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Starman When you look up into the sky at night, there are hundreds upon hundreds of little points of light glittering above you. Each one is a star fusing elements, supporting planets, and maybe other forms of life. But some of those points of light are a bit bigger, and they aren’t just stars that might as well be forever away. They are the planets of our solar system. Mars, glowing just enough to see it, with an orange-ish hue, sits above the horizon. It's sat there for billions of years. We’ve looked at it first with our own eyes, and then through telescopes. Now, we can look at Mars through the camera lenses of our spacecraft. None of these spacecraft more extraordinary, than the ones heading toward the Red Planet right now. Magellan 1 is just hours from entering the orbit of Mars, and there is controlled chaos back on Earth at JSC in lieu of this moment. You would be forgiven for thinking that they had just discovered alien life with how many people flooded in and out of each building. Press vans zip through the parking lots, reporters rushing to affix the right lenses to their cameras as they are hurriedly ushered inside. For them they had waited months for this opportunity, it took almost a herculean effort to get press access to Johnson Space Center on this day, the 2nd of May, 1993. Some had waited outside since before sunrise to get a front-row seat at the coming press conference. The press weren’t the only ones being eroded away by the stress and monumental nature of the day. The controllers at JSC had nearly pulled an all-nighter as a series of errors with the MMETV’s star trackers nearly made it forget its own location in space. The primary star tracker had been improperly targeted onto the star Canopus, which nearly resulted in several errors during an attitude control adjustment. On top of this, one of the computer units in the MMETV had experienced an integer overflow as it was trying to assume the spacecraft’s rotational velocity. This took some time to resolve, and the other 5 Redundant Computing Units (RCUs) had to take over during that period. With all of the drama and stress, the press and those working in the control room at JSC were awaiting some good news as the Orbital Insertion Maneuver began at 1:23 PM. It would last a total of 11 minutes, as the series of nuclear thermal rockets on the MMETV slowed the behemoth craft down enough for it to be captured into an orbit around Mars. This orbit is different from the intended future ones, as future missions aim to have flybys of Phobos and Deimos, which are not objectives for Magellan 1. The seconds slowly ticked by at JSC, everyone sitting in utter silence as they watched the expected velocity change graph be followed by the real time telemetry line. Closer, and closer to a nominal insertion. 11 minutes felt like 110, if it had been any shorter amount of time some in the room may have tried to hold their breath all the way through. But alas, they wouldn’t need to. At 1:33:24 PM, the MMETV sent back a telemetry packet that perfectly correlated to the expected orbital velocity. Everyone in JSC erupted into cheers and applause. Those in the control room who had been working for hours and hours felt victorious and liberated from the seats they had been glued to since yesterday afternoon. 3,388 days had passed since Ronald Reagan and John Young announced the Magellan Program on the steps of the National Air & Space Museum. In those 3,388 days, NASA had achieved insurmountable progress and put themselves a lot more than one small step closer to landing humans on Mars before 2000. This was simply the beginning. But the mission was far from over, a herculean effort to demonstrate the critical components of a successful crewed Mars landing lay ahead. A few weeks would be given for a dust storm on the surface to clear, and then the automated landing demonstrations of the Ascent and Descent Vehicles would begin. Those few weeks would prove to be rather uneventful, and as the dust storm cleared, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles had arrived in their joint pairing just a few days before the MMETV (they were launched on a higher velocity trajectory) and had stayed linked together until the dust storm cleared. The Ascent Vehicle undocked and made its way to the surface without issue, and the Descent Vehicle performed a rendezvous with the MMETV as it would on crewed missions to retrieve the crew for the landing on the surface. The components that were not to be demonstrated on this mission, the rover and the habitat, would also be landed beforehand on future missions. Once the Descent Vehicle docked to the MMETV, a “simulated” crew transfer would take place. Essentially just waiting an amount of time that was predicted based on crew training would be needed for a full crew and equipment transfer. Once this was complete. The Descent Vehicle undocked, waited another orbit, and performed a de-orbit burn to land on the rocky plains of the Martian equator. "2,000 feet, nominal descent rate." "1,000." "800." "500." "200." "50." "25." "10." "CONTACT!" "CONFIRMED LANDING ON THE MARTIAN SURFACE." On this descent, there would be some issues that had been seen during the landing of the Ascent Vehicle that were also seen on the Descent Vehicle. Most notably, the landing legs. They had to be deployed individually by an emergency command from the guidance system (with a 20+ minute delay to Earth, the guidance system has to be as redundant and self-regulating as possible, as any commands from Earth will be practically pointless) after the altitude trigger did not work. Then, upon a thankfully successful landing, the landing pads did not level out to the terrain and stayed at a rather uncomfortable upward angle. The cause of this was unknown, but it may lead to a new landing leg design for Magellan 2. Despite these landing leg issues, it was still a successful landing, and NASA could breathe easy that the guidance system performed beautifully and handled issues quickly and effectively. The successful landing was met with thunderous applause and cheers in Houston, and the pictures of the surface from the landing cameras covered the front page of TIME the next day. NASA had at last, reinvigorated itself, with a new bold spirit that was determined to put people on Mars and to push beyond what it had already achieved. NASA was finally, truly, ready to go beyond Earth with humans. Even further beyond, NASA’s deep space robotics program finally had some funding freed up with the completion of the Mars collection, and they were ready to make some headlines. On October 3rd, 1993, at a JPL press conference, the Pluto Fast Flyby mission was announced. The mission would be targeting a 2000 launch window, with a backup in 2001. It would be a quite small and light spacecraft so the launch vehicle required would not be the same one required by components of the MMETV. The spacecraft was intended to carry two cameras, a high-resolution black-and-white alongside a lower-resolution color camera. On top of a suite of spectrometers, a magnetometer, and a small mapping camera. The instruments would actually be a significant portion of the weight of the spacecraft. Pluto Fast Flyby was truly intended to be a bang for the buck mission, and NASA’s new leadership wanted bang for the buck in many areas to preserve funding for human exploration. With NASA under the new leadership of Administrator Ken Mattingly, who had retired from the Astronaut Corps in the late 80s, and was selected by President Bush upon his inauguration to replace John Young, who had finally taken his long overdue retirement from NASA. Young had steered NASA through one of its most tumultuous, controversial, and successful eras. He had preserved the integrity of the organization as contractors and internal feuds threatened to pull it apart. Mattingly would be facing similar challenges, alongside balancing and preserving the international partnerships Young had built. But Mattingly was more than up to the task, he had garnered the same respect from astronauts, the higher-ups, and the public alike. He would be the man who would bring NASA to Mars at last. On top of Pluto Fast Flyby, NASA’s flagship Iapyx mission received a 5-year mission extension at the same press conference. It has uncovered dozens upon dozens of details about Saturn and its moons and was still operating in good health with plenty of propellant, so the extension was given. With all of these developments centered around beyond-Earth exploration, 1993 caps off as a truly exciting year. 1994 will see a return to normal operations for Orpheus, the return of Magellan 1’s MMETV to Earth, and perhaps… The beginnings of America’s next manned spacecraft.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t much care if we’re on either - and I don’t recall mentioning Bezos at all, so the point is moot. But what I meant is that, whilst IFT was impressive and a big step forward over IFT2 and IFT1, there’s a way to go yet before it’s a workable disposable rocket, let alone the fully reusable, chopstick landing (or whatever method ends up working), in-orbit refuelling, Artemis landing beast that it’s intended to be. Yes, yes, test flight, iterative improvement etc etc. I’m well aware of all that. And, with their track record, I’m certainly not betting against SpaceX to deliver all of the above eventually. But what I don’t give a damn about is Elon vapourware about the next super-duper-double-the-payload rocket, because it doesn’t make much difference if your rocket carries 200 tons or 400 tons if you can’t get it to point the right way. Frankly it feels like a distraction tactic and judging by the shift in comments on this thread it’s worked beautifully.

