Kuu Lightwing

I like the science lab. I have three of them right now - at LKO, Mun and Minmus (All were conveninetly placed as contract stations). I just stuff them with data and do other stuff. Sometimes I check the labs to get some science or refill them with data gathered by landers (at the Mun/Minmus), dunno about LKO one.

By the way, has anybody had with clipping stuff inside a bay? My Duna lander probe was shaking and I think that was an issue with the service bay... Looks like something inside the bay was colliding with the bay or something like that...

Wow, Roflcopter, that looks stunning! Now, remove those 2000 unnecessary oxidizer units and try again Also, if I'm not mistaken, part clipping would be strong with nuFAR, wouldn't it?

I don't know how it feels yet - haven't launched a huge interplanetary mission like I did before. I actually need to get somewhere else. Duna is nice and red and Ike is awesome, but uh. Actually according to my Duna lander, heat isn't that much of an issue in 1.0.2. I got Duna landing and Science from Duna parts of the contract but not "Orbit Duna" ones - so it was just straight (re)entry with interplanetary speeds.

... Low thrust? I tried to use it as a transfer engine for a huge spacecraft... It just destroyed the craft when I pressed "z"... while being thrust limited to 50.

Looks like it also affects crew respawn if you use it. I lost Bob and two more guys when I crashed a station halfway to orbit, and since they listed as KIA, they are not coming back...

Just returned from the Minmus Research Station with Bill and a girl who was stranded at the high Minmus orbit. While I'm learning new aero and stuff, I turned on crew respawn, so she resurrected like 3 times already...

Wait, 90 m/s per pass? Or is it 90 m/s delta-V using engines? Well, I don't think many players would be happy aerobraking for months like MRO did...

I've seen some complaints when people tried to use vacuum engines in atmo. Guess how that ended And I'm not sure if Eve is possible now - seen some complaints, too. I actually feel bad that I've never returned from any planet other than Duna... And I have 325 hours in KSP >_<

Darn, it looks awesome. How far can it fly, though? Is there any chance making an SSTO like that with at least some payload?

Is there even real world examples of aerocapture? Aerobraking is a different beast, though. As for delicate systems MRO did aerobrake on Mars using his solar panels

Docking port? Power? Antenna?

It's getting annoying actually. I got my LKO full of their capsules and I keep getting more of those contracts. I feel bad for not doing them, but honestly, that got old pretty quick.

At which speeds? You do not push a Cessna through Mach 1 in a dive.

Is it just two SABREs?

Maybe airbrakes heat up and transfer heat to other parts? EDIT: Sorry, didn't notice part about heat tolerance.

Skylon seems to be a favorite design for 1.0 And for not crashing, disable temperature gauges... I did that too with my SSTO...

If you know what to do an where to get science, nope. Otherwise it might be. And I really wish I could get Terrier engine earlier... Swivel doesn't really work as second stage engine... Oh, and gorram ladders, too!

It's interesting, but it looks like new heating is balanced for spaceplanes. BBQ speed seems to be higher - I managed to get to like 1200 m/s in upper atmosphere (on RAPIERs) while it blew up at ~1000 before...

Thanks for the help! I actually managed to put my SSTO into orbit!

Umm, I just made this Skylon-ish SSTO plane. 21 ton on the runway, puts ~2.2ton scan sat into orbit. 10% payload fraction. Oh, forgot to mention... into POLAR orbit.

You might try to switch to closed cycle for a couple of seconds to get past 500 m/s, I think... After that they would kick in on on open-cycle.

If they are going to do more tweaks, I think it would be a good idea to get the experimental team to test it first. Amount of rants on reddit and this forum is off the scale already :/ Test reentry from different places, test jet engine planes (At least some of them should be able to fly faster than Mach 1, but slower than Mach 2 IMO), Test turbo-ramjet planes so that they don't go BBQ speed at sea level, but able to get fast at an altitude. Maybe add a turbojet engine to be a middle-ground between SR-71 engines and basic jets. Oh, and fix F12 being aero overlay by default, because that does mess up with Steam screenshot.

I'm not sure about 1.0.2 compared to 1.0. Shuttle landing at 25 m/s might be a bit too much and I don't like that the sound barrier is so hard to break without turbo-ramjets. I mean, there's only one example of turbo-ramjet IRL and quite a lot of planes flying over Mach 1. There are even an AIRLINER that CRUISES at Mach 2. But on the other hand, in 1.0 it's stupidly easy to get to Mach 3 at sea level. Just no-brainer - add two turbo-ramjets to your plane and you're good. Plane size doesn't matter. As for the OP's question, what's a "realistic SSTO"? Apollo LM? All Earth SSTOs are nothing more than concepts and AFAIR lots of them are lifting bodies with little to no wings. Skylon is literally an oversized cruise missile. What other space planes do we have? Space shuttle? Delta-wing with small wings. Dream Chaser (not yet operational)? Lifting body with tiny wings. X-15? You got the idea. Slapping some wing surfaces on a plane doesn't make it more aerodynamic... Maybe it makes it LOOK somewhat aerodynamic, but only to a degree. Yeah, it's my first post, sorry. I was mostly posting on Reddit before. Oh, and sorry for my English - I'm not a native speaker and mostly learned from the internet.