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The V-2 and R-7 turbopumps are rotated by H2O2 decomposition products. MHD can work on any fuel. A turbine needs just any expanding gas. The reason why the C-Stoff was abandoned is that post-WWII countries live on a planet with oxygen atmosphere and rich with natural oil. The Mars isn't. http://www.airpowerworld.info/aircraft-engine-manufacturers/walter-hwk-109-509.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_HWK_109-509 Its ISP is low, about 180 s, (17 300 N / 8 kg/s / 9.81 m/s2) It's not a fuel of choice when you have alternatives. But poor conditions sometimes need poor solutions. 0 .. 2° C (water and hydrazine freeze). But it's easier to keep a hangar +4°C warm than cryotanks -200°C cold. Also maybe it's wise not to keep it mixed (to store the hydrazine hydrate apart), so methanol can stay liquid even outdoors most part of the year.

Because of the low air density on Mars the lifting performance is approximately 200 times worse than airships on Earth. It has to be huge just to lift it's own envelope. And then you're at the mercy of the wind.

I sent 2 rescue missions for Bill. The first one was destined for failure at my ability level. I didn't think I would have had enough dV to land and return (although after finishing the second mission, maybe I would have). The only good thing that came out of the first mission was some extra science points banked to unlock another node on the tree. Did I need it... no, but it was gonna happen. I didn't actually expect success so the initial rocket design, launch and such I didn't capture. But I was able to get close enough to Bill to be comfortable. Now, as you can see it wasn't the closest rendezvous in the world, but I figured I can walk it. But even better, why walk when you can use your EVA Jetpack? I was able to close 5km in short order. Unfortunately when I got to Jeb and the return craft, the game had decided to push it over. Should have left SAS on. I tried an ill fated takeoff but I couldn't orient myself with the controls and that ended in failure. Had to reload an autosave. Round 2 (3 actually - don't impact the ground at 200 m/s, it doesn't end well), with SAS, and we're all set to go. Although the game seems to have forgotten my custom flag. Loaded, saved, ready to get the heck outta here. Notice the excessive dV remaining. I need insurance on my missions. Oriented for the circularization burn, and soon transfer burn. I was finally confident at this point. Hurtling back towards a 30km PE. I got to see some more reentry effects with a larger craft. I also decided to burn off that excess fuel because why not. As long as the parachutes pop, the past hour or two will have been worthwhile. Back on Kerbafirma. Hopefully the next mission to the Mun won't be such a hassle.

It looks like ESA is transitioning away from ArianeSpace being the sole provider for European space flight so I’m writing this here rather than the ArianeSpace thread: ESA Publishes Call for Reusable Rocket Booster Concepts By Andrew Parsonson - February 10, 2024 The phrasing of “liquid reusable booster” and the fact that the programme will potentially be aimed at existing launch systems suggests that this may be part of an Ariane 6 evolution. If this is not one of the direct aims of the initiative, ArianeGroup will certainly be in a position to utilize BEST! as a means to fund, at least partially, the transfer of the knowledge gained during the ongoing development of the reusable booster demonstrator Themis to an evolved Ariane 6 variant. https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-publishes-call-for-reusable-rocket-booster-concepts/ This is great news for European space flight. I find it quite notable the author of this article on the new ESA push for reusability is asserting that it may involve an evolution of the Ariane 6. This is important, for if it is to be reusable then the solid SRB’s must be dispensed with. Now, it is possible such an evolution would involve the methane-fueled Prometheus engine. But in my opinion, using a completely different engine with even different propellant should not be regarded as an evolution of the Ariane 6. It would be an evolution of the Ariane 6 to reusability if using the same hydrogen-fueled Vulcain engines but not using the SRB’s. Quite key for these new launcher developments is to follow the SpaceX model of private financing for the launchers. That way 90% of the development costs can be saved: a mid-sized orbital launcher can be developed for only a few hundred million development cost, not the billion dollars thought necessary when such launchers were government financed. See discussion here: Towards Every European Country's Own Crewed Spaceflight, Page 2: saved costs and time using already developed, operational engines. https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/01/towards-every-european-countrys-own.html The key, and most controversial, points there: 1.)Any European country can field their own, independent, manned flight capable launcher in under 2 years, IF they design it around already developed and operational engines. 2.)By eliminating the two SRB’s on the Ariane 6, and instead adding 1 or 2 additional Vulcain engines on the core stage, ArianeSpace can field such a launcher in less than a year. 3.)In any case, such a manned flight capable launcher by following the commercial space approach spear-headed by SpaceX could be developed for less than $200 million, assuming they didn’t have to pay engine development costs by using already operational engines. Bob Clark

