Cornholio29

I haven't tried one yet using mainsails. Why? Because with this current design, when you flick on the power for that brief period of time, the whole structure flexes, and when you shut the engines back off, it "springs" back into position; which often results in the cannon going airborne. With some small modifications; it could definitely be done in such a way that you could use mainsails without that deadly flexing.

The pictures do all the talking. http://imgur.com/a/11GjM What's happening here is that you land the Kerbal on the upward-facing thrusters, and activate them at full throttle for a second to send the Kerbal up into the air at incredible speeds. I calculated the Kerbal's launch speed to be about ~467m/s, which is enough to escape Minmus but not the Mun. I just used conservation of energy to calculate initial velocity (Ui+Ki=Uf+Kf). I am also a physics major My next goal is to launch a Kerbal from Minmus back into Kerbin's atmosphere. Has anyone else tried anything similar?