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Good news everyone! Do you have a hankerin for the good old days? Well now you can fly like they wanted to in the early 1960's Introducing the Farnsworth Dyna-soar. 1.1.3 friendly Back in the early 60's Boeing designed this neat rocket concept. Unfortunately, it never left the ground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar Instead of the glider being attached to the side of the rocket like we are accustomed to seeing with the space shuttle, Boeing attached it to the top of the rocket. The space shuttle suffered from some inherent design flaws right off of the drawing board (due mainly to government budget cuts). The main one being that it has the thrust and mass are out of alignment. To compensate for this the designers mounted the SSME's (Space Shuttle Main Engines) at an angle so that the thrust could be brought inline with the center of mass. Unfortunately, this flight attitude brought the orbiter directly under the external tank. The orbiter was pretty fragile and could not handle much fod (foreign object debris)hitting it. The external tank was huge, covered in finicky insulation and was directly over the orbiter during assent. A great way for the orbiter to get hit with stuff... The External tank that was filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Those tanks had lines on them while it was on the pad to boil off some of those gasses that were in liquid form to control the pressure in the tanks. The result was the external tank would get cold enough sometimes for patches of ice to form on the tank out of condensing humidity in the air. Technicians would check for ice before launch but invariably, some would be missed. At launch by the time the shuttle cleared the launch tower it was already hurtling towards space at over 200 mph. Plenty fast enough for a piece of ice mingled with some foam from the external tank to break off and slice through the brittle carbon/carbon leading edge of the orbiter wing. This is the best guess as to what happened to the Columbia in 2003 ...Sorry for the history lesson... Anyways, The Dyna-Soar avoided all of these problems by mounding the glider on the top of the rocket. This however limited the size of the glider. It required the modified Titan rocket to have large fins on the bottom to compensate for the glider moving the center of lift too far up the rocket. So here is my take on the Dyna Soar All stages can take advantage of the "stage recovery" mod if you use it. The glider retains the last stage to use for orbital maneuvers, docking and solar energy. 150k orbits are achievable for crew rotation at your station. Final stage has a Clamp-0-Tron jr docking port to attach to the station. More fun than exploding! Perform your deorbit burn and then detach from the final stage. The glider should enter the athmosphere perpendicular and with the elevators deployed. There is no fuel you can move around. Once the air thickens up, the glider will drop to about 30 deg. attitude. The glider is not a "true" glider. It has two juno engines and 100 units of fuel so if you over or under-shoot your landing there is some adjustments that can be made. The glider flies very well and has an awesome glide slope. This does make it hard to burn off airspeed. Try to cross over the runway at well under 100 m/s and you shouldn't overshoot. Download here! https://kerbalx.com/Dr_Farnsworth/Dyna-Soar

Download at: Spacedock · Curseforge Parts some of which are in development which have changed in some aspects which will come soon. Here's a launcher of mine in my career mode, demonstrating the soon to be FX: What does this project do? Remaking vanilla launchers for a modern twist. Parts based on their real life counterparts with KSP theme (stockalike) Changelog Version 1.0 Initial Release Version 2.0 Added mid stage tank - a little bit bigger than the X200-32 Added mid stage engine with 1000 thrust (with alternative fairing texture) Added fairing base (and procedural fairing base) (Texture switchable) Added fairing (and procedural fairing) (Texture switchable) New textures for the upper stage tank and Kerbal X tank Removed smoke on engines Changed engine FX and added new ones Version 3.0 Remodeled most of the parts, removed old parts that are not remodeled yet Current version contains: -Fairing Base (Procedural) -Slant Cone/Sepacone (untouched but still used) Rocket Engines: -LVT-A (Poodle Equivalent, Based on ESC-A, Resizable) -KE-4 (Skipper Equivalent, Based on BE-4) -KE-68 (Mainsail Equivalent, Based on RS-68) -LV-T1C (LV-T30 Equivalent, Based on Merlin 1C) -LV-T1D (LV-T45 Equivalent, Based on Merlin 1D) -KE-180 (Based on RD-180, Update 3.0.5) Texture switchable and Resizable: -Long Kerbal X Tank -Mid tank -Upper stage tank -Decoupler (Recolored, same model) -Mk1-2 Decoupler (Recolored, same model) Known Issues/Problems Tweakscale is not that good at the moment in resizing automatically for my parts Sepacones sometimes have a very strong kick, I recommend reducing its thrust. The released version's Kerbal X has KW Rocketry struts, use this patch to solve that problem Recommendations: Aerojet Kerbodyne to match with the new launchers. Active Texture Management if running out of memory License: *Smokescreen in contained in package is made by Sarbian (and the rest of the developers that helped him, credit goes to them). Firespitter is made by Snjo as well as modulemanager and modulefixer.dll files, those aren't mine. I only take credit on my parts. If you want to help the development of this project greatly, you can donate some feedback or criticism.

