OrbitsR4Sissies

I love rovers. But Eve is an enigma. It'll break your rovers unless heavily fortified. And then, the rover is heavier, slower and doesn't get far on the planet, especially since much of it has Explodium seas and lakes. While I'd love to go the full "Dragonfly" route as NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab will do in going to Titan, I realized that Eve is really much like Titan, atmospherically. The thick atmosphere would make flight work fine, provided you could power your propeller rotors. Come "Breaking Ground," the option for electric rotors came. I haven't worked out a Dragonfly option but for Eve, here's my next best thing: The Hummingbird. A simple Twin-Boar booster put a nuclear-powered cruise stage with the flying rover into Eve orbit. The dV was perfect; nothing was wasted. Entry and stability are great. On separation from the heat shield, avoiding recontact was a challenge. I later updated the craft with Separatons to push the heat shield away. Hummingbird takes off with as little speed as 40 m/s. Flies great. An RTG was added but it's not really required; solar power was sufficient. The rover arm is a nice touch but is also optional. Used the medium one because it is a challenge to get the vehicle C/M and CoL right with the colossal OP-E. You can enjoy it yourself from KerbalX.

It's the 47th anniversary of the last crewed lunar landing mission of the Apollo program. Ben Feist (KSP player himself, now a NASA historian and also involved with the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary film), created the Apollo 17 in Real Time website four years ago. This site, during the anniversary, syncs to real time coverage of the entire mission as it progressed years ago. Every second from 1 minute to launch to splashdown is covered. Video and audio is time-synced. All available photos are there. Visit https://apollo17.org/ to enjoy. This summer, an Apollo 11 in Real Time version was created, for the mission's 50th anniversary, that you can enjoy. And little birdies are telling me that an Apollo 13 version is in the works.

Scott Manley's video reflects my sentiments. I posted an answer to a Quora question, which reflected more on ISRO's struggles to engage the public. Their issue is that, unlike NASA and ESA but more like the former Soviet Union, ISRO melds its military and scientific objectives. ISRO does not have to freely give information as NASA is mandated. So there seems to be a "saving face" issue going on. A comment in my question from an Indian citizen or national also provides some perspective on why ISRO is reluctant to discuss matters as freely. The sad part is that ISRO is really a great force of people. They put an orbiter around Mars on their first try. No one has their success record there.

I would agree here, noting that you're replying in the WS thread as I did. The maker of WorldStabilizer notes that his mod isn't tested with 1.8 as he hadn't purchased it at the time of my report. Similar to the OP, I was trying to use Deployed Science on Duna in 1.8.1. I got "Cannot deploy part when not on a planet" each time I tried to place a DS item. A check in the Console revealed that WS was trying, as designed, to allow the items to settle. But WS appears to work too well because the parts have their own settling scheme. Zeno's Paradox as a result; the parts continually travel but never reach the surface. Removing WS and all was well with the DS deployment.

Hey Whale. Got a potential bug for you that anyone should be able to replicate. It may be that World Stabilizer works too well when it comes to Deployed Science parts. I was deploying the various experiments for Duna, starting with solar arrays with the current version in place. Using 1.8.1 with both DLCs (of course) in the Western Canyon. I have a Kerbal place a module. It appears to settle to the surface, slowly, before I see the game error "Can't deploy part when it is not on a planet." Tried placing the modules on different inclines but the result was the same. During one return to the landing site after diddling with other spacecraft, the communications dish module continually killed itself by submerging and colliding with the surface. I was only able to save it by immediately going into time warp to let the game help itself. That was a one-time occurrence and happened only with the comm part. Took a look at the logs as seen from the Cheats menu and it notes how World Stabilizer was easing the parts down to settle, and settle and settle, with that error message appearing as part of the text. So I saved, exited the game, and then removed WS and then returned to the game--hoping that my crew rover would not bounce itself into the surface. All the Deployed Science placed itself happily without complaint this time, no matter the slope. I returned WS and prepared to take my crew home from their hab home to the lander, where the experiments were, separated about 2.2 km. As my rover passed by the experiments, they were making their game noise and appeared to be on the surface and operating. But then "Can't deploy part when it is not on a planet" appeared once I was close enough to some of the modules. I think the experiments will work OK now that the lander is gone and I'm out of physics range, but I will check and post what I see for you to consider later.