This, also being able to do an capture burn inside the SOI but that is hardly an problem. This require splitting the burn up into multiple parts. Been thrown stuff all day at Eve. an .3 twr nuclear engine looses less than 200 m/s over doing must of the burn on an mammoth 2 core stage. one single burn. For landing KSP 2 nodes give us an tool who can have you moving slowly at low attitude, make an braking burn but also with an up vector who end your burn 1-2 km above surface. Move at some speed as the Tylo moves you need to adjust for this at end of main braking burn. But again the tuba will loose against nuclear engines but it might be restrictions on them in future like radiation and getting uranium. But its not like you use up an nuclear thermal engine unless its designed for an short lifespan. You don't design jet engines for cruise missiles to last for thousands of hour

Thanks for that. An expendable SH/SS could get in the range of 200 to 250 tons to LEO. That would be well more than enough to do its own single launch mission to the Moon or Mars, no SLS required. Keep in mind such an expendable launch is only in the $90 million cost range. While not at the $10 million aspirational rate Elon wants for full reusability, considering the amount of payload it could loft, it still would be a major improvement over what we have now, and literally orders of magnitude cheaper than the SLS. By the way, suppose as a SpaceX exec once suggested the Starship HLS would need “10ish” orbital refuelings. At the $10 million per launch rate for a fully reusable SH/SS that’s still $100 million. Then the single launch expendable approach would actually be in the same cost range as the fully reusable approach, anyway. See the calculations here: SpaceX should explore a weight-optimized, expendable Starship upper stage. https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/03/spacex-should-explore-weight-optimized.html Bob Clark

I like to use prop cars. My best one can go about 200 m/s.

