GoSlash27

Yeah, I'm beginning to lean towards "slag" myself. A chunk of slag going through his table is unlikely, but not as unlikely as a chunk of meteorite that big without reports of a fireball Thanks for all the help! I'll let you know what the results wind up being Best, -Slashy

That's what he's going to do. He'll take it up to Ames, IA. It could easily be a large iron slag. That would explain the lack of fireball. Although how it came to be stuck in the ground under his destroyed patio table would be a mystery in that case...

Well... I'm not going to recommend he split it on his own. If you folks were to find something like this, where would you take it to verify it?

Aye. Fell through his table. Apparently during working hours. Best, -Slashy

I've taken a pic. He found another chunk nearly as big as this one yesterday. I still come up blank for any reported meteors within the last 3 days, and he's certain it happened within that time frame. Best, -Slashy

I would've gladly pitched in on this project because it's a great idea, but alas... I got my copy through the store Apologies, -Slashy

Bill Phil, And more importantly no divert fields possible. I have years of experience and thousands of traps doing this exact thing in FSX (exactly IAW NATOPS) during my stint as the XO and chief instructor pilot at FSXCarrierOps, and even simulating it is freakin' hard. It's gotta be way worse with the spatial disorientation and stress that comes with doing it for real. IFR and pitching decks combined is a nightmare. Still and all, I'm sure there are better pilots (overall) out there, even if they don't regularly do something that demanding. There pretty much has to be. Best, -Slashy

Waxing Kibbous, Nothing over the last few days that matches I don't think their cameras can triangulate out this far. Best, -Slashy

Sorry, but it's not my meteorite. If I'd thought of it earlier, I would've taken a picture. I'll see if I can get a pic to forward. I may not be able to...

They regularly land their aircraft on pitching carrier decks at night, which is generally considered to be the most difficult feat in aviation. That's why they consider themselves to be the best pilots. Now... that is not to say that they necessarily *are* the world's best pilots. Just sayin' that it why they think they are. Best, -Slashy

One of my co-workers here in Eastern Iowa found a chunk of nickel/ iron meteorite (according to my layman's eye) on his property yesterday. It's a chunk of nickel/ iron about the size of 2 fists. Fell right through his backyard table... The way I figure it, something that big should make a heckuva fireball, but there are no recent reports of any fireballs over the midwestern US, just the big one spotted over Maine and Scotland the other day. I guess what I'm asking is if anyone here's aware of a meteor spotted in the last couple days over the midwestern United States, or if this could somehow be a chunk of the Scotland meteor. Thanks! -Slashy

The surface to orbit numbers are only estimates for bodies with atmospheres. You can do better or worse than the listed values depending on design and flight efficiency. Launch and landing numbers for airless bodies are theoretical minimums, rounded up to the nearest 5 m/sec. You're not going to beat them, and you're not liable to match them. Interplanetary transfers are an average Hohmann transfer assuming perfectly circular orbits and identical planes. You will get generally identical results on an average transfer, not counting plane changes (the map includes a worst- case for plane change). If you get slick and use gravity assists, integrated plane changes, bi-elliptic transfers and the like, you can dramatically undercut these values. But for general mission planning, these maps are good ballpark numbers for what you will need. Just keep a reserve to cover the variations and pack extra DV for landings on airless bodies. *edit* just as with MJ, the DV maps are limited AFA what you can do with them. If you create a spreadsheet to model the DV budget for transfers, you can find shortcuts that allow you to undercut the map. For example, a return from the Mun to Kerbin should cost a little over 310 m/sec DV according to the map, but if you calculate it out, you will find that it's only 269 m/sec. Best, -Slashy

Giygus, In both examples, you already had a t/w of 1.6 and enough DV to get the job done. All adding SRBs was going to do for you is increase thrust, which isn't going to help you. Now... if you had added fuel so the SRBs had something to lift, you would've noticed a dramatic increase in DV. Or if you had left the first stage turned off and used the SRBs exclusively as the first stage. As you can see, just tacking on "Moar Boosters®" as an afterthought does very little to help, and can easily cause problems that render a design useless. The central problem is that you're following an incorrect process for designing a lifter. 1) You're taking a working design, adding payload to it, and then trying to get it to work again with additional boosters. 2) You're neglecting aerodynamics, which is actually important in 1.0 and beyond. Foxster's tutorial addresses both of these problems and walks you through how to design a lifter the right way. Best, -Slashy

I started out doing all the calculations by hand. Once I was comfortable with the math and was confident that I understood all of it, I made a spreadsheet that does the number crunching for me. The big advantage of learning the math yourself instead of relying on mods is that it gives you the ability to mathematically design stages instead of just evaluating stages you've already built. Like... with KER you can build a rocket in the SPH and it will tell you what DV and T/W it will produce. But if you understand the math, you can turn the whole process backwards and let the math tell you exactly which engine is best and how much fuel/tankage for your desired DV, T/W, and payload. It really simplifies everything. As for the transfer windows and mission planning, the Vis- viva equation is the most important thing to understand. Same thing; I worked it by hand and eventually created a spreadsheet to do it for me. Lots of missions require DV budgets that don't appear on any maps. Best, -Slashy

