Wanderfound

I thoroughly approve the spirit of this, but my boring-old-man status forces me to say: are you sure you know what you're doing? Home-made rocket motors have a nasty habit of exploding at undesirable times, even when they're made out of sugar. (assuming that you do know what you're doing, though, make sure you post plenty of photos here afterwards...)

I don't want to argue with you while you're upset, but no, we don't. We've got some drugs that are of some help to some people some of the time. They don't work for everybody, and they're not a panacea even for the people who do find them effective. Depression doesn't prevent planning, and treatment does not necessarily cure depression. There's actually a substantial link between SSRI use and suicidal ideation, particularly in teenagers [1]. In Robin Williams' case, there's also the issue of several decades worth of excessive cocaine use. This is known to cause substantial amounts of neurotoxicity, focussed chiefly on serotonergic systems (the thing that SSRIs target). You ain't the only one; my knowledge of this field is not just professional. Scientists tend to research topics that they have a personal connection to. [1] As in, it appears that starting SSRIs may often increase the suicide risk rather than reduce it. There are a few theories as to why [2], but nobody has a proven answer yet. Chasing this question was the thesis topic of one of my close colleagues. [2] It's possible that SSRIs may in some cases reduce depressive apathy/demotivation without actually improving mood; in lay terms, the patient still feels horrible, but now has the energy to do something about it. There's also some preliminary evidence that the impact of SSRIs on brain function differs markedly between teenagers and adults. Teenage brains aren't just younger versions of adult brains; they are a substantially different thing in terms of neurochemistry.

What he's getting at there is the people who try to build spaceplanes that look like a 747 or Learjet. Don't build something that looks like "a plane", build something that looks like a hypersonic spaceplane. Take your styling cues from the fast stuff: SR-71, MiG-25, Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, etc.

Just as the title says: how quick can you get a spaceplane to a 70 x 70km orbit? Rules: * Post a screenshot of your plane in orbit, with both the orbital details and elapsed time visible. * Ferram Aerospace Research must be in operation, with default settings; stock aero is a whole different game. Keep aerodynamic failures on. * Must take off horizontally from the runway and be recognisably a plane; no fair just sticking fins and landing gear on your favourite rocket. We're looking for spaceplanes, not winged missiles. Lift with your wings rather than your engines. Climbing vertically is fine to get out of the low-altitude soup, but you should be levelling off and building speed spaceplane style once you get into the stratosphere. * No abusive airhogging; no intakes within intakes and go easy on the tricouplers. Kudos substantially increased if you can do it with something that actually looks like it might work in the real world. * Must hit orbit with sufficient fuel remaining to get back down again. Gliding in to KSC is okay if you've got the plane for it, though. * Spaceplane Plus and B7 (edit: B9, of course) parts allowed; other spaceplane packs will be considered on application. Apart from that, all stock parts. No non-stock engines. * Do it airbreathing SSTO if you can, but if you want to strap some solid boosters onto your plane, give it a shot. Separate prizes for SSTOs vs planes that drop parts during ascent. EDIT: do it however you'd like. However, the intention is to see who can get an SSTO spaceplane to orbit the fastest. Separate leaderboards will be maintained for stock aero vs FAR/NEAR, SSTO vs dropped boosters, genuine spaceplanes vs winged missiles, practical vehicles vs specialist speedsters, etc. Post your craft file with your entry. If you think you can beat someone else's piloting, feel free to have a go with their designs. EDIT 2: If you'd rather treat this as a pure piloting challenge, see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1357777&viewfull=1#post1357777 for the benchmark plane to use. All stock, no mods required. -- To get the ball rolling, my most recent experiment with Spaceplane Plus: Runway to orbit in 5 minutes 58 seconds (about 2 minutes of which was coasting to apoapsis), using a 30° pitch until the air ran out and 45° while the oxidiser burnt. Craft file available at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90344-Kerbodyne-Velociraptor-light-cargo-express-SSTO-for-Spaceplane-Plus-and-FAR -- Current Leaderboard: Stock Aero SSTO: O-Doc: 4 min 40 sec FAR with dropped boosters: Renegrade, 4 min 1 sec FAR SSTO Speedster: Wanderfound: 3 min 32 sec FAR SSTO Practical Cargo Lifter: Wanderfound: 5 min 58 sec FAR Kerbodyne Benchmark (control plane): Wanderfound: 4 min 5 sec

Almost all of the serious spaceplane crew use FAR; you're not likely to get many willing to fly under stock aero. It's certainly doable, though. Stock lets you get away with unaerodynamic monstrosities that FAR would tear to pieces, as well as doubling the power of RAPIERs and turbojets. The major difficulty in building the D7 was in stopping it from breaking apart under aerodynamic stress; that's why it has a few zillion struts on it. That's not an issue in stock. You're right that it's not the easiest of planes to fly, though. It's a big and brutal beastie.

