Hattivat

Don't worry, you certainly will If you find a full-blown Apollo-style mission too intimidating, just take it slowly: do a manned flyby first, or land a probe before attempting to do the same with kerbals on board.

Definitely AIES. As far as crafts are concerned, I think this topic needs more probes:

Some shots from my recent probing campaign in RSS/RO:

I think FASA provides a tiny part that can be attached to the side of any command pod to facilitate such testing. As far as mass is concerned, don't worry, kerbals are weightless when inside the pod, and I don't RO changes that.

It says "rover autopilot", but that's what made manuever planner appear for me. I'm sorry it didn't solve your problems.

Agathorn: While I understand that you might not want to use RPL, I think you should take a look at its config for Procedural Tanks/Fairings and try to implement something similar in your career mode. I don't know how exactly that is achieved, but their diamater is tech-restricted, so with early tech you can only go up to 2 meters, then 3, then 4, etc. This might be what you are looking for.

Yes, they did it to reduce max TWR, although I think it had more to do with crew safety than with danger of "crumpling". You see, max TWR equals max acceleration in g's. If your max TWR on a stage is 10, for example, that means you are subjecting your crew to 10g of acceleration for a few moments, which is undesirable.

SRB rockets on decoupled stages are called separation rockets. Ullage rockets are the ones that fire on the stages that remain. In my case, I fired ullage motors just before my TLI ignition, which happened over an hour after 2nd stage separation. As for Saturn V: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ullage_motor

Fuel flow is a minor problem, you just need something to accelerate for a few seconds to make it stable again. There are two solutions: 1. Small SRBs (KW rocketry provides dedicated ullage boosters I think). 2. Have a reserve of RCS fuel and hold the H key for a while (right click the engine and wait until it says that the fuel flow is stable).

I did, although I used TAC LS instead of eclss. And I unwittingly took advantage of an apparent mistake in RO configs for FASA, as in hindsight there is no way that gemini lander could realistically have that much delta-v. edit: Nevertheless, I believe it can serve as an example. Just disregard everything between the third landing (I should realistically have enough delta-v for that) and the rendezvous with CSM.

Lol, that sounds great. Just make sure that your second stage engine can ignite more than once (it seems you will need to fire it briefly to circularize). The numbers seem good to me. As for Apollo... they probably wanted to get more stuff (like TV cameras) than truly necessary to the lunar surface. There was a proposal for a Gemini-based mission that wouldn't have needed the Saturn V at all, google it.

My rockets usually have initial sea-level TWR of 1.2 and second stage (or core engine after booster separation) initial TWR of about 0.9. MAX TWR should definitely be more than 1. Not sure if it's optimized though, as I said, I'm still pretty new to RSS/RO.

I'm still pretty new to RSS/RO so you may take my advice with a pinch of salt. Personally, I've found it the easiest to just copy the Saturn V approach. That is: 1st stage: kerolox to lift off the ground, 2nd stage hydrolox to get most of the acceleration needed for orbit, third stage TLI. It is absolutely essential to save as much as you can on the weight of your CSM and LM, even small savings there translate into massive savings on first stage weight and thrust.

10.53 is very high, it's generally best to stay below 7. Yes, that is your TWR at burnout, and what it means is that your rocket becomes very hard to steer towards the end of the first stage. I understand the reasons behind your design decisions well, I've been there (i.e. at low tech levels) too. Suggested solution: try disengaging mechjeb after the first stage burnout, use RCS to manually arrest any tumbling, and then fly the rest of the way manually (easy, have the orbit info window open and just make sure your time to apoapsis doesn't fall under 10s, whenever it starts to fall towards that limit, pitch skywards). Don't worry if after second stage burnout your periapsis is still in the atmosphere, your RCS should be enough to correct that. EDIT: One tip for rocket design: SRBs are much more useful in RSS/RO than in the stock game. With them, you can have a rocket that is just one stage + boosters. In fact, that's what my main satellite launcher (8 t to LEO) is like. It's max TWR is 5.09 in this configuration, very manageable.

