Challenge Mars Mission Abort

[FoglyOgly]

Hello all, first time posting a challenge, so here goes nothing...

You are in a DeltaGliderIV currently on its way to Mars. You launched yesterday, December 22, 2013, and were just getting ready to relax until your first MCC when an explosion ruptured your main fuel tank and left your main engines, retro engines, and hover engines inoperable. You have stabilized your craft but you won't have enough fuel to make the plane change necessary to intercept Mars, and it won't be possible to send another spacecraft to rescue your crew. Using only your RCS thrusters, can you abort the mission?

The Rules:

• No main, retros, or hovers
• No launching another ship
• Land at an existing base or dock with an existing station

I think I had less than 5% of my RCS fuel left when I did this yesterday, but I bet you guys can do better as I haven't been at this for long. Regardless, I thought it was a fun challenge for me and thought I'd see if anyone else would enjoy it.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Depends on what you define as "abort". Return to Earth? It depends on your velocity at the start and your orbital period. If it's not a neat multiple of Earth's orbit, you're stuck.

 

[garyw]

The challenge states 'you launched yesterday', I assume from Earth and so depending on the dV it should be possible to use the RCS engines to brake into a high Earth orbit, lower that orbit and re-enter for a deadstick landing.

 

[FoglyOgly]

Well crap... that was a lot easier than I made it. My only thought was a burn with RCS that sent you toward the moon (which is close) and do a free return home... it's much easier to just slow down. Sorry.

 

[dgatsoulis]

Well crap... that was a lot easier than I made it. My only thought was a burn with RCS that sent you toward the moon (which is close) and do a free return home... it's much easier to just slow down. Sorry.

No worries mate, making a good challenge is much more difficult than flying one.

When you fly a challenge all you have to do is to reach the goal(s) that have been set, within the parameters that were given.

When you create a challenge, you have to think of all the ways the goal(s) can be achieved and that's easier said than done.

A few things to take into consideration:

1. If you are going to use a vessel that has multiple configuration settings (DGIV, XR series, etc) always provide the settings that must be used for the challenge. (Not just fuel, but ISP settings, oxygen etc.)
The only reason not to do so, would be if the different settings wouldn't affect the challenge goal(s).

2. If you are going to use a story as a backround, make the challenge match the story. For example: In your challenge you mention that the DGIV was on its way to Mars, yet when the players run the scenario they see that the DGIV is nowhere near a Trans-Mars trajectory.

3. Before you post a challenge, try to solve it in at least 2 different ways. This way you can be more confident about the possible outcomes and you ensure that the challenge will be ...ehmm... challenging to the ones that try it.

Hope this helps, looking forward to seeing your next challenge.