With the same 5150 delta-V you've come to expect, here is the Cyclone Heavy. Capable of reaching Duna directly with some clever aerobraking, the C-H can lift payloads of up to 20 tons to a 100 km orbit and return. It is fully reusable, except for the possible exception of the in-fairing docking port. It is reasonably forgiving, but don't do anything stupid with it. Do not open the fairing at altitudes lower than 55000 meters. Doing so will void your warranty. The C-H can be fitted with a hitchhiker container for crew storage (By default it is unmanned). It has no action groups or solar panels to worry about; the Cyclone Heavy is powered by 4 Radiothermal Isotope Generators and thus does not require external power input. It weighs an astounding 773 tons in the default configuration, with a sea level TWR of 1.58. If you so desire, there is more info is in the KerbalX page. Fly with care, or with mechjeb. It's stable at 3x time warp, and does not fall apart at 4x, but I advise you to stick to low timewarp speeds. (From left to right: Misttrailer SSTO, Cloudstream SSTO, Cyclone Heavy SSTO) https://kerbalx.com/WorkaroundIndustries/Workaround-Industries-MK3-SSTO-Cyclone

BackStory time: The KSC has almost run out of funds but because they were focused on other planets the didin't check the mun or minmus. Challenge: Get to the mun or minmus (which you prefer) flyby or orbit or landing with the least expensive rocket you can Rules: No hyper edit. Can Be Kerbaled. Needs pics or video (i lost my proof in freak accident with hard drive) NO PART MODS. Mech jeb and KER but MJ for readouts only. Sandbox mode. Scoring: Funds divided in half and if gone to minmus x2 and return x #(if flyby then 1 if orbit then 2 if landing and return with kerbals 4) = Score ScoreBoards: 1: @Reactordrone 66215 points / 3107 2:@Signo 1700 points / 4800

Dumdumdumdum... Hello hello kerbonauts! Today i wanted to ask a fun question, who build the worlds first rocket? It must be a developer because 0.1 is not available for the community! ( pics are welcome!) And i mean the first rocket!

I am having a problem where I want to launch rockets from a high-altitude airplane to lower costs. The airplane has a detachable rocket with enough delta-V to get to orbit from high altitude, but not enough to get to orbit from the ground. Currently I am doing my best to put the airplane in level flight, hit stability control, switch control to the rocket, then launch, but I find that in the time it takes to put the rocket in stable orbit, the airplane eventually hits the ground destructively. I'm not even sure if I can switch back to the aircraft from the space control center if it survived (anyone know?). Perhaps this type of project is not even possible in KSP? Does anyone have any ideas to allow the airplane to survive with low cost, or implement some career-mode-allowable autopilot functionality without mods, or mods that enable this functionality via coding or otherwise without seeming like complete cheating (mechjeb)?

If this is on the wrong section of the forums I apologise. Move to the correct sub-section if you wish. Anyway onwards with me request, I have KER (Kerbal Engineer Redux), KAX (Kerbal Aircraft Expansion), KAC (Kerbal Alarm Clock) and finally Transfer Window Planner. So if people haven't already guessed I'm running a modded install and any other requests to add to the above would be much appreciated. I've been considering to add SpaceY but is it worth it alongside the other mods I've installed. Oh and I forgot to mention I also have Texture Replacer but not sure how to edit the kerbals design exxactly. I'm here beforth the kerbal community to ask you to help me, awfulcraftdesigns to create a Duna Rocket or SSTO that is designed by you the community with my input (basically a community rocket that I shall build taking your ideas into account) If I may ask of this relatively simple request, then its much appreicated. I'm looking forward to hearing the ideas put beforth me and I'm much appricated for the community's help. -awfulcraftdesigns, signing out! P.S: I'm running 1.0.5 because 1.1.2 is buggy IMO!

