Riph

Bwahaha. If you think that's ugly, you should see my craft that aren't designed for atmosphere. Bare metal efficiency makes for some damned ugly rockets.

Totally. I didn't include one here because I know people prefer a wide variety of small, medium, and large ports. My personal preference would probably be a pair of docking port jrs mounted to each of the sides.

My spacecraft stay in orbit forever, getting reused over and over until they're obsolete. This saves a ton of money over detaching the command pod and landing it (and junking everything else.) The obvious problem however is how to get kerbals and data back home. For years now I've been trying to build the holy grail of crew rotation transports, which for me is a craft that is the following: Gets to orbit and precisely back to KSC with no staging or discarded parts. Carries at least 4 kerbals as passengers (can operate with 0). Is bloody effortless to fly, takes off vertically, lands vertically with parachutes. I am a rocket scientist, not a jet pilot. Has no wings. See #3 for why. (Some may remember my previous thread about my troubled relationship with wings.) Vanilla parts. I believe at last I have done so. Behold, the Air Taxi. This thing is so easy to fly it brings tears to my eyes. Crew rotation and science recovery have never been easier. I felt compelled to share.

I can still get into orbit. ..but I use 95% of my fuel in doing so and can't get to the Mun anymore. This is quite the change from my earlier Joolian adventures!

Better late that never, but I need to take some time and apologize to LethalDose. I made a snarky remark at zerotwo's math, since he was adding the cost of a decoupler to every RT-10 and then concluding that the RT-10 was too expensive. Lethaldose read the remark and thought I was telling him his rocket design was 'doing it wrong'. That was not my intention, and it just goes to show how shooting your mouth off can have unintended consequences. My bad.

Point conceded on part count. I'm playing a new game right now and have yet to hit the 30 piece limit, but I am coming close. However, cost was actually covered in the OP. The RT-10s are cheaper. And if you're putting a decoupler on every booster, then you're doing it wrong. See the pic I posted, an unlimited number of boosters can ride on one decoupler.

Speaking of easy to slap on, I think from now on every rocket I send up will be riding on some variant of this: Need more thrust? Stack more radially outward. Need more burn time? Stack more radially outward and then tune their thrust limiter down.

I've been trying to really fine-tune my first ascent stage, and when I broke down the numbers I saw something kind of odd. Consider this very basic comparison of two RT-10 SRBs vs one BACC. Remember that the BACC is the higher tech option and requires science to unlock. [TABLE=width: 500, align: left] [TR] [TD]RT-10s[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Cost[/TD] [TD]325[/TD] [TD]x2[/TD] [TD]650[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Thrust[/TD] [TD]250[/TD] [TD]x2[/TD] [TD]500[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Fuel (tons)[/TD] [TD]3.25[/TD] [TD]x2[/TD] [TD]6.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Engine (dead weight, tons)[/TD] [TD]0.4975[/TD] [TD]x2[/TD] [TD]0.995[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]isp[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]225[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]BACC[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Cost[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]700[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Thrust[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]315[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Fuel[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]6.37[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Engine[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]1.505[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]isp[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]230[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So unless I'm missing something huge, the more advanced unit is getting me 5 isp in exchange for being heavier, having less fuel, less thrust, more dead weight, and being more expensive. Five points of isp can't possibly make up for a half ton of additional dead weight, can it? Since you can stack RT-10s radially outward on to infinity, and tune the thrust limiter exactly how you like, is there any scenario in which the BACC is desired?

Kerbal is a fantastic sandbox so don't listen to anyone who tells you that a given way is the wrong way. That said, if you're a beginner, what you probably want is the most simple way, until you've learned enough to get fancy. The most simple way is to keep only your main engine turned on for that portion of the tutorial, that way your vectors and the navball agree

Also mechjeb is cheating

My solution is to do exactly the same thing you do when trying to make two spacecraft encounter each other, for example to dock a lander to an orbiter. Here is a plan for Duna: Step one: Escape Kerbin orbit. You are now in a circular orbit around the sun very similar to Kerbin's orbit. Step two: Target Duna and match it's inclination (via the ascending and descending nodes.) DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Step three: Burn prograde at your periapsis to push your apoapsis out until it is TANGENT TO DUNA's ORBIT. Observe that the 'next encounter position' markers have appeared in your orbit path and Duna's orbit path. Step four: Watch the next encounter position markers. Since your apoapsis is tangent to duna, but your periapsis is not, you are on a SHORTER ORBIT than Duna, therefore you are circling the sun faster than it is. This means that your orbits will eventualyl SYNCRONIZE. Fast forward until your orbits are nearly syncronized. Step five: Start using maneuver nodes AT YOUR APOAPSIS ONLY and find a prograde burn that simultaniously pushes your periapsis out to make your orbit match Duna's, and also encounter Duna. This may take several revolutions. If any of this is baffling to you, practice docking orbiters and landers around Mun or Minmus. The procedure is essentially identical, and those moons are a much friendlier and more fuel efficient place to practice.

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for. All this information should be posted to the wiki. (Unless it already is, but I sure couldn't find it there.)

Actually you can do so quite easily by flying over your target, deploying chutes, and powered landing carefully to guide your fall. This design assumes zero wind (which KSP has.. for now..) and also a kerbal nearby who can magically 'repack' those chutes with zero complications from this act. (Which KSP has. For now.) This... seems like magic to me, but I'm no rocket scientist. Thank you for actually answering the question However, now I have to ask, is this in real world physics only? Or does this work in KSP as well? So far my experiments with wings tend to end in less efficient flights, but this could because I'm doing it wrong.

Peter1981 just gave an awesome and factual answer to why we should use air-breathing engines. It was a good read and I honestly feel bad saying this but uh.. what about the wings? The question was about wings. Nobody's arguing that air engines aren't awesome, I use them all the time. My "big dumb boosters" are air breathing.

Can you explain this in better detail? My (totally uneducated) assumption was that an engine with 100 thrust units, with wings, pointed horizontally east, is generating something like 90 acceleration units east (due to wing drag), and 10 acceleration units up (due to lift). Acceleration can't magically come from nowhere, so it'd have to be converted from horizontal to vertical. Right? Since I can simply point my nose upward at a 9 degree angle (9 is 10% of 90 degrees), I can achieve the same effect (90 east, 10 up). I'm sure someone can poke a massive hole in my assumptions here, and that's what I want. I want to know how this stuff works.