Cirocco

sweet! very interesting, thanks a bunch!

Inspired by XTI's trifan plane design, I built this right here! A fully electrical fan-driven VTOL (she uses L/OX and fuel cells for power generation though) pretty proud of this one. Functionally she doesn't actually do much of anything, but she looks pretty cool and handles pretty well. Unlike XTI's design though, my design has fully fixed fans that don't rotate other than for RCS purposes, essentially making it a weirdly-shaped helicopter. Pretty fun flying this thing though! for those wondering: the mods used were Roverdude's FTT (Freight Transport Technologies) mod (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91706-1-0-2-Freight-Transport-Technologies-v0-4-1-2015-05-15 ) for the parts and RCS build aid mod for construction aid: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35996-1-0-2-RCS-Build-Aid-v0-7-2

Inspired by XTI's trifan plane design, I built this right here! A fully electrical fan-driven VTOL (she uses L/OX and fuel cells for power generation though) pretty proud of this one. Functionally she doesn't actually do much of anything, but she looks pretty cool and handles pretty well. Unlike XTI's design though, my design has fully fixed fans that don't rotate other than for RCS purposes, essentially making it a weirdly-shaped helicopter. Pretty fun flying this thing though! for those wondering: the mods used were Roverdude's FTT (Freight Transport Technologies) mod (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91706-1-0-2-Freight-Transport-Technologies-v0-4-1-2015-05-15 ) for the parts and RCS build aid mod for construction aid: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35996-1-0-2-RCS-Build-Aid-v0-7-2

nope. had to get up work work early today and I was tired as hell yesterday so no dice. I love space, I really do, but not enough to fall asleep at my desk at work. I'll catch the next one in 2033. that one starts at a more reasonable hour where I live

thanks a lot guys again, this is all very long-term stuff, but it definitely gives me a real goal to work towards. I'm gonna be in a good mood for weeks over this

Right, I gotta post this, I'm too exited not to. note that this post has nothing to do with KSP at all, I just need to get this off my chest. Feel free to skip/ignore it entirely. I like space. I'm pretty sure most of us on this forum here do. As a kid, I thought space was the coolest thing ever and if you'd have asked me back then what I wanted to be when I grew up, "space engineer" would definitely have been extremely high up on the list (for some reason I wasn't that into being an astronaut, don't know why) As I grew older however, I somehow lost interest in space (what with the decommissioning of the space shuttle, budget cuts to NASA and all that stuff)... When the time came to go to university and choose a field of study, I chose to become an engineer, but not one that is even remotely specialized in the space industry: I work as a quality assurance engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. Today, my love for space has been re-kindled and redoubled (thank you KSP!!!!!) and one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't choose an education in aerospace. Oh well, at least I still get to go to space in KSP and get all excited over launches and SpaceX's efforts to land a falcon 9. Can't win 'em all. And then yesterday, something amazing happened to me. I work for a consulting company, and yesterday was my yearly evaluation. Now, working in the pharmaceutical industry, I get to know sterile cleanrooms and sterile working conditions pretty well. I also know that in order to build space probes, you need a dust free environment which essentially boils down to very similar cleanrooms and working conditions as we use in the pharmaceutical industry. So I tell my manager I'm open to projects in other sectors, and I hesitantly mention the space industry (hey, you never know, right?). Well.... it turns out that the majority of our company's projects are, in fact, in the aerospace industry. And that there's one particular client company that produces rocket and probe parts and who from time to time ask for experts on cleanrooms and cleanroom conditions. And that the aerospace business managers also tend to ask their pharmaceutical colleagues if they don't have any consultants who know about cleanrooms since there aren't enough of them in their own sector. And that she'd be more than happy to present my profile in the future should the opportunity arise. ... I just sat there with the biggest grin on my face, unable to speak for like 10 seconds. Guys... I might become a space engineer. This is definitely long-term stuff for in a few years at the earliest and there are absolutely no guarantees that I'll be able to actually land a project with said company, but the possibility is definitely there. There is an actual, realistic possibility that I might just get my boyhood dream. I honestly don't think I've ever been more excited in my life. Fingers crossed

