cantab

Considering that I went and hacked a career save so I had all the tech already unlocked but could still go around collecting science as I pleased, yes, I reckon this would be a good idea.

On the one hand, Kerbal Space Program has very obvious candidates for DLC. New celestials, new parts, and perhaps new launch sites. On the other hand, as mentioned these are mostly things that mods can do very well. It might be hard for a paid expansion to offer something compelling that the free mods don't. Worse, if Squad did have an eye on DLC, would they opt to make the game less mod-friendly? For example at the moment modding celestials is a bit of a hack; if Squad want to release new celestials in an expansion, they may see it as counterproductive to make modding celestials easier. One thing I reckon I could get behind would be a visual upgrades expansion. That's something where I reckon professional time and money could better the efforts of modders (notwithstanding the great visual enhancements mods we have), and can justifiably be an expansion rather than part of the main game since not everyone could benefit anyway.

I can't answer this, but I do know it's possible to pick up the whole ship in the VAB and turn it 90 degrees, so that pitch down will push the nose east right from the launchpad.

Having deflected one asteroid, decided to send the same ship onto another. Manouvre set by cantab314, on Flickr Should be able to pull it off, although I'm anticipating a pretty big burn at the intersect to match speeds. The actual deflection, though, will only need a few m/s - that's the nice thing about intercepting the rocks in solar orbit. I might even manage three deflections in a single mission, though the candidate third target is a big one.

Don't blink.

Congrats, looks like you didn't need the rescue mission after all! But for future: Rendezvousing is tricky when you do it for the first time, and you might want to practice in Kerbin orbit. This is what I learnt from: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Basic_maneuvers and it took me two attempts. If Jeb's ship is in an inclined orbit around Minmus, try and match the inclination as much as you can with a mid-course correction or/and a correction as soon as you enter Minmus's SOI. That'll save you a lot of fuel compared to matching inclinations once you're already in low Minmus orbit. For your crew capacity, the simplest option is to use two Mk 1 pods. A single small chute should suffice for the landing back at Kerbin, but if you're paranoid add a couple of radial chutes too, and maybe a few struts to reinforce the connection to the rest of the rocket. If you choose the Science Lab or the Hitchhiker, bear in mind they are not command modules, so you'll need a separated command pod or probe core to control the ship. Don't forget the power supply if you use a probe core! When you quicksave with F5, it overwrites the previous quicksave. If you use Alt+F5 you can instead make named quicksaves. More convenient might be to use a backup program to automatically back up your ksp saves, or use a mod such as Jebretary. Regarding science transmission, with the small instruments it makes sense to transmit the experiment once (or twice if you want a little bit more), then keep a third run. For any ship not with a science lab this will get more return than just keeping and returning one run. It also gets you some science right away without having to wait for the mission to complete.

I believe that for Duna the difference between high and low points matters more for landing. If you're coming in to land on high ground, your chutes will give you a lot less drag. Then again even targeting low ground a chute-only Duna landing isn't easy, so using a little engine thrust makes more sense anyway. The thinner air at higher altitudes affects planes more though, some might only be able to safely land at a suitable altitude.

And for another little secret, go up to the foot of the flagpole with a Kerbal. I shan't spoil what you can do.

Clear the skies over the Sun Life Stadium.

I've learnt to exploit this, in order to easily look directly down when approaching for landing. One man's bug is another man's feature.

Regarding multi-quoting, I've always just opened the "reply with quote" links in new tabs, then copy-pasted the different quotes into one post.

Actually, it's predicted that in a few billion years Earth will become pretty like Venus today. This, though, has nothing to do with current anthropogenic emissions.

Easy, since you never specified a time limit Now never eat a cupcake ever again, THAT'S an insanely hard challenge.

Not knowing who Sheldon Cooper is, I have no fear in sticking two fingers up at him and cycling away. The next poster is accosted by an angry bicycle cop.

It's now thought that the rotation of Venus, though slow, would be enough to run a geodynamo, and the lack of one is down to other reasons. In any case, my favourite planet, and indeed celestial body, is Mars. Mainly because, coming from a geological sciences background, I'm continually astonished at how familiar the images returned from the Mars rovers and orbiters look. Sedimentary bedding like I've seen looking across a valley in Greece, dunes that could be in the Sahara Desert, river channels like I'd find on any browse in Google Earth. Though Venus may be a closer match by size, when it comes to the rocks and landforms on its surface Mars is insanely Earth-like.

