EdFred

You forgot to add in the number of possibilities at each instance. One could make the next leap and say that the number of possibilities at any given instance are equal to the number of possibilities that have been possible since the Big Bang, so now you've got 3x10^246 possibilities at every instance, so 3x10^246 * 3x10^246 = 9x10^492 possibilities

This. I have had rockets with a final stage of in the 0.8-0.9 range.

Not in my experience. That part becomes available for you to use. After the testing is complete, the part is locked again. The rest of your post is thinking like an Earthling, not a Kerbal. Last time I checked this was KSP, not ESP.

I've built plenty of rockets which make orbit that never reach terminal velocity even when burning at 100%. Limiting it to terminal velocity won't do anything in this challenge. In fact if you hit terminal velocity you're already going too fast.

True, it was more to combat the "I'll set my apoapsis equal to that of the Minmus, and make my circularization burn on returning to Kerbin. Oh look it took me 9 days to achieve 80x80 orbit."

I would like to see it where testing has to be done on ALL parts in various forms and fashions before you can use the for your own ships. Including crashes - how does one know if something will withstand 12m/s impact unless you test for it?

Except, as your weight decreases, your TWR increases, which means your velocity increases faster, which means you get there faster, so you can, in theory, get there slower.

See my last post

I will just use a radial decoupler turned 90° to act as an inline coupler.

We have always proposed and accepted challenges to do something quickly, or efficiently, or show our rockets feats of ability to lift, but this challenge is none of that. Instead, it's about how slow we can be. How is that you ask? Well here's the challenge: With a Command Pod Mk1 manned by an intrepid, yet slow, Kerbal, obtain a Low Kerbin Prograde Orbit of 80km x 80km +/-1km, like you normally would, but be the SLOWEST to Low Kerbin Orbit. That's right, the slowest. How does one do that? That's for you to figure out! And here's the rules because I know someone will try and be stupid about it. Stock parts only. No usage of the Debug Menu or other hacks and cheats. No mods that affect the atmosphere, aerodynamics, or performance of the game or ship. MechJeb is allowed as it does not change how the ship performs - it just automates it for you. KER and other informational mods allowed. FAR, NEAR, etc are not allowed. Rockets Only Building a plane that stays aloft for 17 hours, and then finally firing off an aerospike to finish up the orbit is not what we're going for. No heading changes and a maximum of one circularizing burn. You wouldn't start your gravity turn at 90 and then change it to 270 and then back to 90 on a normal launch, so you won't for this challenge either. A normal gravity turn followed by a circularizing burn at apoapsis (or if it's one continuous burn that's acceptable) to finish the challenge. No re-raising your AP and PE to slow down getting to 80x80. In other words don't make a 71x71 orbit, and then a 72x72, then 73x73...up to 80x80 - or a 1000km x 1000km and lowering it incrementally. The initial apoapsis must be between 79km and 81km and remain in that range. Once your PE is within 1km of your AP, and above 79km - on your first (and only) circularizing burn, stop the clock. If you need to add small thrust corrections during ascent to keep the AP from dropping below 79km, that's acceptable. There are no limits to how heavy or light you want to make this rocket, it's all about how slow you can make it go without running out of fuel before you get to LKPO. Rules may be added if I've missed something. Pictures, videos, and craft files encouraged. Leaderboard Limited Throttle 1. EdFred 13m35s 2. Pyromartian 12m02s 3. 4. 5. Full Throttle 1. Pyromartian 12m39s 2. EdFred 11m50s 3. 4. 5.

Just for esses and gees last night, I took my Eve craft and tested. I obtained a 105km x 105km orbit, and had just under 1000dV remaining, which depending where Gilly is, might be enough to get an encounter. Gilly's PE=14,175,000m By burning straight up with the exact same craft, I could only obtain a AP above Eve of just over 1,100,000m - and that wasn't even an orbit. Well, it was, with an eccentricity near 1, which means it's coming straight back down.

On non-atmo'd bodies, I immediately pitch to 45, and start shallowing out my ascent from there.

Why should it? It's the Kerbal Universe, not ours.

Non optimal transfers: Just keep a probe in LKO. When you want to burn to, say, Duna, and it's not an optimal transfer window, just create a node, and keep tweaking it until you get an encounter. Now you know how much dV you need to get there. So you go back into the VAB, and build a ship with 4500dV + whatever dV the maneuver node had + whatever dV you need to do whatever it is when you get there. When done, delete the node on your probe, and repeat the process the next time you want to go somewhere.

Haven't run the numbers, but what would the dV need to be to burn straight up to put the apoapsis inside Gilly's SOI? If you hit Gilly's SOI while Gilly is at AP, you only need ~300dV (assuming you zero out your Eve orbital velocity) at capture to stay in Gilly's SOI.(~1000 at PE) Is that going to be less than the ~12000dV needed to end up in LEO?

Kerbal Alarm Clock.

Run KSP in windowed mode. Then you can just click onto your desktop, and KSP will still run. Yep, it will keep running. Got a 20 minute ejection burn? No problem. Start the burn, click on your desktop, surf the web, do whatever, periodically check on the burn. Staging "help" drives me absolutely bonkers.

OK, you're a fanboy, we get it. This thread was never intended to be a discussion.

And jet engines don't work on Eve.

Voice to text works for crap. I don't even bother. If I have to repeat myself 12 times and it still doesn't get it correct, it's wasting my time. Doesn't work for this guy either:

Challenge accepted!! OK, not really. I've gotten away with two engine types, but I drop more stuff on my ascents from Eve than a Redneck's over filled pickup truck. Back to the the thread premise, no. I build what I build and if it happens to look like something, it happens to look like something. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

An extensive modular base, and a MASSIVE "inflatable" geodesic dome as the centerpiece.

Total Annihilation. Yep, it's 17 years old, but I still love it.

I chose neither. I refuse to use any Apple device based on their business model, and I refuse to use Google/Android based on them taking data mining to the extreme. So I went with Crackberry. Yep, it's old, but using it with work email, it absolutely destroys both Apple and Android. The call volume is better than both, and I get a physical keyboard, which I need because touch screens never work with my fingers.

1. Get them in orbit. 2. Edit persistence file.