Ok I got the Dev MechJeb 2....when I get the "non Dev" build, PVG runs perfectly, but I do a little better with my classic ascent program...minus 100 to 200 DV !

Y2, D187 to D213 - First crew at Minmus base Y2, D187 - After studying potential production supply chains, it was decided that the Midlands had more potential in the short-medium term. It had Minerals which could be converted into Fertilizer (more efficient than trying to make Supplies directly from Substrate and Water). Minerals, Metallic Ore, and Substrate could be refined, then combined into Material Kits, which are used to fill inflatable modules with equipment. Material Kits are also one component of Machinery (needed to keep resource converters running) and eventually being able to build and launch vessels from the shallow gravity well of Minmus instead of Kerbin. (The other component being Specialized Parts, but the resources for those were in another biome.) Castor Base had enough propellant for a short hop to a higher elevation, and so it was relocated near the edge of a plateau overlooking the Lesser Flats. Y2, D192 - A Red Dwarf 2-4L (which hasn't been launched in almost a year) launched Denebola 19, an autonomous double rescue of Leelorf and Megan Kerman in low Kerbin orbit. Y2, D194 - The Gemini 26 propellant depot, which had five docking ports for incoming and outgoing vessels, was launched to Minmus orbit. The Tejat 3 lander docked to it and refueled on Day 203. Later that day, Algieba 6 launched the first crew to live on Castor Base (Jebediah, Handorf, Bob), docking with the depot on Day 213. The crew transferred into Tejat 3 and landed less than 200 m away from Castor Base, deployed experiments, then entered the habitat. Systems were activated, including the small nuclear reactor keeping everything powered and the radiators that dissipated its heat, as the skycrane jettisoned and softly landed about a dozen meters away (it could be disassembled into Material Kits, but they would need storage for that). The next step was to increase the habitation space and provide a way for the crew to grow food.

Adding shorter 1,25 m methane tanks as in the FL-T100 and 200 but with 0.5 and 1 ton methane. Very nice for small SSTO and make it easier to adjust how much extra methane you want. For an LKO SSTO you need much less than on an plane exploring Laythe and then return to orbit. Add an drain valve so you can drain exec oxygen or methane. You want to drain all exec oxygen then entering the atmosphere. Also useful then your interplanetary ships carry extra metalox for landers, but here engines works better as they add dv and trust.

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; }

Wait. You went to laythe with a 100t payload? Did you record any of that? Would love to see it that must have been a pretty big transfer ship! I tried to make a ship with a 200 ton payload in ksp 2 the other day and my computer did NOT like that... i got 2 fps on the launchpad. It made me rage quit haha. In my duna mission in ksp 2 i used 4 stumpy medium hydrogen tanks soaking up all the heat. That went great! I'm glad we don't need heat shields there.

I landed on duna last week without heat shields. I did use some fuel to slow down a bit. Maybe 200 m/s? I'm not sure though. Just enough to not burn the craft to a cinder haha I noticed that the heat model in ksp 2 is less forgiving than in ksp1. I once travelled to duna in 120 hours and used aerobreaking to land (in ksp1). I don't recall the exact speed I entered the atmosphere...but it sure was at ludicrous speed haha. In this case I did use a heat shield, but hardly any ablator was used! I don't know if I could do this in ksp 2 though haha. I should try!! I made a small video of the mission if you're interested.

My issue isn't that there is a restriction. My issue is that it's too restrictive. Sorry, but not all of us are adept or even capable of designing airplanes. I've got 1000+ hours in KSP1, and more than 200 in KSP2, and I can't build a craft to fly in the atmosphere for 2 minutes. Now go tell a new player to do that. Make it less restrictive. The amount of time it takes is too long.

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.

