MrBark
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Posts posted by MrBark
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I don\'t think it\'d be that hard. Launch into an orbit just lower than what you want to rendezvous with, wait until you meet up -- since you\'ll be traveling slightly faster than the target vehicle-- and then perform a low-to-high transfer and viola. Rendezvous from the surface of the Mun.
That\'s basically what I did. It took a long while, but it works. I did it all with the stock game too, no add-ins.
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I would like to join the club with my Cradle-4, [v14][stock][Mun-Lander]:
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This ship is even better than the last! I found that I could change direction under booster power, just not at 100%. I also had a TON of fuel to land on the Mun and get home. I still had some fuel in the boosters for Munar Orbit Insertion. They lasted that long. It was almost too easy! I hope you guys have as much fun as I do flying it.
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Welcome! Cool ship.
Write down the RCS controls and have them in front of you. After a while, the munar landings will seem routine, if not easy.
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That\'s cool. The closest I came was after a munar mission. I landed in the ocean to the east, but I did see the blinking lights of the space center at night as I passed over.
Shame about the boys, though.
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Nice post. Cool mission! Welcome aboard.
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[move][/move]
Yes, that\'s correct. A direct approach is a quicker method, but you have thousands of meters per second to kill before you get down to the surface and that number grows as long as you aren\'t burning your engine. If I were you, I would get into an orbit of at least 1KM, though. 500 is very low and I have seen people crash with that low of an orbit. I was passing over some mountains yesterday and felt unsafe in some areas even at 1KM. And of course, from 1,000 meters up, you\'re more likely to have enough time to be able to get rid of all your orbital velocity and come in for a straight descent.
I swear I have landed crashed into a mountain with an elevation of around 725 meters. I have no idea where on the mun though.
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I could not download this Saturday evening. The server was too busy. I said to my wife, 'Just wait, I\'ll download it first thing Sunday morning without a problem because the gamers will be sleeping at that point after playing all night.'
It was a safe bet, and sure enough...
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Any advice for landing in a specific area? I always have difficulty doing that, and when you\'re aiming to make a Mun base, it\'s kinda important...
Easiest option, IMO: Maria, the dark grey portions of the Mun. When viewing the Mun from Kerbin, note the one on the left. It\'s pretty equatorial. Prime target #1, in my book.
Establish a 50K x 50K equatorial orbit around the Mun travelling 270-degrees, clockwise when viewing the Mun above it\'s north pole. When your ship crosses the Mun\'s orbital path behind it\'s direction of travel, i.e. when it comes from the far-side to the Kerbin-side, deorbit so the crash landing site is on the far western (left) edge of that 'sea'.
Then, cruise until you get over the 'sea\'s' eastern (right) edge, and power the engine for a landing attempt. I mean, you\'ll at least crash there, but if you\'re good, you\'ll land there.
Rationale, if you always fly with the same reference points, you should be in the ballpark, but your manual flying skills will determine how close you actually get.
Please note, I\'ve done this with the version 13 small engine with no problems. I haven\'t gotten around to testing the newest version 14 small engine, so I don\'t know if it has enough thrust to land with this flight profile. I look forward to trying it though.
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I was working on a way to get around this, by injecting high-energy plasma through a coil to make a powerful magnetic field that warps space.
But the night before our test flight, the E-Con bombarded our silo with some kind of green energy weapon, Dina got me drunk, and her weird friend with the banana clip on his face fixed the thing for me.
Fortunately, we got Phoenix into the sky. Banana clip guy, Dina\'s 'not BF', and I were all rocking out to Steppenwolf. Swedish hitmen from the future nearly ruined everything. But Dina\'s friends showed up in a big ole UFO! You believe me, right? 8)
I believe everything but the banana clip. Are you SURE about that one?
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Out-dated THE VERY DAY I post it. LMAO.
Oh well, v0.14 Cradle-4 has been built and, thanks to the save feature, is currently enroute to the Mun. If you two guys who downloaded Cradles 2&3 enjoyed it, you\'ll love 4. I added some new features, and now an enhanced lander can make it into orbit in under two stages, meaning TMI can be accomplished partially with the boosters, a fuel savings!
I want a successful mission before posting the .craft file though, so you two stay tuned.
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Really? Under BOOSTER power? I\'m surprised.