Hi! I still pretty much a KSP beginner, I played a bit before the official release. Now I'm playing on Science Mode and I want to land a Kerbal on the Mun, but I have a problem. I've built a rocket that can easily reach Orbit and even the Mun. But as soon as I add landing struts to the "landing part" I can't seem to launch the rocket from the launchpad straight up. Without the struts reaching orbit is easy, with them I just can't manage because the rocket starts tipping straight away... Is it normal that the landing struts have such a large impact? And what can I do to fix the problem? Maybe I am attaching them wrong, but I tried to balance them out and everything. Below some screenshots of my rocket with and without landing struts. Thanks for your help!! Without landing struts: With 3 landing struts: With 6 landing struts, symmetrical to the tanks below:

Dear Community, Who else agrees with me that the Antares Rocket is super cool looking? Seriously. It is simple, nice, and pretty sweet to put lightly. Until the craft had a launch failure in the 10's. Sweet mod that adds them So rate how you like the Antares rocket on a scale of 1-10

So i appear to be having a problem with either the design in my rockets or a flaw in the mods that have plagued 3 of my rockets. The most trouble seems to be appearing to one of my rockets that is similar in appearance to a falcon 9 as it is very tall and skinny, so immediately after I launch, my rocket tips one way and then the other and then violently spins out of control and usually ends up detaching my payload at supersonic speeds across ksc. The payload cannot be tipping in the fairing as it is secured with struts and it is not very flimsy, and i turned the gimbal distance on my engines way down because i thought that maybe it was the gimbal putting it in a spin but nothing seems to do the trick. I have all mods associated with Realism Overhaul and Real Scale Solar System such as mechjeb, remote tech, deadly reentry, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Why hello there, humble viewer. I see that you have stumbled upon my post; I guess I will introduce myself. All I really do is blow stuff up, play videogames, and climb up the mountain located 20 inches from my humble abode. (I really hate it when jeb steals my snacks) Thats all I have to say right now. I guess you should go. Please? .... Are you not going to leave already? ? Oh well. I might as well end this post. Oh no... The submit button is not working.... Oh. There. *clicks*

so i posted this video on Reddit and someone said i should try to adapt it to lift a rocket and then launch it from the upper atmosphere. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but do you think this will be possible, how much lift can a rotating wing generate? if the works well i think i could be on to something, it would sure save allot of fuel leaving the atmosphere.

One thing I have noticed recently is that everyone seems to use standardized lifters and I do not. I use standardized payloads (like lil' science and mapping satellites) and build a booster for wherever I want to send them. So my questions: Do you use standardized lifters or do you build them custom for every mission? Why or why not? Is there any real reason for using standardized boosters? I understand that in Real Life standardization of rockets makes sense for economics and all, but in a game like KSP that does not model assembly or supply it really seems pointless.