System Info KSP Version: KSP2 Build ID 10624168 Operating System and version: Windows 11 / Version 22H2 CPU and GPU models: AMD 5800X / NVIDIA RTX 3700 / 32GB RAM Mods Installed: None Description of the Bug Expected Behavior: Wing shouldn't be upside down when placed on "NCS 200" Observed Behavior: Wing is placed upside down when placed on "NCS 200" attached to the plane with mirror symmetry. This is specific to wing pieces and does not apply to stabilizers or control surfaces. Steps to Replicate: Open new workspace Build a plane in horizontal mode as shown in my recording using "NCS 200" and any wing part Fixes / Workarounds: Using stabilizer or control surface works as expected on "NCS 200" Recording of behavior: https://imgur.com/a/uKRTk2j

Ok finally done with Duna landings, well has one left at the monument and just radiation readings so unmanned and waiting with is as seriously bored of landing on Duna. Now as most of the "dry" mass of the Duna ship was metalox 32 ton for lander, lander took 5 ton but I tended to only use 4 and lander was fully fueled so 8 landings who was the number needed. Now as the last landing will be unmanned it need less than 200 m/s to deorbit and land. but dropped fully loaded. Who left this with this. 10 km/s dV, lets get home fast Unfortunately its an bug in KSP 2, who messes up your trajectory if you leaves the sun SOI. But less than 80 days is decent from Duna, overtake the previous missions, the large nuclear engines rocks. Final trajectory. Might not be able to circulate at LEO but not like I will use this ship again having unlocked the big round tanks so probably drop capsule and aim for the mun. Also seen is the first Moho mission ship on eternal patrol, second going to Moho, the 300 ton lander for Duna, first Duna mission and in the back the 4 ships heading for Jool.