I surmise the most silly was an accident happened during A'Twin maiden flight. A'Twin is a ship designed to complete a real solar system grand tour with stock parts and kerbalism. kerbalism does add a bunch of additional complications to the game in the form of complex life support, difficult isru, radiations, and a bunch of other stuff. great to add extra challenge. to tackle all that, A'Twin was enormous. It needed a large habitable section to keep stress levels in the crew under control, and it needed 100 tons just for radiation shielding, and 200 tons of water to be able to support the crew in the long voyages between worlds, and it needed multiple spare parts to deal with malfunctions... and then all this huge ship needed a lot of fuel to have a good deltaV, it topped at above 7000 tons. life support with kerbalism is a complex chain of events. kerbals eat, drink, breathe, and they produce carbon dioxide, waste solid, and waste water. and i had a bunch of processes to recycle all of that as best as possible, so that the total consumption of resources was only 500 kilograms per crewmember per year. in particular, after many calculations, I determined that the most efficient way to reuse solid waste was to burn it in a chemical reactor to produce carbon dioxide, which was then used to grow plants in the greenhouses. it turned out, though, that the chemical reactor only burns solid waste if there is a "solid waste" resource. and i did forgot to include a solid waste container. so the solid waste produced could not be stored, and the chemical reactor could not burn it and turn it into CO2. the other sources of CO2 in the ship were not enough to provide enough to grow the plants fast enough for the crew to eat, and the whole life support system was made unusable. Yep. I had a 7000 ton ship made unusable because i forgot to include a crap container. I couldn't even fix the issue easily with eva construction: crap containers are kerbalism parts, and were not upgraded with the newest functionalities yet: they could not be manipulated with eva construction. I had to launch and entirely new ship. A seven thousand tons ship. Because the crew could not be instructed to take a dump in a plastic bag.

Hi Again, Apologize for the double post. @linuxgurugamer After some serious headache setting up an env for C#/Mono dev, I ended up giving a try overriding ScienceModuleConverter's protected method "GetScientists()" in a plugin ddl. I am really not sure this is the best way to achieve what the original modder wanted to do. However, this solution seems to give satisfying result here. Here is what changed on my side to get the chip_lab working : I builded a CW_ModuleScienceConverter.ddl with following class (just overriding the inherited method mentioned above) : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using UnityEngine; namespace CW_ModuleScienceConverter { public class CW_ModuleScienceConverter : ModuleScienceConverter { protected override float GetScientists () { return 1.0f; } } } Adding the resulting ddl file into ChromaWorks/Plugins/ Notice I chose to create a new module (CW_ModuleScienceConverter) to avoid altering the existing ones, therefor I had to modify the chip_lab.cfg file (ChromaWorks/Parts/ComputerPackage/chip/chip_lab.cfg) Previously : // MODULE // { // name = ModuleScienceConverter // scientistBonus = 0 //.25 //Bonus per scientist star - need at least one! So 0.25x - 2.5x // researchTime = 5 //Larger = slower. Exponential! // scienceMultiplier = 5 //How much science does data turn into? // scienceCap = 800 //How much science can we store before having to transmit? // powerRequirement = 10 // ConverterName = Analysis // StartActionName = Start Analysis // StopActionName = Stop Analysis // } After fixing it -> uncomment & change module's name to prefix it with CW_ MODULE { name = CW_ModuleScienceConverter scientistBonus = 0.25 //.25 //Bonus per scientist star - need at least one! So 0.25x - 2.5x researchTime = 5 //Larger = slower. Exponential! scienceMultiplier = 5 //How much science does data turn into? scienceCap = 200 //How much science can we store before having to transmit? powerRequirement = 10 ConverterName = Analysis StartActionName = Start Analysis StopActionName = Stop Analysis } With these modifications I ended up having the lab_chip part working without any crew on board. I'm really curious to know your thoughts about this fix. I'd be happy to send a pull request on your repo to get this mod working for all. Also, nothing to do witch the chip_lab but I noticed the KER_flight chip isn't working either, this is due to a misspelling in lab_KER_flight.cfg file : MODULE { name = FlightEngineer } should be MODULE { name = FlightEngineerModule } Same as lab_chib, I'd be happy to send a PR to fix these too. Let me know ! Cheers, Nok

