Ivan Ivanovich

Here\'s the simple method to the 'perfect' Mun burn. 1. Get into orbit. 2. Get on the overview map (using M) 3. Look at it from 'above', so you see your orbit as a pretty good circle, along with the circle describing the Mun-orbit 4. Turn it around so the Mun is in the upper right corner of your screen. 5. Wait until your rocket is 'below' Kerbin on its orbit. Adjust the rotation of the map to keep the Mun in the upper right corner of your screen. 6. Once your rocket is 'below' Kerbin, throttle up towards the direction vector. Your orbit 'above' Kerbin will expand. 7. Keep throttling up until your apogee is just inside the Mun orbit. IIRC it\'s like 11 million meters. 8. Wait for the Mun to capture you.

Tried to log in to the store, apparently it remembers the EMail I registered with (at least that\'s the email I use for my paypal account), so I guess it must have some kind of information stored. I received an email on Sept 25th informing me that my donation was received, along with a link that should allow me to use the store. It doesn\'t, though. Most likely because the email used here on the boards is not the same email that I used to pay. If there is any way to resolve this issue, please inform me. Thanks!

My usual shameless plug: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4137.0 With this out of the way, what you probably want to learn is Hohmann Transfer Orbits. Wikipedia lists a fair lot of info about it, but what you need from it is simply that you should burn at apogee and perigee to raise or lower your orbits. Burning at apogee changes perigee and vice versa. You might want to read the second part of the linked tutorial.

It\'s actually not that hard once you get the hang of it. What you need is simply: ASAS RCS 6-8 RCS thrusters around the top of your craft some spare fuel to burn Then just aim for the landing spot, break burn until the direction indicator is on top of the blue part of the artificial horizon (pointing upwards or downwards, either is fine). Get your rocket to point EXACTLY at the vertical angle and burn a little until your rocket stops its descent (or... well, wait with the burn until it starts descending if you\'re climbing). Burn just enough to descend slowly. Now use the RCS thrusters to move your direction indicator. If it\'s right or left of the center, burn RCS towards it (i.e. j for left, l for right). If it\'s above it, burn downwards (k), if it\'s below, burn upwards (i). Once you have it centered, all that\'s left is lowering your rocket \'til it touches the ground. Try to have a downward speed of about 1-2m/s when you touch the ground, make sure you have ASAS and RCS on when you touch down (because then the rocket will automatically do what it can to keep from tilting over), let it come to rest, turn off RCS and ASAS and welcome to the Mun.

Simple as that. Get to the Mun, get back, and keep the Kerbonauts bored by keeping them non-squishy. My rocket flies them at 3.3g tops, but I\'m sure it\'s possible to go below that. Prove it! Stock parts only, but expense doesn\'t matter. Just make it smooooth. And try to ignore Jeb\'s constant complaints that he\'s going to fall asleep if your rocket doesn\'t shake and bounce enough.

I just browsed through my inbox and I guess I suffer from the same problem. Any info you need to get my mail going?

Here\'s my solution to the problem. It gave me a very stable, very rotation free and quite manageable rocket. Put the decouplers as low on the SBRs as you can. The reason is quite simple: The closer the decouplers are to the engine nozzle, the lower the lever on the decouplers. Connect the lowermost points on your SBRs with the SBRs next to it, so the 6 (or however many you use) SBRs are linked to each other with struts. This reduces the lever even more and equalizes the forces executed inwards between the SBRs. Connect the top of the SBRs to the rocket inside with another set of struts. This is basically mostly for balancing and to lower the shear force on the couplers from the SBR trying to push 'up', less tear on the couplers. That results usually in VERY solid booster behaviour. I had an array of 18 boosters arranged around my rocket without them going bonkers.

The stuff you\'ll learn at college, if you go into engineering.

That\'s pretty much all there is in this version. Once your capsule is back on the ground, you can esc-end mission, not much else left to do. In the meantime, my usual plug for my tutorial. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4137.0

I don\'t really spend a lot of time in Kerbol orbit, mostly because it\'s boring as hell. I\'ll get to it when we have more planets and it becomes a necessity to be able to intercept planets. Hmm... I guess it will be necessary for orbital rendezvous maneuvers too... Badger Harvester to get me docking finally, and I\'ll write you one.