Final Frontier kerbal individual merits current version: 1.10.0-3485 Sometimes it's hard to choose a kerbal for a mission because they are all the same... well, they differ in courage and stupidity but they have no history, no personal merits they have achieved. Do you remember who was the first kerbal in space? No? Ok, who was the first kerbal on Mun? Still no idea? The Final Frontier plugin will handle this for you. Each kerbal will get ribbons for extraordinary merits. And the number of missions flown (i.e. vessel recovered), total mission time and total EVA time is recorded, too. Download: Spacedock Spacedock direct link for KSP 1.1.3 Mirror: Curse For modders: Version 0.8.12 and later includes an api to reward ribbons from an external plugin. You will find an adapter class and an example here: FinalFrontierAdapter Planet Packs (for use in 0.6.0 or later): PFCE: Download Kerbol Expanded: Download (WIP, last update 02.01.2015) Ribbon Packs (for use in 0.9.1 or later): RANKS and MILITARY RANKS FOR KERBALS (Base ID 1000) by Araym Expedition/Rank Ribbon Packs (Base ID 8000) bySmarterThanMe Armed Forces Ranks (Base ID 3000) by Shadriss If you want to create your own ribbon pack feel free to do so. But you should use IDs other than in the ribbon packs above. Just set the BASE in the config file to some other number and keep in mind that every ribbon must get an unique ID. (Screenshot of my development copy and not from a real game) To open the Final Frontier Hall of Fame window just click on the button labeled "FF" in the toolbar or press LEFTALT-F (hardcoded at the moment, so it's not assignable to another key). If you are using the stock toolbar you will find some kind of award icon. To browse all available ribbons just press the "Ribbons" button on the right of the hall of fame. Currently the following ribbons are awarded to kerbals: Orbit around a celestial body (including Kerbin) Landing on a celestial body (including Kerbin – kerbals do reward even simple tasks, because most of the time they fail...) EVA in around a celestial body without a stable orbit (including Kerbin) EVA in an orbit around a celestial body (including Kerbin) EVA on a celestial body (including Kerbin – let's hope they will survive...) Docking around a celestial body (including Kerbin) Collision in a vessel Dangerous EVA while not on ground and not in a stable orbit Get into a Kerbin orbit in less than 200, 150 or 120 seconds Accumulated mission time of at least 5, 20, 50, 100, 500, 2000 or 5000 days (20, 80, 200, 400, 2000 or 20000 kerbin days) A return from single mission that lasted for at least 20, 50, 125, 500 oe 2000 days (80, 200, 500, 2000, or 8000 kerbin days) At least 5, 20 or 50 missions flown (i.e. vessel recovered) Done a splashdown landing First kerbal in space A ribbon for entering the sphere of influence of a celestial body (new in 0.2.2) Planting flags on celestial bodies Launching with solid fuel boosters of 10%, 20%, or 30% ship mass Achieved gee-force of 3, 4, 5, 6,..., 17 or 18 g Entering the deep athmosphere of Jool Orbiting the Sun at half or less the distance of Moho Moving a vehicle (hopefully a rover) on the surface of a celestial body Crew member of a heavy vehicle of at least 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 or 4000 tons Launching a heavy vehicle of at least 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 or 4000 (!) tons Landing a heavy vehicle of at least 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 or 4000 (puh!) tons Ribbons for 1h, 2h, 6h, 12h, 24h, 48h, 96h and 192h in EVA Ribbons for flying a vessel at Mach 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15 below 20,000m in Kerbin atmosphere (0.4.1 and later) Ribbons for EVA Endurance, i.e. a single EVA of at least 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240 or 300 minutes. Ribbons for entering atmosphere of Eve, Duna, Jool,... A Ribbon for entering the sphere of influence of all celestial bodies (Grant Tour ribbon) A Ribbon for entering the sphere of influence of all moons of Jool (Jool Tour ribbon) Ribbons for completing contracts Ribbons achieving research (while in a mission) Ribbons for first completed mission as an engineer, pilot or scientist Ribbons for altitude, distance, speed and depth records A Ribbon for entering deep space beyond Eeloo (or whatever outermost planet may exist) Ribbons for landing in polar regions Ribbons for landing at high elevations on kerbin Ribbons for landing with less than 5% or 1% liquid fuel More than 500 ribbons in total! If a kerbal is the first one rewarded with a celestial ribbon, he will get the "First kerbal" ribbon of that kind (for example "First kerbal in orbit around Kerbin "). Some ribbons replace some others when earned. For example: The ribbon for EVA in an orbit around a celestial body replaces the ribbon for EVA around the same body without a stable orbit. The ribbon for 20 missions flown replaces the ribbon for 5 missions, etc. A tooltip gives a short description for each awarded ribbon. The ribbon graphics are inspired by the ribbons created by Unistrut (view this thread). But unfortunately I still do not have his permission to include his ribbon graphics into Final Frontier so I have created my own set of ribbons. They are using the same color and sometimes similar graphics (so they will look similar). If Unistrut will give his permission to use his ribbons, I will include them in a modified form with better graphics than mine. Some of the custom ribbons are created by SmarterThanMe and nothke and are used with their permission. Update: I finally got the permission to use the ribbons from Unistrut. But why is it called "Final Frontier"? Well, I'm quite surprised that nobody is asking, but I will try to explain it anyway. I was thinking about this plugin since the personal achievement mod by blizzy78. I liked the idea in general but in a sandbox game achievements for the player doesn't mean to much to me (but this is a personal opinion of course). Unfortunately I'm a Java/C++ programmer and C# is quite new for me, so time and missing skills/experience delayed the implementation until the first days of 2014. Then I decided to give it a try and created a small C# project for testing/learning the basics. The first decision to made was the name of the project. I do not exactly remember how I get the idea for the name, but I searched a bit in Youtube, Google and well, perhaps there was a replay of Star Trek in TV. I really don't know how I got the name, but