The final Gladiator SSTO of Milk Run 5 offloaded the last of the Refined Exotics, and returned to KSC. I now have more money than sense. Hooray! More upgrades for Mirage, specifically the LH2 storage tanks. Storage tanks completed and attached. Moved the solar arrays so they'd be less likely to interfere with the Orbital Assembly Space. I'll likely move them again when I get round to replacing the current reactor setup with something less silly. Another kit was brought up for orbital construction. Ran out of MaterialsKits halfway through, so I decided to install a much larger storage facility. It contained nothing on launch, so won't solve the stalled construction by itself. I needed further resupply missions for that. Construction complete! Based on the Asgard but heavily modified, the Antelope IPFV is an interplanetary-capable propellant carrier. Its first mission will be heading out to Minmus, fillimng the tanks there, then returning to Mirage to fill the station's storage tanks. After that, I will likely send it to Duna alongside Basilisk at the next Duna transfer window. Then Leviathan won't have any resourcing concerns whatsoever. Big fuel tanks means a lot of fuel. I realised that the Manticore FTV was simply too small, and I needed to launch a higher capacity replacement. That vehicle, even mostly empty, ended up weighing 100 tons. I had to design a whole new booster to lift it. I learned from this landing that these landing legs are actually far better than the SpaceX-derived ones I usually use. Those would have no doubt exploded on landing, but these handle the heavy booster with no issues whatsoever. I've actually forgotten what I named this. I'd have to reopen KSP to find out. It has four Wolfhound engines, about the most efficient LFO orbital engines I could have used while retaining decent thrust. Despite its size, this vessel is actually quite easy to fly, even when full. It can fully fuel the Antelope in around four trips from Minmus' surface. I found that Sparrow's fuel storage wasn't quite sufficient. I will probably send another LFO tank. to increase the base's capacity. In other news, Wayfarer 4 reached the periapsis of its 200 day orbit of Jool, coming close enough to gather science in Near Jool space. I tried to lower the periapsis enough to scrape the atmosphere, but the instruments failed to function. I then found that I was having terrible lag after dropping below 200,000m, which continued even after the probe started rising again. According to Task Manager, the CPU core running KSP was going 100% at each of these lag spikes, so I'm not sure what exactly was going on. It's possible that the Volumetric Clouds mod was requiring a lot more processing power at Jool than it does anywhere else, due to the sheer size of the planet. Even Eve wasn't causing this kind of issue.

Just turned on FPS and it shows around 10 for an 200 part ship cruising out of Kerbin SOI on its way to Jool. Does not feel like 10 fps at all, but looks like they does some tricks as it feels smooth. As for launches its 3rd in an row. 1 the Tylo lander, second the manned mission, 3 is more methane and two Laythe probes and two probes trying to enter Jool for science. Likely to launch an 4th with just more hydrogen, Jool window is closing and one and a half year to it open again so has to throw stuff now. Now the burns are perfect, did an 17 minutes and 1.600 m/s burn to Duna who ended inside Duna SOI, that is stupid impressive, 300 m/s was with chemical engines rest was with two nuclear and a bucket of hydrogen tanks. The Jool fleet used stronger first stage so core was mostly intact into orbit, now this is probably wrong and me thinking KSP 1. Now I kind of suspect they cheat with the burns? but you can mess them up like my Duna mission tumbling.

I am using a Ryzen 5600G and an AMD 6650 8GB dedicated GPU with 32GB DDR4@1600. Initial game release was very poor performance. Granted, everyone's experience wasn't great, the game wasn't really playable regardless of the visual. The December update gave me a huge boost up to 120FPS. But this only lasted for small ship designs. As I progressed through the game and had to use multiple engine design to compensate for the weaker engines in early science mode. Lots of parts equals lots lof frame rates lost. 200-300 part ships became a nightmare to fly due to less than 10FPS on average. Changing GPU settings had little effect on performance. This most recent update helped a bit with the performance.

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 11 | CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X | GPU: Nvidia RTX 4060 | RAM: 32GB DDR4 Severity: High - soft crash. Tou can't Launch, random buttons stop working, after exiting to menu you won't be able to load or start new game. Frequency: Reproducable Description: Create new vessel. Start with Mk1 Command Pod. Attach TVR-200 below it. Rotate the camera te the left 90 deg, so you can see door with #04. Using 2x symmetry (pressed X once) attach FL-T200 to the LEFT node (marked on SS). Still using same symmetry copy fragment of the vessel below Command Pod (TVR-200 and two FL-T200s). Rotate fragment 90 deg (pressed E once) and attach under the LEFT FL-T200 (marked on SS). Still using same symmetry add LPS-250 to the CLOSER RIGHT FL-T200 (marked on SS). Your vessel should look like on the screenshot. Using wing shape menu change wing span to something like 0.15. With wing shape menu still visible, save the vessel. Launch. Revert to VAB. Using wing shape menu change wing span to something like 0.18. With wing shape menu still visible, save the vessel (overwrite). Save menu should still be visible - that's the sign you reproduced it. Enjoy. Launch doesn't work anymore, cannot edit the craft. Most buttons don't work. If you exit to menu, you cannot create new game, loading a game will get you stuck in loading screen. A lot more stuff probably happens, but i did not try most options. If you press CTRL+Z and CTRL+Y to "reload" corrupted craft after step 16, you can grab the FL-T200 with the "original" wing and try to reattach it. You will get "VAB/Messages/IvalidSymmetryAttach". That's the simplest craft I tried to reproduce the bug. Seems like it works only when you attach the wing to the part that was created by symmetry, so directions in the guide are important. To open the wing shape menu I was using the "original" wing, not the one created by symmetry but i don't know if it matters. The bug was also present in v0.2.0. Video evidence of reproduction steps above: SoftCrash.mp4 Included Attachments: .ipsImage { width: 900px !important; }