You can visit this thread, which has a workaround that should get your versions going. The thread does not note if mods are installed on their installs. Be mindful that, when KSP stalls on loading, it's almost certainly because of mod incompatibility. Remove them ALL, or make a fresh installation, test, and then find and remove any offending mods if needed.

That's something we don't see in KSP, even in realism mods. It's called plume recirculation, and it was normal.

And that Little Joe wasn’t meant to destruct.

With DPAI's toolbar icon literally coming and going randomly in 1.8.1, I wanted to move to Hullcam since I've gotten a bead now on orbital maneuvering at close range, thanks to lots of DPAI work. I'm using MacOS and have installed the entire mod manually and believe ModuleManager is in place. But there doesn't seem to be a general tutorial/readme on how to use the various cameras beyond activating one with "-" and "+". Some quick questions: Which cameras activate the docking port view with the alignment crosshairs? How is the docking range/range rate display brought up in docking mode? Where should the cameras be placed for docking mode? How is docking mode activated? I've placed a camera just on the exterior of a pod, next to the docking port, then attempted a rendezvous with a selected docking target. No joy. I just see the exterior view exactly where the camera is placed.

The question seemed to be asking about engines that aren’t the peculiar tank+engine clusters that KSP offers. So my comparison is more appropriate, at least in appearance. The Twin Boar itself isn’t a single engine in appearance. That said, the Twin-Boar’s shape and two engine appearance is more comparable to the SM-65 Atlas rocket (with no center sustainer engine or half-stage). The power of the Twin Boar is more comparable with the Rhino, and both of those are superior against a single Mastodon or Mainsail, if I am reading the wiki correctly.

How have I lived without this mod for so long, and with so many rovers in many game saves? I've avoided the mod primarily because I love driving across the vistas of various worlds. With 1.8's retextures, more so than ever. But there are days when I need to get things done, and driving for hours is a bit taxing. So, with Waypoint Manager also installed, I'm looking forward to many adventures in exploring every meter of most words. Thanks for keeping this mod up and running!

The first two Saturn V flights were unmanned. For those who'd like a little more history: The first Saturn V launch, Apollo 4, was an "all-up" test. Rather than making a launch test only of the S-I-C first stage, then the S-I-C with the S-II second stage, NASA, falling beyond in their development schedule to get a lunar landing mission in before 1970, decided to launch the whole damn thing at once. If that's not Kerbal before KSP existed, I don't know what is. They checked their staging, though. Apollo 4 proved out the Saturn V's general performance and confirmed the Command/Service Module's performance, from its SPS engine to the heat shield. The next test launch, Apollo 6, was a bit more dramatic. NASA engineers checked their staging, but didn't use enough struts. The first stage engines vibrated and oscillated so wildly that parts of the fairing atop the third stage, where the Lunar Module would eventually be housed, shook pieces off in-flight, leaving holes you could see from ground cameras. Then the second stage's engines also did the POGO dance, causing the computer to shut down one engine and, because of a mis-wiring, shutting down a second engine, leaving the vehicle to limp into orbit with just three J-2 engines. The third stage engine didn't restart either, forcing an alternate test mission that proved out the Saturn V enough for its third flight, the historic circumlunar manned mission of Apollo 8.

The Mainsail is KSP's functional (but not cosmetic) counterpart to the Rocketdyne F-1 engine, which powered the Saturn V moon rocket. With Making History's introduction, the Kerbodyne KE-1 "Mastodon" is slightly less powerful than the Mainsail but has better ISP, and is cosmetically most like the F-1.

Especially with today's NG-12 Cygnus launch, I couldn't get the word "Nominal" out my head.

KSP 1.8 alone adds most of the new boosters. But you'll need the Making History DLC to get an additional booster. If this isn't your question, try rephrasing and clarifying for us, or check the Technical Support thread if you think the issue may be a bug. (Update: Poster's question now appears in Technical Support, so never mind.)