Seems decent overall. Only two minor things: 1. It would probably help your aerodynamics to reduce the diamater of your fairing base to match the diameter of your first stage. 2. What is your max TWR for the first stage? It seems like it is pretty high, which might be part of your problem, the higher the TWR, the higher the acceleration, and the higher the acceleration, the harder it is to control. If I recognize it correctly, your second-stage engine is the LR46R. It has good gimbal, so you should be able to use it to recover if you lose control. I mean, you don't have to face exactly the way you want to fly before engaging the engine, you can start it regardless and simply use it to steer in the correct direction. As for the explorer probe and reaction wheels: I think it was spin-stabilized. Reaction wheel would have worked, but I don't think they had the technology then. IIRC reaction wheels only started to be used in the 70s, and are a very expensive piece of equipment (as well as being nowhere near as powerful as they are in the stock game).

here you go: The return from moon orbit doesn't require much delta-v, around 1000 should suffice if you are precise enough.

I've installed both Scansat and Procedural Parts, and it still won't load.

tmikesecrist3: Wings wouldn't help you above 40-50k, above that air is too thin for them to have any practical effect. I have no experience with using mechjeb autopilot functions in RSS/RO, so I can't help you with that, other than suggest you read https://github.com/NathanKell/RealSolarSystem/wiki/MechJeb-Ascents if you haven't already done so. I've tried loading your craft, but it "contains locked or invalid parts", which my KSP.log says are procedural fairings parts (are you using an old version of the mod?) and a mysterious part called "surfmap". Uploading a screenshot would be easier, I think, unless you know where that "surfmap" comes from. Griffin: Judging from what I understand, that thread describes how to fix these problems once they happen, not how to stop them from happening. The assumption seems to be that this happens rarely, which is obviously not the case in your case. It is nevertheless definitely related.

The only way Venus could ever be useful for habitation is if you have FLOATING cities. High in the atmosphere the temperatures and pressures are survivable, in some layers even comfortable. Going anywhere below 10 km above the surface (inluding subterrean structures) is pretty much suicidal. [edit:] It also makes no economic sense, as returning from the surface to orbit is estimated to cost a whooping 27 000 delta-v, mostly due to extreme atmospheric pressure.

Hm, in what circumstances do you lose control (altitude, speed, etc.)? I mean, you are supposed to make your gravity turn very slowly, so most of the time you should be pretty much flying straight, there aren't really that many potential reasons to lose control. Perhaps your upper stage engine has too much twr? If you could post a screenshot of your rocket or at least describe it, I might be able to help, perhaps there is something wrong with your design.

It is by design, and it is realistic. In reality reaction wheels are used to make small adjustments to crafts such as the Hubble telescope, not to control huge rockets. You are supposed to use the gimbals of your engines and/or RCS to control your rocket. Always remember to check if your upper stage motor can gimbal (not all can, and some have ridiculously weak gimbals, like 0.01), and if it can't, include RCS in your design.

Realism Overhaul was last updated on the 6th of June, whereas the FASA config here was updated on the 18th of June. The logical conclusion is that this one is more up to date.

FASA realism pack gives me "Nothing Here The file you're looking for has been deleted or moved". Could you please reupload it?

I'm afraid I have no idea what might cause that. Let's hope MedievalNerd does. This does not sound like something that could be the result of this mod. I think you should ask in the RSS thread.

Thanks! To be perfectly fair, I suspect there may be something wrong with the RO config for FASA (the mod where most of my lander comes from). That gemini lander should have more delta-v than the Lunar Module that was actually used in Apollo landings, seeing how bare-bones it is, but I don't think it should have THAT much more delta-v. Although now that I've checked, the weight does seem to be similar to the original design (google says it was to weigh 5000 pounds, mine is just over 3 tonnes), so perhaps it is working as intended. Hard to say.