Well, first we say goodbye to my first interplanetary probe. It could only end one way. Contract to send something interplanetary, well I found I could do an Eve intercept but no good antennas. Then unlocking nuclear engines I build an probe carrier and send it to Eve as window was closing. It arrived before this probe and probably could linked up with it but pointless as in Eve orbit, cleared Gilly And yes the probe is comical small and also ridiculous overbuild, as in I could return to Kerbin with but 2K science But no time for that as Jool window is closing and Duna one is optimal. So have to design stuff to throw. https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/#/Kerbin/100/Jool/100/false/ballistic/false/1/200 Says 6 Km/s but that is low Jool orbit not playing with Tylo, still getting back is nice but will throw so much I don't have time to play

Progress update Hello! I've been working on the Field-Emission Electric Propulsion (FEEP) thruster and its fuel tanks recently. This engine uses liquid caesium as a propellant, has an Isp of 10,200 seconds, produces 0.8 kN of thrust, and takes in 40 ec/s. The engine has a beautiful green plume (disclaimer: I don't actually know what colour plume you'd get with caesium, I think it would be blue/cyan, but I'm not entirely sure. I've always wanted more engines with green plumes in KSP, and green is way more unique than cyan with this sort of stuff so green it is. Perhaps the propellant contains some amount of some other chemical that turns it green, who knows). The (relatively) low power cost and high Isp can make this engine attractive for situations where you need lots of delta-v, but the thrust is somewhat lacking. More importantly, caesium is very pricy - even more so than xenon. So you'll have to be careful with its use if you're in career mode (caesium is also extremely reactive and explodes violently when it comes into contact with water, but that's for the Kerbals to worry about). Oh also, the actual caesium resource is a part of the mod - you won't have to download community resource pack or anything for this to work. Next on the list is the arcjets (a 0.625m engine and a 1.25m engine, and a set of RCS thrusters). Once those are done I'll release them and the FEEP stuff as an update. Thank you for your time.

I'm sorry to tell you that your math ain't mathing.... ....because a 18 meters starship, even without it getting taller, would carry to orbit at least 600 tons, because a doubling in diameter get you 4 times the area and so volume. And this is without considering: The better usage of space and a more advantageous tank/fuel fraction ( you need only double the tank mass to store 4 times more fuel), and the fact that at that point you will stretch the rocket a bit. Right now a starship stack can lift around 250 tons expended, and 150 tons reusable, with a weight of 5000 tons, so 5% payload expended, 3% reusable. It would be not unrealistic to see an 18 meters starship let's say 200 meters high, with a liftoff mass of 30k tons, putting into orbit 2000 tons expended (6.5% payload) and around 1200 tons reusable (4%). It would make it also heat less on reentry, slow down more and more controllable. The problem would be at liftoff with 130 raptors generating 40-50k tons of thrust, just the sound would probably melt everything in a couple miles.

One issue I can't fix in this mod is that I can't timewarp or return to KSC until the craft is over 170km but the atmospheric effects stop at 85km, i.e. vacuum starts at 85 km. I've tried to mix around in the mod files but alas I am to stupid to figure it out. It would be nice if atmospheres didn't reach far out into space, that is one of the things I love about KSP 1 rescale mods, you really feel the size of kerbin thanks to being able to orbit so close relative to it's size. If I need a 200 km orbit then it doesn't really feel as big anymore I hope this issue can be adressed, the mod is otherwise fantastic

A well written book is always better than a 200 million dollar special effects movie.

