[First Flight (Epilogue and Last Thoughts)]

Amazing stuff, KSK! Your writing really captures the excitement of a space program in its infancy! Keep it up!

[First Flight (Epilogue and Last Thoughts)]

Fantastic writing, sir! Can't wait to read more!

[Why is the cupola so *heavy*?]

All those rubber balls on the rooftop at Grumman...the one's Tom Kelly threw each time they had an issue....I see them like dead Kerbals up there, LOL.

Haha oh man that's definitely one of my top three favorite episodes. It's up there with The Al Bean Show

[I'm doing a Duna landing and return with a spaceplane, any advice?]

Wasn't able to determine this by reading your post, but have you landed on the Mun and returned? If not, I would start there.

As far as Duna ... use parachutes for your landing (use the big drag chute PLUS the normal ones) -- the atmosphere is thin, but the chutes should work just fine for you. As far as a spaceplane ... that is going to be very hard because the atmosphere is so thin -- you'll have to use rockets for 99.9% of the trip.

Good advice on the parachutes. I would also look into the drogue shoot and/or adding lots of struts to your design. I ran into issues on Duna with my lander coming apart at 500 ft AGL when the main chutes all deployed. Because the atmosphere is so much thinner, you're going much faster at 500 ft than you typically are on Kerbin. Thankfully I got all of the bugs ironed out of my lander before sending it down with a crew!

[Tips to optimize Delta V]

That's an interesting tip about using 3-4 LV-909's but one problem I always seem to encounter is staging. To be specific, with a Poodle, you can easily build a stage under it, but how do you do that with a cluster of 909's? Also, does clustering 3-4 909's on a 3m rocket require enabling clipping?

[The Accordion Problem]

Thanks all! Struts between the orange and white tanks really did the trick. My large exploration ship is now ready for its maiden voyage (destination TBD)!

[The Accordion Problem]

I'm attempting to put a tanker into LKO to service my interplanetary transport ship, but I keep running into the same issue. The goal is to get a full orange tank into orbit, but my mainsail engines keep plowing through my stack. My lifter is pretty standard: four well-strutted 2.5m boosters, each three Rockomax Jumbo tanks tall, around a core that is one orange tank on top of two Rockomax Jumbo Tanks. Each stack has a Mainsail under it. Has anyone else run into the issue of mainsails causing their stack to accordion? What causes this? Too high of a TWR? Too much thrust under a heavy payload? The ship has very little wobble as is, so I'm having a tough time trouble shooting. Thanks!

[How often do you Quicksave?]

Never, but only because I've never gotten it to work on my Mac. I can quick save but my quickload doesn't work even if I enable function keys. As a result, my space program operates on a much more realistic schedule of testing individual ships in order to minimize risk on more complicated missions.

[Greetings!]

Hi everyone! I've been playing KSP for a few months now and lurking here for about as long, so I thought it'd be a good time to sign up for an account and say hello. I also wanted to express what a great time I'm having with this game! I've been in love with flight (both air and space) for my entire life, and KSP just lets me be an eight year old kid all over again. I'm really looking forward to becoming more involved in this great community!