FREEFALL1984

Try locking the suspension on the landing legs before you deploy them, that way there is no sag relative to the weight of the modules although you need to be careful to make sure the legs are all the same height and maybe add a few extras just in case since now almost all the weight of the modules is now balanced on the lowest landing legs in the cluster, any discrepancy will cause the legs to snap, and if one goes they'll likely all break. Also when building the moonbase assemble all the components in the VAB and then extend all the legs, place the full moonbase so the feet are just touching the floor of the VAB and examine each foot to make sure its not either floating above or clipping through the surface. Hey presto, an accurately built reliable moonbase, although the tough part comes when you're docking them together, since you cant move the base towards its counterpart on landing legs, so you have to either; 1-have downward pointing docking ports attached to extended booms on the central core (the first module to land) then have the secondary modules with docking ports on the tops roll along underneath the central core and then the legs lift them into the docking position 2-Have the a conventional docking port configuration (on the sides) and roll the secondary modules almost tight up to the central core, unlock the suspension on the far side of the module and lock up the suspension on the near side then lower the legs, the module should now lean away from the main core, then lock up the legs on the far side and the suspension will force the docking ports together. Assuming you're on nice flat ground these techniques should help you but since you'll be using locked suspension make sure the ground is very flat otherwise problems can arise. Edit: sorry for the necro

it might also be cool to allow people to get a science verification multiplier, so any reports/soil samples transmitted by an unmanned vehicle, will then give extra science if the same samples are later recovered by a crewed vessel and returned to kerbin perhaps only 1.2x the original return value but an extra little boost to encourage people to send unmanned probes out before a bigger manned mission

I know there are mods which can achieve these things but wouldn't it be nice if they where incorporated into the vanilla game

So here's my thoughts, Firstly rovers and unmanned crafts are obviously quite limited in their abilities, currently they just allow the user to gather a quick science boost during the early game by sending unmanned probes to planets where if an average player where to send a manned voyage, the chances of return would be extremely low, the only science an unmanned probe can collect is science provided by apparatus attached to the vessel, which is then transmitted (assuming the player cannot return to kerbin) So here's a few ideas for components which would both encourage the player to send unmanned vehicles and probes to other areas of space. Firstly, the Automatic Sampling System or ASS as it would be known, would be attached to the bottom of a small rover and using a small animated and actuated arm, would allow the probe to take and analyse soil samples from other bodies, (obviously this has been done for years so it should be applied to KSP) The component would be prohibitively expensive (once money is introduced) and would be rather power heavy in order to keep the game balanced, Also the player would likely use it to transmit the data back to kerbin so the science gain would be capped. Secondly, remote cameras would allow the user to switch camera view to a nearby remote camera and view the world as the roves sees it, this camera could be controlled by the used using the normal camera control buttons and perhaps could display a nice kerbal style HUD which lots of pointless asthetic features, the user could also place these cameras on manned vessels to allow for a docking cam, a landing cam and even have one placed the record EVA activity. Perhaps even have more powerful telescope cameras which could be used to earn science. Finally the RSR or remote situation reports could allow the user to take a "crew report" of an unmanned ship, obviously this crew report would actually be made at the KSC so would require vast amounts of power compared to transmitting something small like goo results or thermal reading, since data would need to be transmitted both too and from the probe. Also the science gathered would be only 40% of the data received from a normal crew report, also prerequisites would need to be achieved for RSR to take place, this would include at least 1 remote camera and the obvious power requirements

Its more precise to push a maneuver node than it is to pull them.

I'm pretty sure that would make a brilliant fairground ride, but eventually you would shake the crap out of the space station and crew haha

I use avast, I've had nothing but trouble with the norton family, for instance, once you're license expires you MUST update your license, if you decide you want to change virus software to either a free version or a full paid version you must download the norton removal tool, trouble is once your license expires norton wont let you connect to the internet to download the previously mentioned removal tool so your stuck, I've had dozens of people come to me asking me to remove the stupid thing. I'd never consider getting norton and even if I bought a new PC with norton installed, i'd remove it straight away and replace it with avast or AVG, both of which use far less processing power, have much nicer interfaces and are available free of charge.

Best method in my opinion would be the well established idea to use a long cable and have the service module on one end along with any mission specific hardware which requires no human interation and the ship on the other end, in theory this cable could be make long enough to reduce the coriolis effect and to keep the RPM low, while a simple cable would suffice, but in my opinion a telescopic tube with a habitable internal service tunnel would be most effective as it could be maintained internally, and a rotating ship would be tough to EVA from without stopping the spin. The only other difficulties would be in keeping the spin stable and reliable as any slight shift in weight would effect the centre of mass and impart a wobble to the rotation effecting the amount of artificial gravity felt by the crew, perhaps a bundle of ballast tanks in both modules could pump RCS fuel or waste water around to maintain the spin.

I find gravity assists pretty useful, while some players like to hit launch windows with absolute precision and launch from lko, i dont mind missing out on some of that precision for the extra dv less a little dv spent in correcting my final orbits, although a bad munar assist can get your ship into a lot of trouble so maybe best to practice on unmanned vessels first if you value your kerbals lives lol

Thanks for the replies guys, but I really wanted to know how much the falling moon would effect the earth. I kinda imagined it would be pulled towards the moon with a more significant force (at least enough to pull it more than its own diameter)

So the final resting place of the moon and the earth is always directly on the barycentre, and because the barycentre is based on the proportion of mass each body has compared to the other, the moon will cover the same distance from its current location to the barycentre in the same amount of time the earth moves from current location to barycentre. meaning that according to your sketch the earth will only move a total of 3000miles towards the moon in the event that the moon should stop moving?