I do wonder how resources will interact with launches from KSC. From what I recall, the only tiny hint there's ever been about resources and Kerbin is that Kerbin doesn't have much (any?) uranium. (Of course, Kerbin will probably lack other obscure things to incentivize finding them in nature. ) Will other resources be entirely infinite? Who knows, devs probably won't spill those beans now. I totally agree that Kerbin could do with some sort of limitations beyond just 'sorry, the helium-3 is in another castle' to get those rocket engineer gears turning (having a few limits can lead to much more creativity and fun!) But in my opinion, the devs are right to say money doesn't belong. Here's my alternative: I think it would be more interesting if KSC produced resources at a finite rate with a finite (but large) stockpile. In this plan, the variety of resources available, the speed of production (ie: deliveries from manufacturers, as opposed to player-built factories), and the size of the stockpile could all increase as more technology is unlocked to scale with player ambition. This would add a subtle incentive to be efficient with resources without being too punishing or grindy since this is the early game (run out of rocket parts? Just timewarp until the next delivery from Rockomax-and hope you don't miss that transfer window!) Very large-scale missions could consume months' worth of stockpiled resources, rewarding those who get a head start on assembling the next mothership or thought ahead and built a reusable mothership already. Recovery of stages on Kerbin would make sense as the rocket parts would return to inventory (I'm assuming this is how colonies will operate too) allowing for more frequent launches. Differing delivery rates of different resources would create differing perceived costs for said resources (SRBs would actually be useful as solid fuel comes in bulk and takes the load off the methalox supplier, while uranium and plutonium come in at a trickle, so you have to choose wisely to send up that SWERV, reactor, or big RTG as you won't have enough to build a second one for a whole year.) Of course, colonies should offer this exact sort of emergent gameplay and problem solving, so how does adding it to Kerbin do better than a money system? Well...It trains us players on how resources work (which parts require which resources? are there resources I use more than others? if I don't have what I need, how do I redesign to fit my current limitations?) in a simplified manner (won't need to scan for resources, build mines and factories, nor set up delivery routes) thus offering a gradual introduction to colony resource management and giving an incentive to make those colonies in the first place (I like using the SWERV, but uranium comes in so slowly-let's find uranium somewhere else!) Compare this to funds. Funds wouldn't teach you anything about colony resource management because there's nobody on the Mun to take your funds and give you rocket parts. This also increases the perceived jump in difficulty when going to colonies as you suddenly need to un-learn about funds and learn about whatever a uranium is and how to find it (hey why does the SWERV suddenly say it needs rocket parts and uranium? I thought it just needed 300,000,000 kerbucks!) And that's just the player perspective; imagine being the developer who has to design, build, test, and bugfix and entire game mechanic which exists entirely to become obsolete after 20 hours of gameplay into a 200 hour campaign. (The devs have expressed multiple times that they don't want parts of KSP2 to simply become obsolete because you unlocked something better. Now, how the Terrier will be useful on Ovin is anyone's guess, but they aren't going to waste time making content that is destined to become obsolete.) It just makes more development sense to have one resource system used throughout the entire game.

MISSION_ACOMPLISHED The last Hydrogen glider on reentry after a succesful refueling mission to K.G.01 Foreword: I embarked on this journey, with 80h of gametime under my belt little over a year ago. At the time I had only achieved 3 visits to the Mun (1 planned mission, one rescue mission and a rescue mission for the rescue mission) and the construction of K.G.01v1. I really hated getting rockets through the atmosphere due to its soupy nature, amplified by spaghettiness of the rockets. So I thought it would be easier just build two space "gas stations" I could do interplanetary missions from - thus bypassing the atmosphere... With the first iteration of K.G.01 done I suspected K.G.02 would have been finished soon after...Little did I know how wrong I would be. Never would I have expected. That, 775 recorded hours in the game later, would be when I finished the project. I guess it's a small consolation that Its 775 hours at, at most 15 fps - and at the lowest 5 fps. Meaning that no, it's not really 775h of active play. A lot of it was just drinking coffee, chatting with my kid while the game ran in the background doing its things. How ever.. Finally. After designing and redesigning, I have achieved what I set out to do the 27th of Match 2023. Build a LKO station, that would be the first stop of getting resources into space - and then a station in Mun orbit, that will serve as the gateway to the rest of the Kerbol system. As well as all the vehicles needed to service such stations. I would like to thank everyone who had the endurance to follow along on the process, as well as all the advice and encouragement. Without further ado. Lets get through the last triumphs. Mission Task: Refuel K.G.01 with Hydrogen. Refueling K.G.01 with the H.T.V.: Now even at this last stage - there would still be a few iterations to the vehicles. Namely the H.T.Vs. I had gone with a 3 leg 3 engine config on the 1st and 2nd stage for this vehicle. But with how tomblesome the LT-3 Wallaby Legs are I had to change the design a bit. Even though I carefully tried to land the 1st at less than 5m/s (which I find is really hard to do, since 1-2% of thrust means a lot.. and you end up spending a lot of time hovering over the pad.. wasting fuel) I would still experience this: That one leg simply boke off. It was frustrating.. and even if I liked the look of the 3 legs 3 engine symmetry. I knew I needed 4 legs to help it not lose legs or fall over so easily. I really wish we had some better large legs The final design ended up looking like this: It looks alright - It's just more busy. Any way it means that the rocket reaches 900 m/s a lot earlier than before - SO I also have a lot more Δv to land again. I could maybe push for a heavier methalox load? - or cut on the 1st stage fuel level even more? Not to mention.. I have not used this rocket since the update to v0.2.1 - and judging from the fact that my hydrogen glider uses 200 less Δv going through the atmosphere now - I suspect that I can tweek the heavy vehicle even more. But I won't have to do that before I've spend some of all the methalox and hydrogen I've now gotten into orbit. The State of K.G.01 Docking tower: As you can see - the deterioration of the docking tower has accelerated a bit. Vehicles can still dock with the station and not explode. So for now I wont change it.. I dont have to look at it if i rotate the station - but at some point I need to fix it... as it annoys me As I can understand - this was also a issue in KSP1. Where you would have vehicle warp over time. It's a thing I hope they can fix in KSP2 at some point. With kolonies etc. I suspect ships can have a really long life span.. but if they deteriorate like this, that's a serious issue in my opinion. Hitting the Mark: By taking a screenshot of "where" the 35km mark "is-ish" on the path down - I have been improving my "hit rate" of KSC - Now I land within the mountain range that KSC resides. Since I bleed of all the energy between 17 and 35km. Knowing when you hit this spot means a lot when guesstimating how much "lead" you need to have on KSC for it to land propper. If your curious its here: What I do now is decreasing my orbit to around 75km - This means that planet rotation will have as little influence as possible. Then I aim for the 37km mark to be a little behind KSC. With K.G.01 orbiting at 100km it means somewhere between 1/4th and 1/3rd from the ground and K.G.01s orbit path. Not a perfect system.. but its easier to use with how much variation I have in Δv and speed coming down again. I really wish that there were markers on the path or something to indicate when you hit the atmosphere of the body. Since the path is only "true" on bodies with no atmospheres. Any way It means I now land within the KSC complex.. Refueling the last 5t Hydrogen with the Hydrogen gliders: The revamped atmosphere had 2 positive effects. 1. The glider now produces reentry flames. And boy I think its satisfying to see them trailing off the rocket - Showing the AoA in all its glory and giving a sense of the direction. 2. as mentioned earlier. My rocket spends a lot less Δv getting into space? I had to use m/s as my staging mark now ~1100 m/s. which is around 1800 Δv Considering that before the patch I had gone from 1800 Δv to 1600 Δv with the mass added to fix the glider.. and now im back at 1800Δv again... using m/s seems like the right choice. For more re-entry flame pictures see spoiler section: Moving Forward: I think I'll be taking a short break from KSP2 now - After that a short tour to Minimus to square off Kerbin SOI, before venturing into out to other bodies in the Kerbol Sytem. I feel a bit ridiculous having almost 800h ingame.. and never leaving Kerbin SOI (Unless you count me graveyard parking a few empty stages in a Kerbol orbit.) Any way. Thank you for staying with me all the way. Bechmeister Signing Out.