Runway to orbit in under six minutes, and about two minutes of that was spent coasting to apoapsis.

Aww, shucks.

Okay: see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90344-Kerbodyne-Velociraptor-light-cargo-express-SSTO-for-Spaceplane-Plus-and-FAR?p=1345986#post1345986 for a Spaceplane Plus demonstrator. If you want a bigger cargo bay, it can probably be stretched without much trouble; just be sure to adjust the position of the aero surfaces to maintain the CoL/CoM alignment.

Like the idea of SSTO cargo spaceplanes, but can't be bothered waiting around for them to get up to speed? Have we got the plane for you... This thing is ridiculously fast. It can go supersonic while in a vertical climb and reach orbit with tanks better than half full. Treat the throttle with caution; although it has enough thrust to reach crazy high Mach numbers at sea level, you'll shatter the airframe if you crank it up too much below 10,000m. Climb vertically until the atmosphere thins, level off while you take it to 30,000m and flick the Vernors on to enhance stability during the oxidising burn. Check the action groups and switch off the Vernors while docking. The Vernor thrust should be sufficient for VTOL landings on the Mun or Minmus. https://www.dropbox.com/s/3u2omnejrwstcma/Kerbodyne%20Velociraptor%20ST.craft Requires both Spaceplane Plus and Ferram Aerospace Research mod packs.

Not a problem here, either. The issue isn't the SAS, it's the designs. Spacecraft thrust needs to go through the centre of mass, in both KSP and reality. The shuttle used quite a bit of fancy vectoring tech to deal with its asymmetric design.

We can't give you any more specific advice unless you tell us exactly what's going wrong with your own designs. Preferably accompanied by top and side screenshots in the SPH with the CoM/CoL/CoT indicators on. If you're completely stuck, download this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89092-Kerbodyne-Scattershot-a-simple-and-easy-to-fly-beginner-s-SSTO-spaceplane Take it for a spin, see how it flies, and then go back to the SPH and tear it apart so you can see how it was built.

Ferram has significantly debuffed the air-breathing engines, BTW. If you install FAR, turbojets and RAPIERs (when in atmosphere) will have about half the power they produce in stock. That's still plenty enough grunt to go to space, though. I'm not sure if he nerfed them in NEAR as well, but I'd be surprised if he didn't. The more realistic drag model substantially benefits atmospheric flight speeds.

Depends. If you're using stock aero, you can get any ridiculous thing into orbit. With FAR or NEAR, it generally helps to build something that looks like it could fly in the real world. For an example using Spaceplane Plus: Or if you prefer stock parts: And if you like vertical SSTOs: You do need to think about how it will work in vacuum, but that doesn't mean it has to be ugly.

This is just something I had lying around rather than an optimised budget lifter, but it can casually toss a Rockomax 64 into orbit for about √4,000. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88628-Kerbodyne-D7-Heavy-X5-a-heavy-lift-SSTO-spaceplane

Nope. It's one of the most stable and well-supported mods around. Ferram is a god.

How about grumpy Kerbals start drinking their fuel supplies instead?

Don't phone, email. As a general rule, science and engineering academics have a completely insane workload; 70+ hours per week in the lab is routine. I did six months straight of seven day a week 12-hour nightshifts a few years ago. Make it easy for them to help you, don't interrupt them when they're working and don't get cranky with them if they can't spare the time. Most scientists are fanatically passionate about their topic and enjoy sharing their enthusiasm with others. But they are also extremely overworked, underpaid and permanently stressed out.