So, I've been playing KSP for a while now, and I've put a flag on Duna, Ike, Dres, and Gilly, and put a bunch of probes and stuff on Eve, and now I'm shooting for Jool. I've landed a probe on Laythe that was nearly vaporized, but managed to land. (BTW, I'm in sandbox but I still bring along things like a thermometer because it's just fun to see) but anything else is basically impossible. I tried to make a bigger probe to land on Tylo or something, but my transfer ships just don't have enough Delta-V. Even when I do my burns from Kerbin orbit, where they are the most efficient, it still doesn't work. Forget about coming back. My transfer ships have plenty of fuel, and they use efficient engines, like nukes or LVNs. I have Kerbal Engineer,(The mod) but I can't get my ships' Delta-V above 5000. So here is my real question: can anyone show me some examples of their Jool ships, or at least tell me what I'm doing wrong? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The past few weeks I've been trying to make spaceplanes for other users on Kerbal X. As such I've been restricting myself to designs that require no mods whatsoever to fly, but the problem I'm hitting time and time again is fuel balance. As you may be aware , all jet engines in game drain fuel evenly , from every tank in the vessel. If your plane is down to 50% internal fuel, every tank onboard will have 50% of it's full capacity, regardless of size. Eg. your FAT-455 airplane wing will now have 300 LF out of 600 max capacity, whilst your mark 0 fuselage will now have 25 out of 50. Adjust your airplane so that there's as many tanks ahead of CG as there are aft of it, then everything balances perfectly, full to empty with no handling problems. FULL TANKS EMPTY TANKS *this plane was modified off a design Bewing sent to me, original here Now the problem is, when you fire up the NERV or any rocket engine at all , for that matter. Rocket engines only take fuel from the stack of tanks immediately ahead of them, radially attached wings or tanks on other stacks are ignored. Well , if that was the only problem you could run fuel ducts, though given how bugged the drag from these are, it's not great. But I've made some designs that kept ducts to an absolute minimum. But the real show stopper is that the rocket engine drains the tanks sequentially. It looks for the furthest away tank that's on the same stack as it, and empties it completely before taking so much as a drop from the others, then moves on to the next one down. So, by emptying tanks at the front first, the plane's CG moves aft, behind the CoL and suddenly it wants to do backflips. Other than using mods, what can you do about it? use a single large tank per engine. I suppose for LF/O engines you have options. You could mate one FT800 per Terrier engine and that'd be about the right compromise between fuel endurance and thrust for a spaceplane. If LF only however, the biggest we have is the 400 capacity mk1 fuselage tank. The mk2 has an 800 LF fuselage tank but it's the wrong diameter and much draggier. fuel ducts. Draggy ! Also, the tanks have to be the same size, because unlike the jet engines, ducts don't take account of how big the tank is that they're pulling from. It will pull (for example) 3 fuel per second from each tank whether it's a little Oscar B or a Kerbodyne. locking tanks and manual transfer. TBH, this arrangement works pretty well if you're keeping Rick Wakeman, Tony Banks, Geoff Downes or other legendary keyboardists chained up in your basement, they can work all that for you while you operate the flight controls. Unfortunately the food costs were breaking me and i had to let them go. So devs, how about a nice little toggle on each engine so we can set fuel drain mode between sequential and balanced? I can sort of see why sequential mode exists for rockets.. gravity feed and all that, it assumes you're combining three FT400s into a single large tank, but it's not the same if the tanks are lying horizontally in an airplane. Even in a rocket, do the tanks not have internal baffles, multiple pick up points etc? Seems to just be an artificial way of increasing difficulty in the VAB on early career mode. Make us want to spend science points to unlock larger tanks even though they're exactly the same in terms of dry/wet mass ratio, diameter, heat tolerance and fuels carried.

Ok, I'm confused. I'm making my first modded thruster and exported the model fine as per normal, but modifying a CFG file, only changing the attach point and model thus far, is giving me a center of thrust at the SPH floor. Also, no thrust. Likely because below the ground. I tried adding a particle emitter to the mesh but it wouldn't load in KSP. I'm pretty sure theres a tutorial that covers this that i found before but i couldn't find it when i actually need it. (of course). Any help would be appreciated.

Hello! I´ve been playing KSP for a couple of mopnths already...I´ve managed to land on quite a few planets and moons, but now almost all my contracts are focused on the Jool system. So, I´ve built a quite heavy rocket, which gives me some near 12.000Dv to reach Jool and its moons and be able to land and return form there. The problem is that while in LKO, the rocket translates way too slowly, and it gets frustrating. Which is the best way to make it more maneuverable? Should I place some RCS thrusters, and in this case, do they need some propellant tanks? Which would be the best place for those thrusters? I post an image of the rocket in order to get an idea of what I have... Thanks a lot for the help! http://

Hi guys. I make a rocket for rss and I wish to share with you a video of their construction and in the future crafts I'm going to make a video at all actually existing missiles and project. You can also use them by downloading from the list of mods or my build , which will appear tomorrow Ariane 5 and ATV

Here is something to consider. How about trying to get to Mun or Minmus, without achieving orbit. The Challenge is... to get to the mun or minmus without orbiting. This means that you can not have ny stable orbits. You cant orbit kerbin or mun or minmus. It must all be sub orbital Normal Mode: Just get there Hard mode: Get back Very Hard Mode: Impress me You need proof via video or pics. No hyperedit of alt+f12 . It must be stock and mechjeb is allowed. If there are any other mods that you think would be fair please tell me about it and i will consider adding it. Have fun and good luck

I was messing around and I decided to make a rocket with every single size of fuel tank. This was the result. It flies surprisingly well, despite the fact that it's actually larger than the VAB interior. Each stage is eight times the length of the smallest fuel tank for that size, except for the 0.625 meter stage, which has 8 oscars instead of the donut tanks. Here's some photos. Oh, and it can go to Jool, no problem. It's impractical, but it's fun. Also note that either SVE or EVE is messing up the cloud textures in the last image. Just wanted to point that out. Have a nice day!