Aw, thanks! The OPT Mk2 cockpit looks way better than the stock version. Also, before I go to bed: Vanguard is on its way to Jool. 12,000 m/s delta-V, so no concerns about getting stranded out there like Odyssey was at Dres. The ship handles fairly well at 3x physics warp, even with the mass of the Knight pulling it to one side a bit. Acceleration is about on par with the NERVA NTR, so I made two burns at periapsis. There will be another maneuver in about 200 days to adjust inclination. I intend to launch one more vessel, a fuel tanker which will also carry a mining vessel. Not all of Vanguard's landers were fully fuelled as of departure, and that was an intentional decision. I wanted to reduce structural instability at the docking ports. But it does mean that if I failed to send extra LFO along, at least one moon landing would become impossible. Most likely I would cancel the Tylo descent. It's the most risky part of this entire mission.

[snip] I have. And I've stated every other thing I've done. I use the same descent profile I've always used: Coast to 10km, burning whatever fuel I have to take as much speed off as possible. At 10km, which generally but not always gets me a speed of ~200 m/s, I stage the chutes. Drogues and normal chutes at the same time. This has worked without issue in KSP1, and it worked without issue in KPS2 until 0.2 dropped.

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly how to address your problem. Y1, D500 to Y2, D7 - 4-crew capsule and first space station (and Year 1 rocket comparison) Y1, D500 - A Yellow Dwarf 2-R launched Algieba 1 (not to be confused with algebra), the first spacecraft to carry up to 4 Kerbals (Jebediah, Bill, Bob, Valentina). It spent one day in a polar orbit around Kerbin before splashing south of the space center on Day 501. Y2, D4 - One year on (rescaled) Kerbin normally has 506 days. Starting off the new year was the launch of Regulus 1, the first space station, by a YD-2-R. It had a scientific laboratory, a small observation cupola, a new gravioli detector, several docking ports, and a few weeks of supplies. The station was launched into a 200 km orbit. Y2, D7 - Algieba 2 (Dofel, Camsey) launched and became the first to dock with the Regulus 1 station. They would begin to collect and process scientific data, but found out that while the large solar arrays were more than enough to power the lab on the day side, the batteries quickly ran out on the night side. A new module would have to be launched not only to address these power issues, but to enable the growing of food for longer stays in orbit. Lastly, here's a comparison of all rockets launched by the Aerospace Research Agency so far.

