Wanderfound

If you dig through the initial response threads from shortly after the release of First Contract, you'll find that many people greatly enjoy the challenge presented by the testing contracts. Figuring out how to economically test a heavy, oversized part at an awkward combination of speeds and altitudes makes for an interesting puzzle. The off-Kerbin testing contracts also provide a reason to return to other planets that was missing in 23.5; once you'd been to Duna once, there was no reason to return apart from sightseeing. If you don't want to do them, don't accept the contract; it's that simple. They're not compulsory. It's so easy to accumulate massive quantities of √ that there's no need to take every contract on offer. The key to getting the contract system working properly is going to be expanding the diversity of contract types, not contracting it. Make it so that everyone can ignore the types of contracts that they don't enjoy so much while still having plenty of other options to choose from. Missions to launch or maintain satellites, urgent missions to rescue crippled spacecraft before they burn up in atmosphere, missions to take particular types of science readings from specific locations on planets, etc. A switchable "hide all contracts of type X" option wouldn't be a bad idea, though.

"Skylab's orbit is decaying! Go up and restabilise it before it burns up in atmosphere!"

Did you see my quickie spaceplane piloting guide? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89643-SSTO-question?p=1334110#post1334110

* Build yourself an atmospheric plane and explore Kerbin. * Build yourself an SSTO spaceplane. * Find all of the Easter eggs on Kerbin/Mun/Minmus. * Set up an orbital refuelling station; interplanetary is a lot easier when you can launch empty and fuel up in orbit. And, really: don't be scared of interplanetary. It's not that hard (especially if you use something like http://ksp.olex.biz to help in planning). Send some unmanned probes first if you're worried about losing Kerbals. Or go investigate Kerbol; that takes a fair bit of delta V, but is simple otherwise; just burn Kerbol retrograde until your periapsis gets low enough.

Happy to help. You might find this post useful: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89643-SSTO-question?p=1334110#post1334110

I use FAR but not DRE (I like the idea of DRE, but I'd prefer a more polished execution of it). If I spend the time for a maximum speed run I can get up over Mach 6, but I usually find that Mach 4.5 or so is plenty fast enough to reach orbit.

Handle with care. It's a big beastie of a thing, and without the FAR engine nerf it's gonna have even more power.

KSP. In ye olden days, Knights of the Sky kept me amused for a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Sky

I'm surprised that you don't get overheating issues with so many solids strapped in tight. I'd been using this...

I'm counting four shock cones and at least ten radial intakes on that thing, feeding what looks like four (maybe six?) engines. That should be able to get well over 30,000m before choking if flown right.

Heh; I reverted to an onion-staged booster this evening because I'd gotten sick of the hassle of bolting dozens of SRBs together as my first stage. A couple of fuel lines, some Rockomax 64's and a few Mainsails may cost twice as much as the SRB equivalent, but it's a lot quicker to assemble.

Incidentally: how to have fun while part testing. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87950-Testing-times

As usual, there's a mod for that: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50524-0-24-Enhanced-Navball-1-3 But yeah; should be stock. Personally, the thing that was driving me crazy was the inability to shrink and relocate the navball. It was constantly getting in the way of things that I needed to see. Centre screen is a daft place for it.

Yes, we don't know for sure (and possibly never will; it's an experiment that has some obvious ethical issues). I doubt that you'd be able to find a doctor who wouldn't put his money on "almost certain miscarriage or worse", though. Microgravity messes with human biology in some rather profound ways.

Half-throttle is no big deal if it's just on the launchpad (although 100% throttle would be a much more sensible default). The major problems were the bugs that caused throttles to reset themselves midflight.

BTW, this book should be of interest to some folks here: http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/B00AR2BCLW It's a lighthearted but well researched account of the more...biological aspects (to put it somewhat euphemistically) of space travel, and the history of the research that led to our current understanding. Worth the read.

Yes, SSTO doesn't necessarily mean spaceplane. There are plenty of good vertical-lift airbreathing SSTO designs around. Wings, control surfaces and landing gear do make it a lot easier to hit the runway for the 100% return, though. Spaceplanes aren't nearly as limited as most KSPer's seem to think. A decently built heavy lift SSTO spaceplane can carry better than 50 ton of payload, even without resorting to unrealistic tricks like airhogging and wing-stacking.

Tricks for high altitude jettage without air-hogging: * Shut down as many engines as possible to concentrate the remaining air. Over 30,000m the drag is so low that it only requires a small amount of thrust to continue accelerating. * Throttle down until your airtanks refill, then throttle back up as much as you can while keeping the tank levels stable. * Minimise angles of attack and climb rates. Aim the air at the intakes, not at the underside of the wings. By the time you hit 30,000m, you want your climb rate down to around 10m/s. You can get up to 35,000m or so with the jets still running if you do this. You don't need more than a couple of intakes per engine; one nacelle/ramscoop combo per jet usually does me fine.

It is very unlikely that a human could carry a child to term in microgravity.

Depends on what sort of contracts you're talking about. * "Science from": leave an unmanned satellite in orbit with a thermometer, a probe core, solar panels and a radio. * "Plant flag": permanently manned moonbase. * "Test in flight": forget rockets, use aircraft. Don't even need a spaceplane, atmospheric jets do it fine. * "Test splashed down": build a rover, drive it into the water. Alternately, use an SRB with 90% of its fuel removed and take a 30 second flight from the launchpad to the ocean. * "Test on ground": for a test rig, bolt together a few girder sections and stick a Stayputnik on top. The only contracts that require launches are the exploration and "test in orbit" ones. For many of those, spaceplanes are the most financially efficient. And, once you get an SSTO up and running, you can construct as much orbital infrastructure as you like for almost no cost. Your exploration missions will be a lot easier to do if you can launch all of your vehicles empty before fuelling them up in orbit.

I haven't had that problem occur myself. Disabling the gimbaling seems like it would be a simple enough solution, though.

While the suggestion is certainly a good idea, in the meantime: don't push, pull. Instead of putting your rockets on the back, make a tug with engines on outriggers spread wide enough so that they won't fry whatever is directly behind you and attach it to the front of whatever you're moving. Wobbly docking ports aren't a problem when the thrust is pulling them straight. Build yourself a space train.

Okay: see https://www.dropbox.com/s/o1wgb215gq8ti80/Kerbodyne%20D7%20Heavy%20X5%20Untweaked.craft for a version with all the control surfaces reset to default. Let me know if this works. No guarantees as to the aerodynamic properties, though; all flight testing was done with FAR, so it may require some tuning for stock aero.

It was designed with FAR in operation, but it shouldn't require it. Do you get any sort of error message when you try to access it? The tweakables on all of the control surfaces have been tuned (i.e. airelons set to affect pitch and roll but not yaw, rudders set for yaw but not pitch/roll, forward control surfaces set as maxed-out flaps, etc); it's possible that I adjusted something that FAR allows you to alter but stock doesn't (I never fly with stock aero; can't stand it, personally. If you're getting into spaceplanes, FAR or NEAR is highly recommended). If you want, I'll post a version with all of the tweakables reset to default values.

Likewise. Air-hogging is not necessary on a well-built plane. I generally limit myself to one nacelle/ramscoop combo per engine, and occasionally a couple of radials (largely unnecessary, but I like the way they look). Works just fine.