However, MrBark Rocketry Designs Inc. cannot be held liable for any and all damages, including loss of life, resulting from operating the rocket outside of designed parameters.
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I think I posted everywhere EXCEPT the right place, so here\'s my Cradle-3. I\'ve had four successful munar landings, and two successful munar missions with it. Enjoy, but remember this: DON\'T CHANGE DIRECTION UNDER BOOSTER POWER. Wait for apoasis to be 70K, around 40K of altitude, shutdown, tilt, power up. Also, remember to dump the boosters when the four engines cut out.
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Final velocity doesn\'t decide whether you\'ll change to Kerbin\'s SoI, your apoapsis does, as OP thought. Minimum altitude is (IIRC) 2400-odd km. 2500 should get you out neatly, though you\'ll have significant velocity to burn off, so your 5000-km exit might actually be more efficient.
Just tried 2.5. It works, but you\'re right. The orbit I ended up in wasn\'t as efficient. Not solid on the math, but I\'m pretty sure the fuel I used to raise my apoasis up from 2.5 to 5 was definitely less than the fuel I used to change the orbit that 2.5 put me into.
Now I\'m curious what the most efficient apoasis would be, but those math skills left me long ago, if I ever had them.
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Height doesn\'t really matter, the escape velocity is all you need (about 600 m/s, if I recall correctly.)
But there is a lot to be found, so I\'ll continue experimenting with it. So far, I had a lucky Munar takeoff that put me in a 'fall like a brick' orbit back, no other burns required to land on the surface, no giant 800+ km orbit. still trying to replicate
Cool. I know this game\'s depiction of gravity and sphere\'s of influence isn\'t real-life, as there is no gradual change between the two sphere\'s of influence in the game, so I wasn\'t sure if that made altitude more relevant somehow. That\'s not to say I was smart enough to know the escape velocity before you said it. I wasn\'t. Thanks!
Sidebar: I\'m also interested, in-game reality, of keeping G-Forces down to real-life survivable levels. Fall like a brick may work, but what G\'s are there? My friend flew a successful mission, but experienced 50+ G\'s! I gave him a hard time and said it was hardly a success, just to give him the hard time.
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By Kerbal, do you mean Kerbin?
Dang it! I knew a quick reply was based on something stupid I posted. Thanks for the heads-up.
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SIAP: Trans-Kerbin Injection
Would love a better flyer to try this out. I\'m trying to pin down the bare minimum apoasis figure.
Scenerio: Munar orbit (or suborbit if just launched from surface), heading of 270-degrees west.
Steps: Wait for Kerbin to set. Fire up engines. Get apoasis to be 5M(?) on mun\'s orbit directly behind it (opposite it\'s direction around Kerbin).
What happens: As the Mun goes around Kerbin, you fall out of it\'s sphere of influence. End up in a eccentric Kerbin orbit with periapsis around 200K-300K. Still far enough out to immediately fire engines retrograde and bring periapsis into the atmosphere.
Question: What\'s the minimum value for the munar apoasis to break orbit this way? This seems very fuel efficient to me, but more eyes on it would be appreciated. I\'m still a rookie earning his wings.
Sorry if this particular TKI has been posted before. I searched but didn\'t see anything.
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Do you have any tips on fuel efficiency? Especially for escaping the atomosphere and making a stable orbit. All my designs have been large and brutish just to ensure that there is more than enough fuel from TMI onwards. I\'m temped to design a couple of smaller munar crafts using the single RCS return design.
sal_vager\'s comments are good. I think something to keep in mind though, and this is something sal_vager opened my eyes to, is that if you can get your acceleration INSANELY HIGH, you don\'t even need to do all that much to achieve orbit. The drawback of monster rockets, besides the lag I experience in the game, is it takes a...long...time...to build up acceleration, and you lose it quickly when the thrust goes down, like at staging. You end up working your way into orbit. With my craft, based on sal_vager\'s skif, I think I\'m in the 200-300/mps range at first staging and 400+/mps when I perform my first and only pitch-over, which is why I can afford to completely shutdown to change direction for an extended period. It\'s so light, that thing almost falls into orbit. Not really, but it is FUN to fly it.
If you want any specific tips about flying Cradle-2, let me know.