Still occurring for me even on the latest patch. Got three FT-100/200 tanks on a lander with an MK1 Pod +Spark and a docking port, but undocking (even with fuel transfer absolutely disabled) shows up as disabled/empty capacity which makes no sense

One question about training - what is the best way to train Kerbals for longer missions? I am prepping an Eve mission, wanted to first make a 200-days long high Kerbin orbit mission for the crew to gain experience... But due to health issues, I had to deorbit after just 30, with the crew barely getting 6% training. I tried using the KSC training option, but I find it confusing to track how long does the training take, what is the current progress and how long do I have to wait before I can launch the mission... Plus sometimes it seems that Kerbals just stop their training midway and I have to hop into VAB and start the whole thing anew...

I’d enjoy if aerobrake and gravity assists were covered by missions/tutorials. I think these advanced maneuvers play an important role on the emergent gameplay features that show up once you really start to learn the game and it would be nice if they are made more digestible to the average player. Example mission: establish and orbit around Jool while spending less than 200 dV after entering its sphere of influence (advanced tip: Tylo is smiling at you)

The Moon orbit is unstoppably raising, and the Earth:Moon mass ratio is much less than the Jupiter one. So, no stable orbits in the Earth moon system. And at the same time no possibility to build a stable base, so much less interest from any view but the bare flag planting. The first, close, big Moon is significant from the military and then-looking-actual industrial pov. The second, far, small Moon would interest nobody but nerds. While irl the lunar program was funded with active support of the military, the mini-moon would be waiting for its turn like the asteroids. I remember the decade-old posts there about the (ULAlian, not nuke) Orion flights to the asteroid, then to the near-Earth asteroid, then to at least a captured piece of stone in HEO. These posts would stay actual in that reality, too, just the Orion's target name would change. The same users, who are blaming SLS, would be doing it to Nova, that's all change. In the USSR the space race was actively doubted by the military, who were not once asking for proper reinvestment. The Korolyov's participation to the lunar program was forced, distracting him from his dream of life, the expedition to the Mars. Originally, in 1920s-early 1930s, Korolyov and Glushko were just two of several tens of groups, developing rockets of more-or-less same level, never exceeding several hundreds of kgf thrust (~Aggregat-1&2). They were arrested due to the struggle between the teams in the institute, and the opponents in the known collective denunciation were pointing at the fact, that the only results of their eight-year activities were a 200-kg winged missile with 30-kg payload, and a small glider with a small rocket drive, so the funds had been spent on nothing. It was also playing a role, that (unlike for other development teams) their patron was marshal Tukhachevskiy, a big fun of then-hi-tech in army, so they were funded and raised as his protegee. At the same time, this means that they were in low orbit at then-scandalous scam of the "dynamo-reactive guns of Kurchevskiy", when Tukhachevskiy was actively promoting recoilless guns and cannons everywhere, including tanks and heavy artillery, as a cheap replacemenr for the normal cannons. Of course, this strange idea failed, after having eaten a lot of budget money and delaying the upgrade of artillery. So, when the scam was stopped, all Tukhachevskiy's protegee were hit by recoil. Especially the most known ones. Especially spending money without results. Especially conflicting with the solid-fuel department, who were providing actual results. (Though, the solid-fuel tops were executed a little earlier, due to the struggle between the teams and the parties.) In 1940s Glushko had developed a 1.5-tf rocket engine for a glider, which became 1.1-tf after making it human-rated by another engineer. I.e. corresponding to Aggregat 3&5, when Walter Thiel's Aggregat-4 engine was already 25..28 tf. You should not think that on the German side the things were going much wiser. The whole Aggregat series (which fruited into V-2) was starting from the idea of a long-range 14" artillery shell with a rocket engine, which would throw it farther than powder. Originally the Aggregat-1 was to be stabilized by rotation, without gyroscopes or so, but on realizing that the rotation will prevent the fuel sucking, they decided to rotate the warhead, leaving the booster motionless. After making the rotating warhead mockup and exploding the first and the only A-1 on start, they screwed the rotating warhead, and put the amateur "gyroscope" in the middle, launching the two and the only Aggregat-2 just once. Realizing that the shell is failed, they began Aggregat-3 (<<< the in-war imprisoned Glushko is nearly here) shaped as a an aircraft bomb with an alcohol booster inside. As they were trying A-3 and A-5 launches from He-111, we can presume that the idea of the shell turned into idea of rocket-propelled long-range bomb. On failing the vertical launches of A-3, they turned to big rockets like A-4 (as big as a railroad carriage can contain, the fin span is 3.2 m), which were succesfully eating the German money on the sick (20% sorted out on the plant, 40% of launched had exploded), useless (1-2 human casualties per A-4) rocket program. That's because they hadn't