I created a project "Final Frontier" and so it begun. And I don't like to change the name of a project afterwards without a specific reason. Installation: Important! Please read if you have trouble with Final Frontier. Just unzip the archive into the KSP folder. Don't move the FinalFrontier folder, it should be nested in the folder GameData/Nereid. If you are already using the toolbar you don't have to extract the toolbar folder. Do not change the installation path! Final Frontier must reside under GameData/Nereid Compatibility: Final Frontier should be compatible with most mods. There is one important exclusion from this rule: Mods that are changing names of celestial bodies or add new celestial bodies will cause trouble. All releases from 0.6.0 and later can handle the altering of celestial bodies. There is still one exclusion: All celestial bodies must have unique names. To get ribbons for new celestial bodies, you must install a planet pack (see above). Changelog: 0.7.15-1047: Fix for missing button in blizzys toolbar 0.8.1-1282: Fix for lost ribbons bug 0.8.2-1285: minor bugs fixed 0.8.6-1370: fix for Contract Configurator compatibiliy 0.8.8-1410: Update for KSP 1.0.5 0.8.9-1414: new custom ribbons from SmarterThanMe 0.8.13-1728: 7 new ribbons (includung deep space ribbon) support for external plugins that may award ribbons minor fixes 0.9.1-1749 support for user defined custom ribbons 0.9.3-1792 fix for not properly removed kerbals in hall of fame that were spawned by CC+ new ribbons: Lost And Found (untestet), Significant Contract, Exceptional Contract, Passenger Transport removed some uneccessary log spamming added optional logging of ribbons/achievements (to analyze incorrectly awarded ribbons; see last checkbox in config window) 0.9.4-1798 fix for Lost And Found ribbon and Passenger Transport ribbons (NREs in log) 0.9.5-1819 Minor fixes (if you do not enable the logging of ribbon awards you should be fine) Lost And Found ribbon disabled Reasearch ribbons tuned down a bit 0.9.6-1826 Fix for mission summary window 0.9.8-1882First North Polar Lander ribbon North Polar Lander ribbon First South Polar Lander ribbon South Polar Lander ribbon 5% Fuel Landing ribbon (only liquid fuel ist taken into account!) 1% Fuel Landing ribbon (only liquid fuel ist taken into account!) 1500m Mountain Lander ribbon 2000m Mountain Lander ribbon 2500m Mountain Lander ribbon 3000m Mountain Lander ribbon 3500m Mountain Lander ribbon 4000m Mountain Lander ribbon 1.0.2-2131 Update for KSP 1.1.0 1.0.3-2181 Update for KSP 1.1.2 Minor fixes (e.g. windows stay open in main menu) 1.0.4-2216 New First-Kerbal-In-Space and First-EVA-In-Space ribbons graphics by SmarfterThanMe Configurable hotkey 1.0.5-2223 correct URL for KSP-AVC no other changes 1.0.6-2301 Fix for Closer Solar Orbit ribbon and OPM 1.0.7-2319 Hotkey fixed (hopefully) 1.0.8-2443 no more 0%/5% Fuel Landing ribbons if a vessel is landing with deployed (or cut) parachutes logging of some keypresses to analyze the still not solved hotkey issue 1.0.9-2459 timestamps in log now in kerbin time, if enabled in KSP settings fix for FinalFrontierAdapter (kerbal type applicant now eligible for ribbon awards) hall of fame is now refreshed, if an applicant joins the crew roster 1.0.10-2467 Fix for hotkey issue (maybe) minor fix to prevent NRE 1.0.12-2505 Build for KSP 1.1.3 RSS compatibility 1.0.13-2539 Mountain Lander Ribbon for 4000m now superseedes 3500m fixed a typo in the description of the polar landing ribbons 1.2.1-2650 Build for KSP 1.2 1.2.3-2675 fix for the incorrect data in the mission summary window "show summary window" checkbox in config 1.2.4-2772 mission summary window only shown if crew recovered 1.2.5-2906 Fix for conflict with Contract Configurator 1.2.7-3080 KSP 1.2.2 (no significant changes) 1.3.1-3103 KSP 1.3.0 (no significant changes) 1.3.2-3155 no more science records for no science points earned low gravity landing ribbons 1.3.3-3172 KSP 1.3.1 logbook pages 1.3.5-3175 Rover ribbon no longer supersedes EVA ground ribbon 1.3.6-3189 Option to permanently disable ribbons in the Ribbon-Browser without tampering with the ribbon png files 1.4.0-3325 KSP 1.4.0 1.4.1-3335 KSP 1.4.1 1.4.2-3375 KSP 1.4.2 Fix for blurred ribbons in low quality settings 1.5.0-3380 KSP 1.5.1 1.5.1-3415 KSP 1.6.0 Squeezing of science points in hall of fame history (reduces data stored in save file) 1.5.3-3465 KSP 1.6.1 If a flight is reverted to EDITOR all ribbons are reverted too 1.8.0-3475 KSP 1.8.1 1.8.1-3479 Minor fix: sorting/statistics for ribbon count in hall of fame fixed 1.10.0-3485 KSP 1.10.0 The plugin is currently in some kind of alpha beta gamma stage. It works or at least I think it will work. But bugs may occur and don't try this plugin in a current game without a backup. And it its my first project in C#, so don't expect to much from the code . Kerbals are identified by their names. So don't add kerbals with the same name or Final Frontier will get confused. The plugin takes use of System.IO to store its data in the corresponding persistent.sfs of a game and its settings in GameData/FinalFrontier.dat. Release 0.8.x will do a scan for old save games in the saves folder and converts them upon permission by the user. There are no other write operations anywhere on the system. License: http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause Source is included in the zip archive. Final Frontier uses the toolbar created by blizzy78, see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60863-0-23-0-Toolbar-1-4-3-Common-API-for-draggable-resizable-buttons-toolbar. If you don't like the toolbar or just want to use the stock toolbar for Final Frontier disable the use of blizzys toolbar in the configuration dialog of Final Frontier. Bugs: Ike and dres ribbons are the same. (fixed in 0.4.20) Decoupling in orbit, leaving orbit and immediatly returning into orbit give Fast Orbit Ribbon (fixed in 0.5.4) A splashdown landing in water give Mach 10 Ribbon (fixed in 0.5.4) Typo" Grant Tour" instead of "Grand Tour" (fixed in 0.5.4) SOI ribbons (and maybe others too) are not awarded when in time acceleration (fixed in 0.5.6) Gee force ribbons don't work as intended if crew is changed in flight (still suspicious) Closer solar orbit ribbons don't work (fixed in 0.6.0) quickload may cause loss of ribbons (fixed in 0.6.3) Ribbons may get lost, after installing new mods (fixed in 0.8.1-1282) Kerbals may get cloned (fixed in 0.8.3-1361) mission summary incorrect in some cases (fixed in 0.9.6-1826)