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Great success! I feel so good, I had to share the mission in my own thread here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7917.msg115383#msg115383
However, I did want you to see the craft file. Turns out my ideas for Cradle-3 weren\'t good, so I went back to Cradle-2 and landed on the Mun instead. Thanks again for the inspiration.
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I\'ve also had better luck performing a munar orbit insertion rather than direct descent. I think it\'s easier, as your velocity is less and you have more time to pick a landing spot, such as landing in the maria.
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I\'m not beta-testing 14, but if this checks out, it should be put on the wiki as a tutorial!
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7/10
A little girly, but I find it relaxing to look at. LOL.
To defend mine in advance, I do love the cowbell.
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I\'ll try to get around to it in the next few days. I was up late playing, so I\'m pretty tired and probably won\'t fire up the game tonight.
Also, I have a few ideas that I might try to implement. I named my incarnations Cradle because it seemed the boosters were cradling the CSM to me. Cradle-1 was really your design, with x4 boosters instead of x2. Cradle-2 had my x4 tricoupled engines added at the bottom. I\'m thinking of some slight redesigns for Cradle-3\'s CSM. I also might redo the struts so it doesn\'t look so ugly if I\'m going to show it to other people too. LOL.
I would love to check out the other crafts. (I really need more free time.)
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I took this design and added my own touches. I have to thank you. I FINALLY have a fun ship to fly with few parts, so my computer won\'t get bogged down during launch. I think it\'ll be my work-horse for version 13.2, possibly beyond with tweaks.
I changed the main part, so it\'s now: Parachute/CM > Stack Decoupler / ASAS / RCS & thrusters / Stack Decoupler / Engine
Then, I did everything in fours instead of a pair. For the landing wings, I used two sets of four, eight total, straddling the four booster stacks. On the booster stacks, I topped them with SASs and put two sets of wings on them, eight total, four on top, four on bottom.
Then below the four booster stacks, I threw four stack decouplers, then four tricouplers holding one tank / engine combo each, for a total of twelve tanks and engines. I also added support beams out the whazoo to ensure the thing stayed solid during launch, no wiggling.
The staging goes like this. The Tricoupled Boosters (12 engines) get me to the stratosphere straight up. Then, the 4-sided enhanced design of your craft gets me almost to orbit. With four full tanks and one engine. I can achieve orbit, TMI, and land on the Mun, only breaking a couple of wings in the process! I have confidence I will be able to return the crew safely one day when I improve my flying skills.
(Unfortunately, my first landing resulted in total fuel depletion after launching into munar orbit. Those poor guys found themselves stuck there forever. My second landing hit a bug in the game or something. I landed with zero velocity in good working order, minus two broken wings. Then, I positioned the camera to see Kerbal and hit time compression so I could watch it go through phases. I did this on the first flight with no problems. When I hit time compression, the ship broke on me for no reason, so they\'re stuck there now too.)
A couple of weird things about my design though. First, you can\'t see the CM until jettisoning the boosters unless you move the camera, no big deal. The second however is more serious, but not a problem if you fly it correctly. My design does not like changing direction under power until after the seperation of the four booster stacks. I lose all control if I attempt pitch-over under power. It\'s not intuitive, but also not a problem. The thing climbs like a bat out of hell! Going straight up at launch, I can achieve apoasis of 70K when I\'m at 40K altitude. I just shutdown the rocket, pitch over to the horizon, and power on again. There\'s plenty of time. I\'ll just consider it 'character,' as I\'m quite content with the end result of launch.
If anyone is interested, I can post a *.craft file, but I don\'t have access to it now. I think I described it well enough for anyone wanting to try it now though. I did want to thank you though, because for the first time I\'m experiencing a lot of fun with minimal frustrations!
Munar Surface Rendezvous
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted
Finally, I was able to recreate the Apollo 12 mission of surface rendezvous. Unlike Apollo 12, I was trying to join up with another manned craft. Hopefully, NASA will actually do this one day.
I launched two missions back to back. Differences in the orbit meant that one crew had less fuel, so I landed them first. The crew with more fuel was given the tough job of landing next to them.
I found at from previous attempts that it\'s a lot easier if you orient the camera and the 8-ball so that the directions match. It\'s easier to eyeball it.
I know a lot of you have done this already. I salute you. It was tough but fun!
From above.
From the side.
From the second lander, the experienced crew.
From the first lander, the rookies.
The map.
The Kerbal postage stamp.