General Question manned mission to saturn, ship recommendation?

[innovine]

Could anyone recommend a (somewhat realistic) spaceship which I could use for a manned mission to Saturn?

It would be great to use a ship where I can have a small lander craft docked, to perform landings with.

I've practiced some lunar missions, a little space station construction in LEO, and a mission to Mars, but now I feel ready for a big challenge and want to do a gravity-assist flight across the solar system to explore Saturn and land on a few moons. Looking forward to some recommendations for suitable ships, thanks

 

[KuatYards]

The arrow class, comes with UCGO which I think you would like for an expodition to Saturn... And UMmu 2.0, you can't go anywhere without that

 

[Tacolev]

How realistic are we talking? The [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4832"]LDDSV[/ame] has been my go-to for outer planets missions and doesn't egregiously strain engineering credulity. And it's got landers, habs, etc...

 

[innovine]

It's a bit on the big side though.. I will check it out and see..

 

[kamaz]

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3251"]Deepstar 2.0[/ame]

 

[sputnik]

The 20-meter Orion works for missions to Saturn, and includes lander craft (it would have to!)

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=838"]Orion 1.22[/ame]

 

[TMac3000]

I go with the Arrow if you just want to get there. Now, if you want to get there realistically, I'm honestly not sure...

But sling windows to outer planets are notoriously elusive

 

[Tacolev]

^^^What he said^^^

You'll have better luck with a regular-old hyperbolic/brachistochone transfer, obscene delta-V requirements and all.

 

[perseus]

Vagaworld To take advantage of the new window, which allows flights to the outer planets, is preparing an expedition Grand Tour.

 

[N_Molson]

Depends what you plan to do there. Is the goal a manned landing on Titan ? If yes, some specific hardware is required.

To get there, I would recommend a NTR Nuclear Thermal Reactor powered stage. Gives a decent Isp and more importantly the power you'll need that far away from the Sun, where solar panels are quite uneffective.

To get back to Earth, a solution could be to produce the rocket fuel from Methane on Titan. Anyway if you plan to stay there for more than a few days, you'll need another Nuclear Reactor on the surface. So a two-launches mission profile can be required. And you'll need a severe HLV (I would try the Jarvis), with probably several LOR to assemble the "mothership".

Habitat modules with enough space and maybe some sort of greenhouse (a small "garden" with some Earth-like vegetation could help keeping the morale of the crew I think) will be required too, since the trip, even with N/T propulsion, is going to last several years.

Landing on Titan can prove to be a challenge on itself too : it has a dense atmosphere, so the lander would have to be designed with that in mind ; maybe a lifting body could take advantage of that. But of course it requires an ascent stage too (for launch but also landing abort).

Could be an interesting project. :2cents:

 

[sorindafabico]

You could do aerobraking in Titan to get a Saturnian Orbit Insertion, too, but the ship must have a heat shield.

 

[Urwumpe]

of course, there is the Discovery One from 2001 as well. But I am not sure if the old one still works and the new one is lost in development hell as far as I remember.

 

[Mantis]

A really cool way to do it, should someone be able to take the time to assemble/create the necessary addons would be to use STS like the did in Stephen Baxter's "Titan". They put Discovery in orbit and used up all available hardware including the two remaining Saturn V boosters (refurbished after years on display) to loft all the supplies and gear neded to outfit Discovery for the flight. Along with strap-on boosters for ejection and orbital insertion burns, there were two Apollo CSMs for crew landing and a huge hab module in the cargo bay. They departed on a Venus-Earth-Venus-Earth-Jupiter-Saturn trejectory to get there in about 7 years.

 

[Tacolev]

You could do aerobraking in Titan to get a Saturnian Orbit Insertion, too, but the ship must have a heat shield.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5702"]This one[/ame] ought to do the trick.

 

[goaowonk]

Realistic? Why not KC-135 ? :lol: