davidpsummers

Yeah, bit the game doesn't have heat shields, so I wouldn't be able to retrieve probes at all?

Well, I did the flyby of the moons and the orbits. (I have a question about that below) For Mun I just put the apoapsis tangental to the orbit and let it capture my craft. But for Minmus I did read about a rendezvous before hand which was good (it probably wouldn't have been big enough for my crude method). I just made a crude lander (just putting legs on my probe) figuring I would see what mistakes I made, but first go I landed and returned! Now I only wish I had enough confidence to have put on a parachute and return some science! I guess I need to "probe it" a couple more time before I send people…. My question, is there a way to coordinate your burn out of low orbit with a quick rendezvous? Eye balling it, it looks like for Minmus (with my rocket at least, I guess that makes a difference) I should aim about 1/3 of an orbit ahead of it.

I'm using a stayputnick and a science jr module. Do I have to get a heat shield from someplace to re-enter them?

OK, I decided to go for the moons and to first try some unmanned probes to them. So I get the stayputnick module and a bit of battery. How do I get science out of it, just hit "transmit data" now and then on the communotron 16? I can't recover the mission, how does the science get recorded?

Well, I did think about Gemini and Apollo (I'm probably half way between Mercury and Gemini). I'm sure, like NASA, do stuff like that on my way to the goal. But I think it will work better if I have a goal. What do I do, just remove the capsule and drive the top stage into the moon? I think I can reach them. Though its a puzzle. My current ship will do an eccentric orbit with an appogee of about 1,500,000 km (perigee 100 km). (I haven't tried to see how big a circular orbit I can do because there is more likelihood of stranding my astronaut if I don't keep proper track of fuel.) But I was also judging rocket power by see how far straight up I could go. That last one put him into solar orbit. But I really don't understand how I could manage that if I'm limited how high an orbit I can get to. Doesn't escape velocity require more delta-v than any orbit?

I have built (in career mode) a craft that can a capsule into any low orbit. So I'm wondering what to make my next goal? Thoughts are a space station or landing on one of the moons? Suggestions on which would be better (or other things one might work toward)