Togusa

Put an Agena-type vehicle in LKO for rendezvous and docking practice, and worked on developing aerobrake/sun/radiation shields with the Procedural Parts mod. I used my trusty SRB-4 launcher to put the Agena into orbit, but I discovered that I could have done it without the SRBs -- I had enough fuel left in the second LF stage to put it into Munar orbit, if I wanted to. As it is, I just put the vehicle on the "Manley Axis" and left it there, pending a practice flight. A few things I learned from trying to make the shields: 1) Large shields (> 10m diameter) shouldn't be mounted on 2.5m or smaller stages without heavy bracing or solid attacments. 2) Fairings are really unnecessary for launching the shields -- using them for large shields tend to make the launcher top heavy. 3) Some of the color schemes produce really interesting effects -- the Saturn and German textures make shields look like targets, while the Copernicus and Gold Foil textures would be appropriate for solar encounter shields (think "Sunshine"). 4) If you plan on mounting RCS thrusters on the shield, make the shield and/or its backing from Procedural Monopropellant Tanks, otherwise, the thrusters won't work, even if you mount an RCS tank directly behind the shield. (A question: would running fuel lines from a mono tank to the RCS quads also solve this problem?)

Yesterday, I decided to scour the skies clean to start afresh. So, in order of recovery/disposal: Minmus Scout 1: I launched Jeb and Bill on another mission in the "Space Truck" (an overview cabin mounted on a 1.5m long fuel tank with solar panels, RCS quads and tanks, and an LV-909) for an orbital test 8 mission days ago, only to discover that I had a *ton* of dV left, so I decided to go for Minmus. I ended up in an inclined retrograde orbit, which I circularized very easily. After three orbits, I brought the boys home. Again, I ended up retrograde, this time on approach to the KSC. I tried to do a Kurtjmac-style pinpoint landing on the KSC proper, but it appears that coming in fast from the east for a landing is really hard. I ended up landing Jeb and Bill about 75km southwest of the KSC. Artemis 1: My first Mun probe. It had been circling around the Mun for nearly a month MET, but with nearly a half tank of fuel left, I decided to bring her home. On the way, I decided that it would be worth the time to do aerobraking experiments (I found that 35km is the optimal altitude for Kerbin aerobraking). I also tried to do a soft hover landing with what fuel I had left, but I couldn't control the descent, and ended up crashing the probe. KerBall 2: The end of this, my second Kerbin orbiter, was pretty straightforward: burn retrograde until empty, then let gravity to the rest. (I also got rid of this probe to cover up an embarrassing design flaw: I put on 8 RCS quads, but no RCS tanks. No wonder it handled like a brick.) And finally, KerBall 1, my first ever Kerbin orbiter: I thought I had marooned it in a 100km x 400km inclined orbit with no fuel -- until I remembered that it still had nearly full monopropellant tanks. So a long RCS burn at apoapsis helped bring the periapsis down to 25km; a final burn in atmosphere helped send the probe, which had circled Kerbin for 80 mission days, to a watery grave. Now, it's back to the drawing board for the next phase.

I tried for the umpteenth time to recover a derelict probe from a highly inclined elliptical orbit over Kerbin. I learned the hard way that the launchers I was using were way too powerful -- it took a launch pad accident* for me to discover that the core stage had enough oomph to get into LKO. And after realizing that plane changes eat up a LOT of dV, I figured out that I should wait until the probe's ascending/descending node was over KSC and launch in the appropriate direction. ----- *The pad accident involved a set of 6 small SRBs which didn't fire after I used time warp to shift the launch time to daylight hours. Does anyone have any idea why time warp breaks SRBs?

I keep forgetting how the red/green lights should be placed on an airplane and why they're there. Thanks for the reminder. I think the inboard engines are overheating because there's less surface for the heat to radiate from the engines (being close to the fuselage, the outboard engine, and each other). Throttling back does help with exhaust heat management, so I don't think the overheating is a big problem in this case. I'd be more worried about the crew getting a more-than-healthy dose of radiation, but that's just me. A very nicely done large-span aircraft, and one of the few nuclear-powered aircraft I've seen so far. If I may ask, what mod is the reactor core from?

If you're referring to NASA's plan, no: the plan is to put the captured asteroid into lunar orbit, where an Orion spacecraft is to rendezvous with it. Video here: Putting the captured asteroid in Earth orbit would not only present a hazard to all spacecraft there (especially the ISS), but anyone with a nasty bent and the right tools could hijack the capture vehicle and threaten to crash it into a major population center. Better to put it "out of reach", so to speak.

NASAFanboy wrote: Kinda like the Shimizu Corporation's "Luna Ring" project? http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/dream/lunaring.html

This will be my first target for a claw-equipped ship: KerBall 1, my first "successful*" orbital probe, stuck without fuel in a highly-elliptical (Ap ~400km, Pe ~100km), highly-inclined orbit, the victim of a launch gone bonkers and a small fuel tank (I ran out while trying to lower the apoapsis). I'm planning on attaching the claw to a similar craft, but with more tankage (either one big tank, or several small tanks in a cluster). Once I latch on to the probe, I'll have two options: (1) Taking both ships on a dive into Kerbin's atmosphere, dumping both ships into the ocean, or (2) Transferring enough fuel into KerBall 1 to allow it to deorbit itself, leaving the claw-equipped craft in orbit for future cleanup duties. At this point, I'm strongly leaning towards option #2. -- *If one defines "success" as "getting into orbit by any means necessary".

(Slightly belated, because I joined the KSP forums just a couple of days ago.) Greetings, all. Togusa here. Nice to meetcha. I've been playing KSP off and on for the past month -- first with the demo for about a week, then dropping the nickel for the full game on Steam -- and lurking here for gameplay ideas, tips, news about upcoming versions (looking forward to the Asteroid Redirect Mission, BTW), and some good stories in and about KSP. I may not post much here (it's not that I don't have the time, it's just that I don't have much to say most times), but I will pop in at least once a day just to see what's going on. And pick up some pointers. And, just maybe, hopefully, make a few friends in the process.

You might want to try mapping the throttle to one of the joysticks and see if it gives you better control. The best candidate for this assignment on the Xbox 360 controller IMO would be the right stick, since it's closer to X (which you've mapped for zero throttle). If you do this, you may wish to consider setting up/down for the throttle and left/right for roll, so that any errant sideways sideways motion won't pitch or yaw a rocket off course.

You know you play KSP too much when: - You're adjusting Bezier curves in Adobe Illustrator and wonder if you have enough delta-V to make the course correction. - You watch someone on YouTube launching a large rocket, and the first thought you have is "needs more struts". (The person in question already had 40 bozillion boosters attached to the thing, but nary a strut anywhere.) - Speaking of YouTube, the first video you watch is posted by Scott Manley, Kurtjmac, Danny2462, or Xactar. (Hat tips to all of them.) (This is my first post here. I wanted to post an introduction first, but this thread is too good not to jump into right off the bat. )