new fanart lets go this time jeb makes the reentry profile a bit too shallow (-200 km or so) and they burn up in the atmosphere hilarious

Any capsule or probe has a range of 200Mm, but the communotron 16 and communotron 16-S antennas only have a range of 500Km. Shouldn't it be the other way around? As they stand now, communotron antennas are useless. Or I'm wrong? 500Km = 500,000 meters and 200Mm = 200,000,000 meters.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181681 800 km in diameter = 500 000 km2 = 0.5 mln km2. Earth land area = 140+ mln km2. Say, a half of the land is deserts and wastelands. So, you need ~150 x 10 Gt to eliminate the terrestrial life. Say, it's based on LiD and uses 238U for casing. Then it's ~50 000 t heavy in total, Together with propulsion and other, 200 000 t. Say, average density is ~1 t/m3, like for the known meganukes. Total volume ~200 000 m3. Centrifugal artificial gravity habitat safe radius = 100..200 m. A typical crewed ark cross-section area = pi * (100..200)2 = 30..120 * 103 m2. 200 000 / (30..120 * 103) ~ several meter length. So, the 150 x 10 Gt fit the mass-dimensional capability of a typical space ark (i.e. an interstellar genetration ship, or a mass rescue ship at the Earth, or a near-Mars orbital habitat), with a hundred-up-to-thousands crew and a fridge+incubator facility with frozen ravioli colonists. Just it is a ring of 10 Gt warheads instead of the artificial gravity ring. And their propulsion unit is absolutely the same. So, there is no problem to send three such ships in advance, before sending the colonists. It comes to the star of interest, calculates intervals of arrival (to let the warheads keep the safe distance from each other, and to let the planet of interest rotate and bring next hit point under the next warhead hit), and releases the warheads, without braking. The no-brake scheme is important. If the local biosphere is equipped with defense systems, it's much harder to intercept the incoming warheads, which are moving at the near-interstellar speed. After the 150 x 10 Gt near-space explosions, the landmass is totally burnt, so the local lifeforms are eliminated, the local ecological chains are broken, the local biosphere starts collapsing. Next, another crewless set of ships arrives and spreads the terrestrial grass, rodents, rabbits, cats, and wolves (consult with Australians, what they don't let to import, it's exactly what you should send). They eliminate the remains of the local biosphere, and form the Tier 1 of the terraforming. Several decades later, the fleet of colonial arks begins arriving, occupying the planet, and populating it with the correct set of lifeforms. By repeating this scheme on every next star system, you will successfully perform the interstellar extinction of the previous sapient species, and terraform entire galaxy. *** In case if somebody thinks, that it's a joke, no. It's absolutely the traditional historical way, how the things are being done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Подсечно-огневое_земледелие?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp "Slavic colonists are developing the eco-village on the burnt surface of Epsilon Eridani 5". (You can see the already terraformed areas at the background)

Getting this message when trying to put fuel tanks on the smaller two nodes. I can get the first to attach, but trying to get a second (both appropriately sized) fuel tank to attach gives this message. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

I managed to get to Mun and Minmus and do the major science missions around those, but now I am stuck. I am down to two missions: the Duna discovery mission and the "Lil Chonker" mission. I can't seem to succeed in either. I have medium rockets unlocked, but can't seem to lift a 200 ton lander on Minmus and wondering if I need heavy to do that? Actually, that isn't true, I landed a 250 ton lander on Minmus and didn't get the credit. I am assuming it dropped below 200 tons when I finally landed. So I built a heavier one, but haven't been able to get it to minmus without just burning the extra fuel anyway due to the weight/thrust needed to get it off Kerbin. For Duna, I didn't seem to have enough fuel to land properly (chutes don't seem to work). So then I thought maybe I need to drop a rover or something, but realized I still need some sort of braking to land it safely. Maybe I just need to learn more about how to maximize burn efficiency to do either mission. Any advice? Finally, some feedback: I've run out of science and can't unlock more. I've tried to gather some from various biomes on Kerbin and Mun, but it feels tedious. Being newer to the game, I actually like the rails of the science progression. This coupled with the training center has made the game a lot more enjoyable for me. But now I just feel stuck. I wish there were more landmarks, or missions to send me to different parts (biomes or regions) with more purpose. Right now it just feels like I'm randomly trying to find science, which coupled with my frustration of Duna and Lil Chonker, got a bit tired of the game as a result.