I was doing calculations for a hypergolics fuelled trip using tech from 1970-1980, and I came up with 40 tons to land, 292 tons to orbit, and 700 tons to inject to Mars. Is this correct?

So I've built this satelite and I've watched like a dozen videos on youtube about rocket design because mine are always either flipping or so stable, that they just go straight upwards which makes creating an efficient orbit impossible. Now I have this contract where I have to builx a satelite and set it at a polar orbit around Kerbin, but around 5,3km my rocket starts to flip without a reason. The center of lift is well below the center of mass just as all those youtube videos said, but it won't do the trick. Any advice? Link to rocket Also, if I build small rockets, I can easily control them, but as they gain mass it becomes almost impossible to steer them in any way. Again, the youtubers seem to do just fine. Even if I place the center of lift very near the center of mass, it's still so cloggy to controll that getting into orbit becomes a real difficulty with a limited amount of fuel. I'd really like to enjoy this game, but apparently there's something about rocket design that I'm missing out on guys.

As you scale down rockets, the atmosphere becomes "thicker" from the rocket's point of view, to the point that it would eventually become impossible to achieve orbit. If some hobbyists got together and pooled their resources, what's the smallest possible rocket that could actually reach orbit? Staging allowed; no payload required other than aeroshell and engines.

The Ground-Based Interceptor is an anti-ballistic missile operated by the US military, and based off the air-launched Pegasus Launcher. The Ground-Based Interceptor, however, is a ground launched rocket- thus, it has much less payload capacity; on the other hand, it is much more mass-produced, and available on-demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Interceptor DARPA also pursued a ALASA rocket, which would carry 45kg optical recon sats to LEO via air-launch on existing fighter aircraft. The project was intended to launch them on-demand when required. It was cancelled when the propellant was shown to be too energetic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Launch_Assist_Space_Access To replace this, I propose using the Ground-based Interceptor to launch these satellites- with a HAPS upper stage from the Pegasus rocket, it can achieve polar orbits of 20-45 kg satellites. Launched from Fort Greely, Alaska (where the interceptor is deployed), it would launch into high-inclination or polar orbits- other inclinations may use a offshore pad (like Sea Launch- hell, they might be able to buy the offshore pad from them now that Zenit is almost certainly dead). Retrograde orbits are also limited, as the military will have to use a smaller 20kg optical satellite instead of the 45 kg version proposed for ALASA- or launch in a unstable low orbit (this may not be an issue, due to retrograde orbits being so uncommon anyways.) This new LV would use 4 stages, 3 from the Ground Based interceptor, and the 4th "stage" a HAPS motor for the final orbital insertion (and accurate orbital adjustments) attached to the 45kg optical satellite. 1st stage: 1835.2 m/s 2nd stage: 3436.1 m/s 3rd stage: 4323.1 m/s 4th stage: 387 m/s It should also launch on-demand, due to using a missile as the boost stage, though the HAPS+ Satellite combination may make this more difficult (in theory, it would be fine, HAPS is hypergolic and can be stored for long periods of time). It would also be able to be implemented rather rapidly, and allow for dedicated cubesat flights. So is this a good idea?

Why do GPS IIFs fly with SRBs on Delta IV? I mean, Delta IV without any boosters + 4m diameter upper stage seem to be able to launch GPS sats just fine- The Atlas V 401, also used to launch GPS, only has marginally higher performance, (0.5-0.2 more T to LEO, and 0.05 more T to GTO), and the Centaur used on Atlas V GPS missions even has enough fuel to do a DEORBIT BURN. Also, both were made to launch GPS on their basic configurations. So...why are 2 SRBs used? Why waste money on SRBs when the rocket doesn't really need it to launch GPS? http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/delta4.html http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/atlas5.html http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/03/ula-delta-iv-gps-iif9/