EtherDragon

Hey KSP fans! It's new-year's eve and I'm streaming... RIGHT NOW! I'll be streaming until after Midnight PACIFIC TIME, that's about 8 hours from now, as of this post. https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=YKAGnVXDU7g&feature=live-chat-promo

Hey all! It's been a while since I've done one of these, but I have a Let's Play under way for Season 1.1. This one is "Duna or Bust!" There's a new episode coming out almost every day! Here's a link to the playlist:

Hi! It's SimGamerTV, and I'm going live in just 20 minutes - starting at 10am Pacific time for some Kerbal Space Program 1.1! Our recent missions brought us to the Mun, and even landed on Minmas, it's time to see what we can do next! Thanks, Abraham

Hi all! Today, I will be LIVEStreaming KSP at 3:00pm Pacific time! (As of this post, that's just over an hour away!) Check me out at https://gaming.youtube.com/simgamertv Hope to see you there!

Episode 7 brings is another traversal to Duna, orbital entry and we get set to send a lander to the surface of Ike:

It's episode 6 - time to setup and make the Burn for another trip to Duna - this time with a manned Ike Lander in tow: Here is the build!

In this extended play, we build our first candidate rover and test it by driving around the KSC and gathering Science!

With our Science! in tow, it's finally time to return home from Duna and reap our rewards:

In Episode 3 we collect a bunch of Science from Orbit around Duna and plan our return trip to Kerbin!

In Episode 2, we reach Duna orbit and begin our Science!

My space program has reached a point where it's time to start looking at reaching other planets. This video series covers the episodes and bonus features for Season 2: Duna or Bust! Episode 7 brings is another traversal to Duna, orbital entry and we get set to send a lander to the surface of Ike: In Episode 1 we build a Duna capable ship and set our sights to collect Science! and complete contracts from one of Kerbin's closest neighbors:

Now that all your friends are gathered, I would like to tell you why we're really here... You have a problem, and this is an intervention!

Hi! I added a Video Version of the first Tutorial:

A follow up! How did I come up with the equation above? Well - let's start with Kepler's Third Law: r=p2/a3 This defines that the ratio between the Period Squared and the Semi-Major Axis Cubed is always the same for all orbiting objects with the same center of mass. We can use that fact to find out some things: Let's define the orbital period of Kerbin to "1 year" and plug in Kerbin's semi-major of 13.6 million-km. If we wanted to know how many orbits Duna completed during a single Kerbin orbit, we can set up the following equation: pk2/ak3=pd2/ad3 Where pk is the period of Kerbin's orbit ak is the semi-major axis of Kerbin's orbit pd is the period of Duna's orbit and ad is the semi-major axis of Duna's orbit Since we defined "1" as the Period for Kerbin we get: 12/13.63 = pd2/ad3 Simplify to: 1/13.63 = pd2/ad3 We're looking for the Period of Duna compared to Kerbin - as that's the unknown, but to get there we need to plug in what we do know: Duna's semi-major axis is 20.7 million-km. Thus: 1/13.63=pd2/20.73 20.73/13.63=pd2 ~3.526=pd2 √~3.526=p p=~1.878 Kerbin Years for each complete orbit of Duna. Now, we can really do the same thing for a Hohmann Transfer since the following equation must be true: ph2/ah3=pt2/at3 Where ph is the period of our full transfer orbit ah is the semi-major axis of the transfer pt is the period of the target orbit, in this case Duna and at is the semi-major axis of the target orbit To get the general form that can be used for any two planets we start by defining our Hohmann Transfer period as "1": 12/ah3 = pt2/at3 Solve for P: at3/ah3 = pt2 √(at3/ah3) = pt So we have how many of our orbits we will complete compared to Duna. Now we need to convert that into Duna orbits. Again, by setting our period to "1" we get this equation as the ratio between our Hohmann orbit and Duna's: rh = 1/pt Now our Hohmann Transfer is not a full orbit, it's a half of one: rt = 1/(2pt) Substituting in the full equation for Pt, above: rh = 1/(2√(at3/ah3)) Fin. Notes: *1 - On Earth an AU is defined as the Semi-Major Axis for the Earth around the Sun.

Here it is - the step by step - point by point - bit by detailed bit picture guide to calculating your own Hohmann Transfers. Part 1: What is a Hohmann Transfer? Simply put, a Hohmann Minimal Energy Transfer Orbit, commonly referred to as a Hohmann Transfer, is a special orbit used to transfer from one planetary orbit, like Kerbin, to another planetary orbit, like Duna. This math tutorial will make it dirt simple for you to calculate your own Hohmann Transfers from any planet to any other planet. Have a look at this: The solid lines are the orbits of the planets in question, in this case, Kerbin and Duna. The dashed line is the proposed Hohmann Transfer. Looking at this we see that we're starting at Kerbin at about 3 o-clock and we want to meet up with Duna at 9 o-clock. The trick is, we need to figure out how much of Duna's orbit will Duna traverse, during the same time our ship is traversing the Hohmann Transfer. Time for some math! Part 2: The Math, Part One - The Big Equation The equation below is derived simply from Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion which says, "The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit." In mathematical terms: r = p2/a3 where: r is the ratio, which is constant for any system p is the orbital period and a is the semi-major axis This means that for any two planets the following equation must be true: p12/a12=p22/a23 On other words the ratio for Duna's period squared to Duna's semi-major axis cubed, must the the same as the ratio for Kerbin. This is extrapolated to any two orbits, not matter their eccentricity! What this means is that the same ratio holds true for a Hohmann Transfer. Our goal is to solve for the unknown, which is which portion of Duna's Orbit will be completed during our transfer. With that in mind, we do some algebra, to derive the final equation: It looks more complicated than it really is, so don't sweat it too much. At this point, all we need to do is plug in some numbers. Part 3: Gathering the Data We need just two pieces if information to plug into the equations above. First, we need the semi-major axis of our starting point. In this example, we'll use Kerbin at 13.6 million-km. Second we need the semi-major axis if our destination, which is Duna at 20.7 million-km. Now, we need to calculate our Hohmann Semi-Major Axis for use in the larger equation. Part 4: The Math Part 2 - Hohmann Semi-Major Axis The Hohmann Semi Major Axis is equal to the average of the Apoapsis and Periapsis. In math terms: ah=(ha+hp)/2 So we plug in our numbers: (ha+hp)/2 = (20.7+13.6)/2 = 17.15 That's it! Now we can plug that into the final equation! Part 5: The Math Part 3 - The Transfer Solution In the final equation, we have some terms to fill in. ah is what we determined above in Part 4. at is the semi-major axis of the target planet, in this case Duna at 20.7 million-km. The rest is just plugging in numbers to work through them: at3/ah3 = 20.73/17.153 = ~1.7585 2*√1.7585 = ~2.6521 1/2.6521 = ~0.377 thus rt = ~0.377 Duna will traverse about 37.7% of its orbit during our Hohmann Transfer. Converting that to a clock-face basically says that we should depart when Duna is at about 1:30! Now I leave it to you to determine the return trip from Duna back to Kerbin: (I get 70.8% of Kerbin's Orbit, or a departure from Duna when Kerbin is at 5:30 on the clock...) Coming soon - the Video version of this tutorial