There have been quite a few threads on this topic lately; there are plenty of dedicated spaceplaners here. Have a read through these: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89643-SSTO-question?p=1334110&viewfull=1#post1334110 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89212-My-newbish-spaceplane-efforts-suggestions-for-improvement http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89092-Kerbodyne-Scattershot-a-simple-and-easy-to-fly-beginner-s-SSTO-spaceplane Your best bet is probably to start by building atmospheric planes, then move on to small spaceplanes, then on to something that can carry cargo. It's not too hard once you get the knack, but you do need to get some understanding of aerodynamics and supersonic piloting first. Give it a go and hit the forums (with screenshots, preferably) once you run into problems. If you do it right, you don't need to rely on any air-hogging or part-clipping tricks, and you can make highly functional and economical spaceplanes that are fun to fly and look really cool. You should also strongly consider installing FAR or NEAR if you haven't already. Spaceplanes are much more fun when they actually fly like planes.

And epic quantities of cocaine, over the course of decades of use. He had been quite open about his drug history. Speaking as someone with a doctorate in psychopharmacology and a fair bit of close-up experience with mental illness: not so much. The drugs are a lot better than they used to be, but there's still a long way to go. As a general rule, psychological and psychiatric medicine today is in a similar state to conventional medicine of the 19th century. Half of what we've got is totally ineffective, and even the things that do work are often accompanied by horrible side effects and/or a serious lack of understanding as to why they work. Depression is a particularly problematic one. We're not too bad on anxiety disorders, and we can damp down the manic side of bipolar, but no-one really has a good handle on depressive illnesses yet. The SSRIs and tricyclic antidepressants barely beat placebo in clinical trials, and there are substantial reasons to doubt the validity of even that evidence. Talk therapies are even less impressive. None of this is because the psychs and neuros are lazy or incompetent; it's because brains are really, really complicated. We're only just starting to get a proper understanding of how they work.

If you have any friends who are university students, get them to lend you their library login so you can download papers. Alternatively, if there's anything that you want to read that's behind a paywall, send an email to the authors asking for a copy. Most scientists will be so delighted by the thought that somebody actually wants to read their work that they'll be happy to send you a PDF. You'll also find plenty of material in the open-access journals these days. Check out PLoS.

I'd expect so, but I haven't used the Spaceplane Plus parts much yet; I like the challenge of doing it stock. OTOH, my dodgy old laptop likes the drastically reduced part count that SP+ allows. I'm planning on designing some SP+ lifters today; I'll post them to the Spacecraft Exchange if I come up with anything good. For designing lifters, the NRAP mod is very useful. It's a single-part pack that gives you a test weight of widely tweakable size and mass. And remember that wings add drag as well as lift; especially if you're flying with FAR/NEAR, too much wing is counterproductive.

Unfortunately, I can. Robin's been troubled for a long time; when I saw the news, my first response was "suicide or overdose?". Damned shame.

Thirded. Particularly irritating because it seems that some action groups don't always go on the first keypress.

When building multi-part wings, give some thought to what you attach each bit to. Ideally, you want the whole wing connecting through a single root node so you can move it as a single piece. As for placing them, I find it helps to try and get the wing position sorted before you clutter up the plane with too many other parts that get in the way. Often, when a wing won't "go green", it's just because there's an RCS block or similar small part in the way. If all else fails, you can always use the debug menu (Alt-F12) to temporarily enable part clipping. FAR provides assorted technical analysis tools (NEAR doesn't), but you don't need to use them. I design purely by eye and flight testing. Heavy lift stock SSTO's are certainly possible; big ones (50+ ton payload) are tricky to build, but small to medium cargo lifters aren't too hard. If you've got enough wing and thrust to get off the runway, then you've probably got enough to go to space. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88628-Kerbodyne-D7-Heavy-X5-a-heavy-lift-SSTO-spaceplane for an example of a heavy cargo stock SSTO spaceplane. On a more modest scale, something like this isn't hard to build with Spaceplane Plus: Getting spaceplanes to work for you is as much about piloting as it is building. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89643-SSTO-question?p=1334110&viewfull=1#post1334110 for some tips.

Treat it like orbital rendezvous; you need to get close to it and match speed and velocity before attaching. Match inclination and direction (or launch into the correct inclination to start with), use a lower orbit to catch up to it or a higher orbit to let it catch up to you. It doesn't take too much ÃŽâ€V to get there (relatively speaking; you need enough for the inclination match and to then boost to escape velocity), but it will take a fair bit to capture it. After you've attached, the mass of your craft effectively becomes the mass of the rocket plus the mass of the asteroid. High efficiency engines (LV-N, LV-909, Poodle) are advisable.