If the cost for a manned Mars landing looks like it will be sky high, then I just take that as meaning we need some disruptive technology to bring that down. While by its nature "disruptive technology" will probably be unanticipated, I can think of one possible approach: Make Everything Lighter. To break down, the transfer stage should use solar-electric propulsion I think. There's been plenty of research into assorted electric thrusters, and even plenty of small examples deployed. The trip to Mars is going to be fairly long anyway, so there's plenty of time for such thrusters to work. Not only will this reduce the mass of propellant needed, but that propellant will also not be susceptible to boil-off. That then helps the possibility of an assembly in LEO - and, unlike during the Apollo program, we also have plenty of experience of orbital assembly with Mir and the ISS. This then means the mission can be done off the back of commercial lifters instead of an expensive super-heavy-lifter like the SLS. Then the habitat will probably be inflatable, or using carbon fibre composites, stuff along those lines. The lander's a bit more speculative, but maybe something like an aerodynamic lower stage could work for the ascent, reducing the fuel load? Or, of course, there's always the idea of making the fuel on Mars. Or maybe it could be made from Phobos/Deimos? That would allow a one-departure mission: astronauts get to Mars orbit, start getting the fuel made for the lander, and if there's any hitch with the refuelling they can come back safely without landing (and hey, they still get to land on Phobos!)

I've seen many people design their Eve landers to jettison parachutes before the ascent. Also, if you don't know already: Tweak the lander can's monopropellant to zero if you don't need it. Saves you 60 kilos, which isn't much but if you're marginal on delta-V then every little helps.

Arm the claw (so that you see the grabby bits), come in slowly like you would for a docking, and be sure the claw is pointing at the surface it's going to be clawing, not angled.

Is Kerbin's prime meridian aligned to said orientation at the start? That would make sense, and then KSC isn't at the prime meridian because the developers got the map first, with its meridian already defined, then decided where to put the space centre.

In answer to the original question, in order for two things to dock they need to be in virtually the same place, going at virtually the same speed, in virtually the same direction. But that means they're in virtually the same orbit to start with! A potential way around this is to have one or both objects spinning, such that their tips can match speeds while their centres of mass are at quite different speeds. The two objects can then share their momentum and energy more gradually as they rotate. Such schemes are known as momentum exchange tethers or "skyhooks". This would be limited and difficult to pull off in stock KSP due to the physics range limit. A short "tether" would need a rapid rotation rate for a significantly slower spacecraft to be able to dock with it, and that would mean you'd require extraordinarily precise timing. That said, with trial and error or an autopilot it might be possible.

How are you inferring that there is no thrust? If it's from the lack of change in orbital velocity when you burn prograde or retrograde, or a lack of change in the delta-V meter at a manoeuvre node, then are you sure you are controlling from the right part? If you're controlling from a part that faces "backwards", or worse sideways, then you won't be thrusting in the direction you think you're thrusting in, and it can be mistaken for no thrust at all. I did exactly this once before.

I actually watched Gravity recently, and found the iffy orbital mechanics less objectionable than the way Clooney was goofing around with the MMU at the start and the way Bullock spent most of the movie playing the damsel in distress./film critic Anyway, you know you play too much KSP when you wonder why Estes don't sell LV-T30's and Mainsails.

Money hack is easy. Avoiding being caught by the administrators is the hard bit.

Dang I only just noticed this post! I've had it happen so often, and always just assumed I was misclicking. I think this is because when it was introduced it was meant as an SAS unit, ie the control assistance, rather than a reaction wheel. The design appears similar to the Saturn V's Instrument Unit.My peeve with it though is that it has a 1.25m node size, which I believe accounts for its annoying lack of rigidity.

Descending over Kerbin for landing and noticing the terrain was blurry, then seeing the blue orb in the core of the planet, then hitting the ground and exploding while the parachutes were only semi-deployed. Evidently the visible terrain didn't load (so I was just seeing it like when you're looking from orbit), and nor did whatever bit the parachutes measure altitude against to fully deploy, but there was still something solid. Also, I'm still mystified as to how one of my memorial flags planted outside mission control vanished. I definitely didn't deliberately recover it, and I don't *think* I accidentally recovered it either. Maybe I hit it with some flying debris in a test launch or something.