Must... resist.... "your mom" jokes.... seriously though, all power to all people at ISRO for making this possible. Hurray for space!

keeping myself occupied outside of the game. I've been on an extended break from KSP, only going into the game once every few weeks, and I've told myself I'd get back into it once 1.1 hits. That should solve the aerobreaking issue around Jool, and it will herald my first attempt to get a manned mission to the Jool system. So in the meantime, I'm basically browsing the forums, looking for inspiration for future projects and making a list of the mods I'll install (I plan to do a complete clean re-install after 1.1). In the past I always kept away from parts mods, but I think I finally caved. Here's the list so far: EVE (Environment Visual Enhancements) KER (Kerbal Engineer) HyperEdit (I'm a quality and validation engineer in real life. I don't launch unless I've tested my craft about 10 times under target conditions) KAS (Kerbal Attachment Systems: external fuel lines are kinda required for planet-side refueling unless you want to risk a claw-rover) USI Life Support (I really want life support-like stuff, but I fear I'd kill too many kerbals by sheer forgetfulness if I use TAC life support) USI Kolonization systems (I got the Life Support, so why the heck not?!) USI exploration pack (all the USI mods are made by Roverdude, and he's part of the SQUAD team now. So that means these aren't really mods, right? They're practically official! right? I fear I'm on a slippery slope here... ) ... ... okay maybe also the Karibou expedition rover. But that's the last one! I swear! Honestly! I can quit mods anytime I want!

banned for having 999 posts. Make your 1000th one a good one!

In no particular order: The Martian, by Andy Weir (bought it last saturday. Finished it the day after); The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by Tolkien; and anything in the discworld series, by Terry Pratchett

Granted. Everyone agrees that you can call yourself a wizard and that this does in fact make you a wizard. The ability to do magic (which obviously doesn't come free with the title) has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you are or are not, in fact, a person of a wizardry nature. I wish I could write a decent science fiction or fantasy story.

Banned for banning the banning of wings. .... Ban-ception.

banned for illegal use of comma's.

can you stick stuff on the doors of a cargo bay though? I'm at work now so I can't check but that is basically my main worry: I LOVE the concept of the ramp, but if I want to incorporate the Mk3 in more complex ships, I'd probably want to stick parts on all sides of the cargo bay. That being said, this is indeed only a minor thing, there's definitely already solutions out there.

don't think this is that necessary? A slanted Mk3 to 2.5m adapter + nosecone always works for me. It's just 2 parts and from the very limited amount of pictures we've seen of the ramp, i'd say it's roughly the same size. What I'm more wondering about is the cargo bays. Right now all we have to connect to the ramp are the Mk3 cargo bays which open up on their own as well. Because of the risk of kraken attacks, trying to put stuff on/through the doors is a very bad idea, I'm wondering if we can simply get hollow Mk3 parts without any doors. Just structural hollow tanks essentially.

Did you see any white exhaust coming from the RCS ports when you tried to get forward/backwards thrust? If you did, and the craft wasn't noticeably moving forward, that means the RCS ports are positioned in a way that only a small percentage of their thrust is forward, and the craft is blasting at full strength but is compensating with its reaction wheels to try and keep the craft on track. Basically in this position, your reaction wheels and RCS are fighting eachotehr and your net thrust is extremely small. If you don't see any exhaust from the RCS ports while trying to move forwards, your keys aren't correctly configured. Make sure your keys for docking mode are the same ones as the ones in "normal" staging mode in the key bindings menu. This happens to me quite a lot actually version updates or game restarts have a tendency to reset your keybindings.