SRBs are cheaper, heavier, and less efficient than liquid fuels. Their best roles are 1) as a first stage from the pad where "cheap" is more important than "light" and 2) as a booster to get liquid fuel cores off the pad and into thinner air where they gain thrust. "Moar boosters" is a running joke around here, but it's not actually a good design practice. If you take a bad design and add SRBs to help it, you won't gain much and occasionally make it worse. A good design is planned out before it's built. The best designs are derived mathematically. We have excellent tutorials on the forum for how to do this. I recommend starting here: Good luck and welcome to KSP -Slashy

I'm starting a new career immediately. Not like it's difficult, and I want to learn how the changes affect the game. Best, -Slashy

For real... your disagreement over KSP macroeconomics has nothing to do with the OP's question in the microeconomic sense. The OP just wants to know if combining SRBs and drop tanks makes for cheaper launches or not. The answer is that it does for bigger launches with core boosters that have good Isp at sea level and doesn't for small launches with vacuum- optimized core engines... at least where stage recovery is not used. The relative value of that cost savings WRT player time is a subjective thing and totally out of the purview of the question. You can both be completely correct or completely incorrect on that matter, but it's not what was asked. I recommend dropping the argument.

Well... that depends on what you call a "day". A "solar" day (sunrise/ sunset/ clocks) is precisely 6 hours. A "sidereal" day (Kerbin's rotational period in inertial space; WRT distant stars) is 5 hours, 59 minutes, 9.4 seconds Best, -Slashy

For real... I'm old 'n' busted, and my back doesn't allow me to play KSP all the time. My simple technique for not losing interest in KSP is almost the exact opposite of this. If I don't feel like playing KSP, I don't. Nothing gets me more excited about playing KSP as much as the release of a new update. New wrinkles, new rules. They're like Pokemon; gotta collect 'em all! I will drop an old career and fire up a new one in a heartbeat. It's actually the most interesting part of the game for me. And nothing gets to the core mechanics of the game like playing it with no mods. "MechJeb?!? BAH! Back in *MY* day, we played KSP with slide rules and we were thankful for what we had..." The learning is the most interesting aspect to KSP IMO. The doing is just a rehash of things I've done before. Best, -Slashy

Oh, in addition... The above tutorials teach you how to design efficient rockets and the stages that comprise them, but there is another technique that helps you even more than that: Orbital assembly. Nobody says that you *have* to launch your entire Jool mission in one go. You can easily launch a series of modules, connect them in orbit, and bring up the fuel and crew with subsequent launches. This is the way that I do most of my missions. If you work out the details, you can set up an entire space transportation infrastructure that allows you to explore the entire system for cheap. Best, -Slashy

Cryova, 2 threads: Once you "smell what the Rock is cookin'" in these two threads, you should be able to design highly- efficient missions with no problem. Best, -Slashy

As @Norcalplanner said, we had good success with those designs in the cheap 'n' cheerful challenge, but a couple caveats: 1) The designs were optimized for completely disposable launchers, so YMMV when using stage recovery. You may find that other designs optimized for minimum cost of fuel work out cheaper. 2) This was only an effective strategy for fairly large rockets. When you get into smaller launchers, the cost savings of doing this is erased by the cost of additional separators, plumbing, struts, and sepratrons. Finally, don't assume that you should "always" have the core engine firing just to get thrust out of it. Simple series 2- stagers can often be more cost-effective, and always are whenever using vacuum- optimized engines. There's a gray area in there where using another SRB to generate thrust is more cost- effective than using a LF engine with poor Isp. Good luck! -Slashy

My smallest SSTO: @michal.don madee one 0.84t last Thursday. Best, -Slashy

I suspect the limit for life around a star isn't limited by the characteristics of the star itself, but rather the age of the materials around it. If you don't have heavy elements, you won't have a chemical foundation for life. Elements like carbon and iron are pretty new in stellar terms. Best, -Slashy

wumpus, Generally, my progression goes like this: Science from pad and runway Sub-orbital manned hop with science Orbital Manned KSC Biomes science rover Unmanned Kerbin SoI science Unmanned Flyby series (Mun, Minmus, escape Kerbin) Upgrade Facilities, Rescue/Satellite contracts Manned Minmus biomes science Manned Munar biomes science Manned missions to Ike and Gilly biomes/ Unmanned flyby probe to Jool system (concurrent) After all of this, the entire game should be unlocked and you should have a fat stack of loot. Reset strategies to convert science to funds and play it like sandbox. Best, -Slashy