically it probably has too little fuel for all that atmospheric drag (and killer gravity). Also I have no idea how to haul it to Eve and refueling it after getting it into Kerbin parking orbit will be too much work (it could get to Eve on its own after refueling in LKO but refueling it again in Eve orbit sounds even more tedious). The thing is monstrous and has like 100 meters of ladders the cosmonaut has to walk down to walk on the surface. I rather spend time doing something else than a doomed to fail mission with a laggy as hell vessel.

I suggest you look over the KSP forums for the "journey to eve and back (or else what is the point?)" thread or something named like that. After a billion posts about landing on Eve in 0.18 (0.17 had a 10km altitude plateau everyone used to save on fuel including Scott Manley, the art pass Eve got in 0.18 erased it out of existence) the conclusion one reaches is that it's too much fucking trouble for a manned landing. You need a ridiculously over-sized monster of a lander, that lands intact on a flat surface, then you need ridiculous amounts of delta-v to get into that 100 km parking orbit. You also need to haul it to Eve. It's so much work that you might as well add "being clinicaly certified to have assperger's syndrome" as a requirement to do a return mission.

Unless you use modded parts, the inflatable airship mod could help cut down delta-v requirements by a lot. An electric propeller spaceplane lander could also work but there are still no electric propellers in any mod . Either way I came to the conclusion that only a true masochist or assburger can do it.

 

[Ulminati]

Clearly Gaijin cannot appreciate efficient oriental aesthetics.

How many thingies and stuffies did you pay Black Cat to climb into that monstrosity?

It is still lighter than yours

It may be lighter than mine, but my spaceplane just made it to Mün, deployed a satellite, refuelled in Münar orbit by docking with a discarded tug that still had some juice left and returned to land on the landing strip in Kerbal Spaceport.

Can your spaceplane actually DO stuffies once it exits the atmosphere, or will it just barely skim LKO before plunging back down again? What if I wanted to reach a 100-150km parking orbit? Or wanted to bring a smallish (say, 750 kerbalgrams) payload with me?

Transmünar spaceplanes are the future, you know. By refuelling at the Kraftworld around Kerbin and placing a fuel depot around Mün, I could ferry an entire base up there if I had the patience.