overall they look pretty solid, especially for first tries. I'd get rid of the nose-mounted intake in favor of a more aerodynamic nosecone though. nosecone intakes produce a LOT of drag. secondly: you're packing an awful lot of fuel, especially oxidizer. Try cutting down on the fuel a little. It might seem counter-intuitive, but less fuel = less weight, both because you're saving weight on fuel, but also on tanks. If you're simply looking to get a small amount of kerbals (1-4) to orbit, going smaller is usually better. lastly, while your rabbit's foot looks pretty cool, I would advise against designs that use double wings. You really don't need that much lift surface, and remember that the overwhelming part of speed your SSTO's need to get into orbit is horizontal, not vertical. Keep your designs as sleek as possible. EDIT: looking at the bullpup in the latest picture: your CoL is a bit far away from the CoM to my liking. Personally I would move the wings forward a little or add canards to compensate, but that's just me. If you can handle her as she is now, don't worry too much about it, but I personally think it's easier if you keep the CoM and CoL markers touching throughout the flight

while it can't fully be trusted, the wikipedia page on this does a pretty good job of summarizing a lot of information : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_soil I actually did some research on "teh internets" on this a while ago, and what I found is basically that martian soil actually is pretty similar to earth soil with two very important differences: - it's more alkaline. Decaying organic matter usually makes earth soil slightly acidic. Mars obviously doesn't have that, its soil is alkaline. - It has significant concentrations of perchlorate salts. These are really the biggest challenge. If you can somehow either extract or neutralize the perchlorates, you could conceivably grow stuff on martian soil assuming you have sufficient fertilizer. Apparently, martian soil does actually contain a lot of the nutrients needed for plantlife to grow. You just need to have a biodome to have a decent atmosphere and somehow get rid of the perchlorates (and some extra light might no be a bad idea). The alkaline soil wil make it hard for plants to grow, but not impossible. And being a chemical engineer myself, I know that neutralizing alkalines isn't that hard. "somehow getting rid of the perchlorates" however, is much, much, MUCH easier said then done

My name is already up there Back in like 2007-2008, NASA sent the Phoenix lander to mars which had a DVD on it with, among others, a quarter million names which were submitted to the Planetary Society. My dad submitted my name, as well as my brother's. He also printed out the "certificate" the site then gave you. Damn that thing hung up on my bedroom wall for a long time I'm totally going to submit again though, this is probably the closest I'm ever going to get to interplanetary spacetravel.

granted. A international committee has been assembled to investigate which side of your wish is the "right" one. Debate is currently ongoing. The Americans are insisting that the right-hand side is obviously the right side (duh) while the Europeans claim that the top side (which is currently the bottom side) is the correct side to be facing upwards. However, several members from different European member states are disputing the prevailing European argument, arguing that the wish is the right side up already and that your monitor is clearly the wrong side up. The British fraction is arguing that the left side is clearly the right side. The Africans are saying that we should first properly define what a "right" or "correct" side is before arguing which way is "right" or "correct", the Australians have given up and are having their own separate discussion on the subject around the coffee machine. No one's really sure what happened to the Asian delegation. You can expect an answer as to which side is the right side up in possibly 10 years. Of course then we need to start discussing who will perform the operation of turning the wish the "right" side up and the best way of doing so. I wish that everyone on earth could just get along.

Outside the game gameplay? Completing stuff. So many of my projects died a quiet death after I saw something shiny and forgot about them. in gameplay: Eve orbit from sea level. This was back in like 0.22-0.23 when neither ISRU nor XL parts (and more notable, XL size engines) were a thing. Good god I spent so much hours on that project before I finally got it to work.

Definitely docking. I wasted soooooooo much RCS fuel the first couple times I tried. I got the hang of orbital rendez-vous rather quickly, but figuring out the combination of "control from here", how to use the navball, the lack of air friction in space, etc. ... that took some doing. After that probably comes spaceplanes. I had to read up on quite a bit of aerodynamics before I got how to properly build spaceplanes. oh and powered landing. Damn I wasted a lot of fuel on my first mun landings. And I tipped over ALL the time. In fact I still tend to tip over if I take full control of powered landings. So much easier just to let the pilot keep the ship retrograde and focus only on teh throttle

This. This is what I did in KSP today. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to present: Home 1 Very much still a work in progress (this was hyperedited into place), but after literally months of designing, re-designing and re-designing some more, I finally got something I am somewhat happy with (and I finally managed to pull myself together and build it). I'm pretty pleased with myself now

Everybody's been there my friend. Everybody. Even actual space agencies.

Banned for complaining about the use of "B&" while using "cape canav" to refer to cape canaveral.