Skorpychan

So, if you dock up to something with a load of big panels, it will charge your batteries automatically?

It's basically a big battery, though.

But how do you adjust it precisely? I always find it goes crazily off somewhere, and can't be dragged back easily.

Sherman Kerman. Named after a tank, but sadly died in an accident involving an SRB, some wheels, a cockpit, and a runway.

So far: - Designed a new heavy lift booster - Launched it with a probe to test. - Launched it with a crew - Accidentally jettisoned the top stage in orbit. Whoops. - Sent up another crew, along with a station component to start my space station. - Sent up an unmanned fuel tank on it, to act as a bowser for future missions. - Plotted the design of a munshot. - Designed, launched, and got a space station into a stable orbit. Hell YES. Now to crew it.

One mainsail engine, eight big SRBs around the bottom, and 16 smaller ones around those. Got a nuclear-engined robot final stage into orbit, with a good amount of fuel still in the previous stage for orbital burns. I'm roughly following NASA's efforts, but skipping bits that are difficult. EDIT: Ran a few missions up with a new design. Turns out, liquid-fuelled mainsail boosters work great. A mere 7 engines, and I was able to get most of the way into orbit with a full XL tank. And the second, smaller tank got me into a proper orbit. Pootling around up there on a slightly mismatched upper stage (fat tank, skinny rocket motor). (At least, with the one I didn't accidentally jettison. Whoops.) A hitch-hiker can and a 3-kerbal pod got up just fine, surprisingly.

Maybe bonus score for bringing bits back, or leaving them reusable on kerbin? Maybe for least fuel used, as well.

I'm reaching the limits of what I can accomplish with a single main engine and a lot of SRBs. Can I just stick fuel tanks with engines onto each other and fasten them down with struts to get additional thrust and lower center of mass? Will the multiple-radial-items function still work properly on multiple tanks? If I make a first stage from the multiple fat rocket components, how do I get them to connect to a single thin one further up? Do I just have to use a single 'core' stage, or is there a trick to it? Is it viable to launch something up in multiple flights, dock and assemble in orbit, and then jet off to the final destination from there? Or is it so mind-numbingly fiddly to synch orbits and dock things together that it's just simpler to launch the whole thing as a huge single load? Is it possible to make fuel tank stacks empty from the bottom upwards? Can I use struts to fasten stages to each other to avoid wobble, without them ending up stuck together when jettisoned? What happens to all the fuel tanks and boosters I drop on the way up?

I'll give that a shot, then. Further questions, while I have a thread open: - Rover transport. How do I get them nice and compact so they don't destabilise an ascent stage? - Is it practical to push rovers and landers up into orbit separately from the crew, and dock them up later?

The 'rover body' is too small to fit any sort of crew compartment on and have anywhere to place the wheels. I tried sticking wheels directly on the crew compartment, and they came apart in the middle, fell over, and exploded. I can't have things exploding on the mun. Not when the debris might make orbit.

I have trouble getting the 2*2 panels to stick together on edge, though. Is there a trick to it?

Poking through the stock parts, I can't find anything satisfactory in size and shape for a munar rover chassis. Lots of struts and girders, but nothing solid and boxy. What's recommended for something to carry 1-3 kerbals across the mun in style?