imprisoned von Braun in time, lol. Von Braun himself is a strange, murky persone, closely associated with another one, even murkier one, Hans Kammler, who was the head of secret weapon development and KZ camps development, but mistically lacks any attention. The Aggregat series was developed not by von Braun alone, but by the whole department of arms, where von Braun was not the boss. The key components like the engine (by Walter Thiel), the C&C, the aerodynamics were provided by other people. Von Braun's role looks more like a curator, than like a real engineering developer. His kinda developed A9/A10 project looks like a scam. While he was doing aerodynamic experiments with the models. the A10 engine was a pure fantasy, changed from six A-4 28-tf engines around the single nozzle to a 200-tf alcohol engine (the practicallyreached top limit of the alcohol engines is RD-103, 45-tf), so we can assume that beyond a couple of failed launches of winged A-4b, there was no serious development behind A9/A10. The A11 and A12 stages for his space rocket "were using" the same never-developed super-engine, so they are just a pure scam, sold to Americans to prevent the von Braun's extradition to the British, who were glad to ask him about the London bombing. All components of Saturn/Apollo were developed by the American companies, so the von Braun's role looks totally PR, and this in turn returns us from the romantic dreams to the real roots of the American lunar program, which are concentrated as Project Horizon. Meanwhile in the far, snowed Russia. After making the R-7, an ICBM useless as ICBM, Korolyov was putting all efforts on killing the hypergolic rocketry, which efforts had fruited into separation of the Yangel and Makeev rocket bureaus, and raising the Chelomei's bureau in ballistic missiles, and thus into dismissing the Korolyov's bureau from the military development and losing him leading position in space launches, he started developing N-1 (another cryogenic non-ICBM ICBM, without any possibility of further development) and the Martian ship. The whole department in bureau was developing the TMK (Heavy Martian Ship) under the Tikhonravov's leadership. (Btw, Tikhonravov came into rocketry before Korolyov, he had developed the very first working semi-liquid engine in 1920s). As ~5 t of canned supplies was looking too heavy for the crew of 3, they were developing a whole on-board space farm, with kitchengardens and animals. A ten of agricultural plants would be farmed under the solar light, rabbits and some others would be herded to provide meat, chlorella vats would refresh ing the air, etc. But as Mars is 1.5 times farther from Sun than the Earth, the sunlight is weak. So, they added a huge parabolic reflector to insolate the garden. But on the Martian orbit the ship will be rotating every hour, so the garden would be shaded. So, they made the mega-mirror truss mechanically rotating. But the motor needs energy. So, they added 15 t of fuel to rotate the mega-mirror truss. Another part of command was developing 100-t Martian rovers with 6-m wheels, and other things. Thus, the Korolyov's team was wisely spending the budget funds on the highly realistic designs, and competing with Yangel and Chelomei were doing all daily dirty work of ballistic and cruise missile development. Meanwhile almost all rocket engines were being provided by the Kosberg and Isayev bureaus, but for some reason the heavy RD-253 was possessed by Glushko. Khrushchev had formulated the lunar objective very clearly and simply: "We'll not give away the Moon to the Americans". This can be treated as a PR flag planting, but all further development show that the most sober and insightful Soviet leader was meaning the practical aspect, to prevent the monopolization of the Moon by the opponent. Thus, once Proton and E-8 crafts had provided the ability to destroy any American lunar base before it could become operational (see the underdeveloped Death Star destruction in SW), the lunar program was immediately stopped, and the Korolyov's fantasy space program as well. So, the "Space Race" was existing only in the heads of PR journalists, and another moon would not affect it.

The need for such large number of launchers will spur the development of reusability in European space as well. In response to a question about how long to build a new Delta IV, ULA head Tory Bruno responded two years. A reusable launcher that can be launched again within a matter of weeks would have a major advantage. I wrote the following blog post in regards to advancing European manned spaceflight. However, in regards to a financial motive, a greater reason for developing the launchers I discuss is advancing reusability in European spaceflight: Towards Every European Country's Own Crewed Spaceflight, Page 2: saved costs and time using already developed, operational engines. https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/01/towards-every-european-countrys-own.html Key, and most controversial, points: 1.)Any European country can field their own, independent, manned flight capable launcher in under 2 years, IF they design it around already developed and operational engines. 2.)By eliminating the two SRB’s on the Ariane 6, and instead adding 1 or 2 additional Vulcain engines on the core stage, ArianeSpace can field such a launcher in less than a year. 3.)In any case, such a manned flight capable launcher by following the commercial space approach spear-headed by SpaceX could be developed for less than $200 million, assuming they didn’t have to pay engine development costs by using already operational engines. Robert Clark