Whether and how much your rocket can 'turn' depends on a few factors. First of all, size. The bigger, the harder. Especially the taller, the harder. Rotation speed is mostly dependent on its width. Then, whether or not you have wings on it (at least while you\'re in the atmosphere). And finally, whether you use gimbaled engines, which I guess is what lets you turn your rocket if it only turns sensibly under power.

The big thing about fuel lines is that now you can also attach liquid tanks with the radial couplers. Attach a fuel tank, put a fuel line in, drain it, toss it. More fuel for your thirsty engines and the ability to sensibly jettison spent fuel tanks. In other words, now a sensible Mun rocket based on stock parts that doesn\'t look like it\'s resting on a stone slab of boosters is quite possible. Actually, I built one without a single booster.

Some more changes to reflect the changes in 0.13. Now with a stock-only Mun craft and a few words about the fuel lines. Edit: Minor adjustments to the 0.13 stock Mun rocket, somehow it didn\'t really work anymore between 0.13beta and 0.13. And it\'s now a little lighter and more efficient. Just make sure you give the first stage a few seconds to get some distance before powering the second stage, it seems it\'s a bit explosion prone. Jeb, hands off the thruster! That was a warning, not a wager! Edit2: Now also with a new standard orbiter, since 0.13 changed the format it seems. I removed the basic orbiter, it\'s in the description anyway, and if everything fails, just use the standard orbiter for mission 2 also for mission 1.

Basically it\'s a 'top down' design. What should my final stage accomplish, and what steps get me there? A moon landing ship is designed this way: 1. I need a returner. A capsule, a parachute, a decoupler below it. 2. I need to get the returner back from the moon. I need enough thrust to take off from the moon, circle around it once, get into a TKI, insert into Kerbin orbit and deorbit. Experience tells me that 1-2 tanks plus a gimballed engine serves that purpose. 3. I need a lander to land on the Mun. I need an ASAS, a fuel tank, a gimballed engine, RCS for balance and some fins to land on. This can be combined with the parts in step 2, I just need a neat way to separate them to jettison dead weight. 4. I need something that gets me from Kerbin orbit to the Mun, for Mun insertion and deorbit. 2-3 tanks should do the trick, plus an engine. 5. I need to get into Kerbin orbit. That stage has no requirements but the ability to lift everything above into a 70-100k meters orbit.

Not a bug, just bad placement of struts. Try to connect shorter struts between the trunks adjacent to each other, then it performs actually quite well. I would suggest making the design a bit more compact and either put the rockets 'up inside' the design further down or eliminate them altogether. Plus, remove the SAS modules and replace it with a single ASAS, better control and less weight.

I\'d say it looks like he turned the full/empty masses around, which cancels each other out in the end, though. delta-v=veq*ln(m0/m1)=veq*(ln(m0)-ln(m1) Isp=Veq/g and F=Isp*mdot*g -> F/mdot=Isp*g -> F/mdot=Veq -> mdot=m0-m1/t -> F*t/(m0-m1)=veq Yup, looks correct. But the result just doesn\'t make sense...

There I go and write guides, I explain the physics behind orbital flight, I write in length about how and why to change your orbits... ...and more and more I notice that it\'s in vain.

I tried both, personally I find the Mun-orbit version much more reliable and more controllable. A direct-descent approach pretty much means that you have to land wherever that TMI puts you with little chance to choose your landing spot.

Made a few edits to the guide to reflect a few tweaks I made to my Mun routine.

To be honest, I never had that problem. ASAS and a few fins work great in the lower atmospheres, and in the upper atmospheres I have already a fairly tiny ship that isn\'t prone to random movements and attitude problems. What I did notice, though, is that the stock parts are by some margin more stable than the mods. From fuel tanks to engines, nothing performs as well as the stock things. Maybe for their lower power and the lower speeds you can attain, I am not sure about that, but I had rockets that became uncontrollable in orbit (like, say, being stuck 'nose down' for some odd reason, with no chance to turn it towards the direction I wanted it to) only with non-stock parts.