Someone did here's the https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/07/1041420/spacex-starship-rocket-solar-system-exploration/amp/Article, ( and there was a open letter by some people at NASA talking about using starship and that NASA need to start to dream big). Just to give an example: a deep space fully refueled V3 starship can give a 9KM/s DV to a 150 tons payload. And if that payload is a 15 tons probe, and 135 tons fuel with an engine with storable propellant that has 300 seconds of ISP, this gives the 15 tons probe 7 km/s, enough for a direct transfer and propulsive brake to Neptune. With a probe 20 times heavier than voyager. But transfer time with a Hohmann is 30 years to get there. If we could speed up and down 0.5km/s (1km/s total) the travel time get cut to 12 years, and we would probably still talk about a 10 ton probe. And numbers get even more stupid if we start to refuel starship to a tanker that is fully fueled on a highly hell optical orbit, like getting a 500 ton probe to Jupiter orbit, or 200 tons to orbit one of it's moon, all done with only propulsive method.

Part 6: Need for Speed: Tylo Flying Christmas Tree 2 drops Tamarromobile on Tylo. It's a completely different experience than it was with Dancing Porcupine, with sustained speeds between 150 to 200 km/h. As Tylo is big, this piece of report only covers the first half. The second half of the circumnavigation is still underway. Two pictures to get a clear view of the western emisphere of Tylo. Flags are 90 km apart Meaning that between flags 10 and 11, as well as 15 to 16, I crossed 90 km in 28 minutes. It gives an average speed of 193 km/s (53.5 m/s, close to the maximum of the wheels at 58 m/s), but the time includes planting a flag. 6.1) I thought docking issues would be a thing of the past 6.2) Beautiful desolation 6.3) Mountains ahoy! 7.4) Bonus: Back to El camino de muerte

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.

200 Δv seems fine - I always aim at having about 300 Δv. Then Im sure I wont bounce off the atmosphere. I make sure my craft is empty once the final burn has been done though. dry mass vs fueled mass is a big difference. and you glide a lot better if your vehicle weights nothing. I usually aim here: What makes aiming super tricky is how far the planet has rotated before you get bellow 70km. Now you can extend the glide a lot in the 70-40km by holding a pitch 10-20° Angle of Attack. I've sometimes gotten "stuck" bouncing off the Stratosphere (the ~40km mark) until you bleed off enough speed to enter. If you manage that you can really extend the glide. The 30km to 40km is your last chance to extend or shorten the glide. Once your below 30km, depending on your glider.. you only have 20-40km you can travel. If you haven't seen it, I can highly recommend the video about landing a shuttle that Sylvi linked on Tap 3. I made a habit of quicksaving before doing the deorbit burn. See how far I could glide and adjust until I knew where to start the burn to line the runway up propper. I never time my launches x) I just time warp and wait for a good window to arrive: The old method your vehicle orbit time is slower than the target. So at some point you will get a window that is less than 10.000km - although I think I have corrected as big margins as 20.000km. But the new method is always the same... once you have your ~10km orbit bellow target. you just have to wait until your directly beneath it. then burn about 10 Δv to rendesvous with it and then another 10Δv to match the orbit. I might start wait for good windows with this method.. as a bad window can leave you in time loop for a while x) but still.. the consistency in how much Δv you use is nice i think. But my station is only at 100km - I think you can make it easier by just reversing.. method one, you know AP at 200 and PE at a 100 or so? I dont know how well method two is at more than 10km difference in orbit. Aaand I can imagine at 190km the orbit period is quite extensive. I strongly believe in documenting your failures too - it gives you some data to theorycraft with x) Well my large tugs were also the second stage - no reason to not use perfectly good vacuum optimized engines you could also go for a split wing tail - man 1.900 Δv is a lot! You are also a lot higher up though. My station is at 100km It may be easier for you to aim your decent if you start by getting down to a 70-80km orbit and then do the final deorbit burn from there. Makes aiming a lot easier. Yeah. Its hard to gauge from a screenshot. but with your angle of attack at 20° and a speed of 39.5m/s I assume you should be able to land it no problem. My gliders never produce that... I simply go through the atmosphere too gently. Any way.. I can see you also re-entered following your prograde. meaning you get the shortest tour through the atmosphere as possible (except for if you entered at 90° ofcourse). With a Angle of Attack (AoA) on 0° you cant extend the glide. The danger of flipping is also none existent. The shuttle re-entered with a 40° AoA for instance. I find with a AoA on 10-20° you can have trouble re-enter the atmosphere. You can experiment with that. Not at all. But if we are going to make a habit of it. I think a private threat would be a better option. (just to keep the already bloated thread on topic ) I hope my thoughts and comments will help you in your future endeavor - I have contemplated starting a For Science Campaign.. but I think there are enough avenues I can explore just in sandbox mode.. before I need other things to entertain me. btw I took an FPS count last time I was at K.G.01.. its not flashy: So I guess I am also just a very patient person x)