Yes, Competition is what drives us, most technological breakthroughs occur during wars when competition is a necessity for survival. If we suddenly said the first nation to land people on mars could have free access to all the resources the red planet has to offer for the next 250 years. The major superpowers would be climbing over each other to colonize, and it wouldn't stop there, they would spend the next 50 years trying to figure out a way to send things back efficiently so they could make the most of the resources while they had undisputed access to them.

So because the barycentre is always a fixed point in relation to both bodies (but not fixed in relation to any single body) the earth would be pulled a considerable distance towards the moon (although obviously the moon would be pulled a much greater distance)

I've searched high and low and cannot find anything which tells me what happens if the one of the orbiting bodies simply stops.

This is a follow on from another thread, which asked how long it would take to free fall from the moon. So here's my question. If the moon suddenly completely stopped in its orbit and began to fall towards the earth, what effect would that have on the earths position in relation to is. I can visualize what would happen, both bodies would spiral together (assuming both bodies where just single points for the sake of the maths) Is there an equation which can back this up and include for the movement of both bodies relative to each other instead of just the movement of the moon?

Apologies for my foul language lol, I'm still having difficulties grasping how standard orbital mechanics can be applied to a situation where two bodies are initially orbiting each other and one of those bodies suddenly stops moving. Do both bodies simply move towards the barycentre as though its a fixed point in space or does the location of the barycentre become irrelevant due to the fact that the bodies are no longer in orbit. In fact I think I'll put this in a new thread since my curiosity is piqued and its beginning to stray off topic

While I agree it might not be as efficient as an LKO the only extra fuel you would need would be the fuel required to circularize the KSO and rendezvous (which would be super easy) and the fuel required to drop the orbit back to 75km ready for the interplanetary burn. it would make rendezvous a really easy task since the space station would almost always be in the exact correct location. So it would kind of be trading time efficiency for fuel efficiency.

Firstly I'm no physicist, and I'm not particularly good at maths. Indeed the semimajor axis is determined by the mutual attraction of the objects. But the movement of the earth isn't accounted for in any of these equations. Normally the movement of the parent body isn't considered because the effect is so small, but the barycentre of the earth and moon is only about 1700km below the surface of the earth meaning the effect of the moons pull on the earth is not insignificant. In fact due to the mass of the moon and the exponential nature of the equations the effect would be so significant it would throw off brotoros 4.83 days by quite a large margin.

I'm assuming you are using remote tech and require a short range comms network, in which case its seriously worth considering having 2 of the three satellites withing line of sight of the KSC, that way you don't need to worry about having excessive batteries for when your root satellite passes through kerbins shadow.

If you're willing to be a little lax with your interplanetary launch windows (ie within 3 hours) then a KSO might be useful, especially if the KSO landed you almost directly on an optimal launch path, you would never have to wait rendezvous with the station or spend time "chasing" the station around kerbin in fact if you where using MJ you could have the accent autopilot almost plop you on a rendezvous every time you launch a ship, (depending on T/w among other factors) Then when the transfer window comes around you could just expend a couple of hundred m/s of dv to drop your periapsis to within 80km and do your transfer burn at peri, the periapsis reduction burn would increase your orbital velocity anyway so as long as your prepared to get all of your ships and fuel up to KSO which requires roughly 1km/s of DV then it sounds like a safe bet.

Earth? whats an Earth?

Banned for having repulsive lime green writing in their signature... - - - Updated - - - <==== Banned for getting ninjed

Has anyone considered how much the earth moves towards the moon? the moon is a not too insignificant mass, as the moon approaches, the earth will be pulled towards it at ever increasing velocity, which would cause the moon to increase its velocity even faster. There are of course an abundance of variables which would also effect the rate of fall such as relative position of celestial bodies and relative position during fall, but they're generally too insignificant to consider.

a fair proposal but due to the thinner atmosphere (equivalent to atmospheric pressure on earth at 35km) a fixed wing aircraft would need to be moving at extremely high speeds to generate enough lift to get off the ground, which on a nice flat runway might be feasible but on the rocky surface of mars would be far too risky. A giant quad rotor might be a more suitable solution but the thin atmosphere would mean the rotor blades would need to travel at extreme speeds, meaning it would need a huge amount of power to generate enough lift to leave the surface, the only way to produce such a large amount of power would be to have a thermonuclear generator or a conventional chemical engine generator, both options would be ineffective since they would add so much weight to the craft (in the form of an oxidizer for the liquid fueled engine) it would need to be ludicrously big to lift off. which would prevent it from being effectively launched. My suggestion is to use a lighter than air aircraft filled with the natural atmosphere and using a thermally absorbent material for the balloon to provide almost free lift during daylight hours, then using a conventional electric propeller for propulsion, which could be powered by banks of solar panels. The only obvious issue with this design is requirement of perfect weather conditions which would be difficult to predict due to the foreign nature of the martian weather systems.

Very nicely done, might I also add regarding your docking section, docking can also be performed using the navball to align your ships, simply select to control from docking port as normal, and target the targets docking port, then point in the direction of the target market and rcs thrust forwards. the aim is to use the translation buttons ijklhn to keep your relative speed prograde marker (yellow) inside the target orientation marker (purple) as you drift closer you need to keep the markers aligned until you make contact the closer you get the more they'll drift apart unless you're positioning is perfect. I find this is helpful if you dont want to keep swiveling the camera around. Although this technique doesn't account for rotational orientation of the target ship so that bit still has to be done visually.