Actually, you\'re right. You also need http://dl.dropbox.com/u/575558/SIDR/landerparts_1.1.zip Sorry, I thought they\'re part of NovaSilisko\'s pack. And yes, I should finally get acquainted with the various picture hosting pages. It\'s rare that I have to add pics to what I make guides for. There\'s usually very little pretty pics necessary when most of what you do is math.

Fuel is an issue, I give you that. Getting enough fuel to the Mun is a matter of knowing when and how to apply thrust to use as little as possible. My Munar rocket makes use of the KW pack for the boosters and NovaSilisko\'s for some decouplers. The latter is more a matter of cosmetics, but the boosters sure make it much, much easier to get a lot of fuel to the Mun. I touch down with 2 fuel cells and 2 RCS to spare for the return trip, which is plenty. To get there, I waste ... umm ... 15 stock boosters, 6 Kyle&Wilson VL boosters and about 16 stock fuel tanks. It IS possible to get there stock only, I\'ve done it. Just hard to land without sensible lander legs. And the rocket looks just plain out ridiculous with the two belts of boosters around it. About horizontal speed... if someone tells me how to make a video I\'ll show you. \'til then, ... well, what exactly is the problem. Aim away from your direction marker and PUSH...

Landing on the Mun is tricky, I guess nobody got it right in his first attempt. Here\'s a few things that make it easier. 1. ASAS 2. RCS You want them in your craft that lands on the Mun. The first steers the second at the moment of touchdown and adjusts automatically for a little sideways drift. It made landing for me HEAPS easier. Now, when I say a little I mean a little. A tiny, itty bitty little bit of little. You still have to get your rocket nearly perfectly vertical. To do that, follow these easy steps: 1. Get into a fairly stable orbit around the Mun. It cannot be stressed enough. It\'s easiest to land from an orbit of about 10k meters. It makes landing predictable and it lets you choose the moment of descent. 2. When you\'re approaching your designated landing area, aim your rocket at the negative direction marker (that green thingie on your artificial horizon with the X inside). And PUSH. This marker should, since you\'re in an orbit, point pretty much at the horizon. Meaning, you\'re getting slower, horizontally. Watch out that you don\'t go too low vertically or else... well, crash. 3. When the direction marker moves up to the top of the artificial horizon ball, slow down. Your goal is to get that direction marker RIGHT onto the top of your AH ball. If it\'s the crossed out version, you\'re going down. If it\'s the empty version, you\'re going up. Either\'s fine for now as long as you have fuel and height, but this is where you want that marker. 4. Get your rocket vertical This is critical. Put your rocket into a PERFECT (ok, as perfect as you can) vertical position, with your artificial horizon only showing its blue side and your aim dead centered at the top. This is not only crucial to get your feet down on the ground, it also affects where your engine thrusts towards when you apply thrust, and if you\'re not centered, you\'re pushing in a direction, you do NOT want that! 5. Note that your vertical speed affects how much the marker moves if you change the lateral speed If you\'re sinking or climbing fast, your marker won\'t move a lot if you move left/right. So your goal is to 'hover', or almost hover, to see whether you\'re 'centered'. 6. RCS helps centering RCS is your friend to get your aim marker to its center. Keep your rocket straight and push your RCS TOWARDS the marker if you\'re falling, AWAY from the marker if you\'re climbing. 7. Touch down gently 3-5m/s is ok. 10m/s is asking for trouble. 20m/s is WAY TOO FAST. If your rocket is centered, you shouldn\'t have any trouble if you apply enough thrust to get down gently.

That\'s correct, I eventually replaced it with another fuel cell in the TMI stage and rebuilt it to add another stage, the whole ship is now more stable and less prone to getting 'tilt stuck' in orbit. My current Mun craft is attached. Needs NovaSilisko\'s pack, nothing else as far as I remember from building it.

Tried my tutorial?