kragon

Thank you yasmy collapsing the variables gives Vt=Sqrt((2011·(1-twr)·M)/(Mc·0.2 +Mp·500)) assuming kerbin sea level M being total mass Mc being mass without parachutes Mp being mass of parachutes twr being the twr of the sepertrons

1:I'm not using landing legs there generally just excess weight and they aren't that much stronger than an engine 2:I've normally got a whole family of them so normally anything from 5 tons to 30 tons when empty (the ones worth recovering at least) 3: usually 2 radials or a mk16 just enough to give it a constant decent speed 4:I can normally land and lose about 1-2% of the value and wings generally look correct and fly like a brick, or look silly and fly well. I also tend to ignore the plane parts in the tech tree till I have science to burn. 5,6: I'm only using the sepertron to negate some of the landers mass so that it's decent speed with the parachutes is lower so all that lowering the fuel would do is reduce the time the lander is slow enough to land (also the change in twr from a full sepertron to an empty one is fairly insignificant for a larger craft) parachutes are really expensive in comparison to sepertrons but without a formula I don't know at point parachute become more effective the problem I've found with using the main engine is that it relies on me remembering to save a bit of fuel.there also a lot harder to judge the correct thrust where as sepertrons can be preconfigured and only require staging.

Now that we have 0.24 and there money to worry about (well there's money anyway) I'm trying to design a returnable upper stage.in order to save weight and money I'm using as few parachutes as possible,which generally means the craft hits the ground too fast for the engine to handle, so to cushion the landing I've been using sepertrons because ,even when there full ,they still weigh less than half of a radial parachute and it makes landing a bit more interesting. however they are rather annoying to set up,either launching the craft back into the air where the parachutes auto-cut and it crash back to kerbin,or it doesn't slow it enough and it crushes the engine (I don't like using the revert options as it makes the new money mechanic too easy and explosions are fun) now my question is: does anybody know what is the equation to calculate the terminal velocity of a craft while factoring in a constant thrust? assuming surface gravity and air pressure as well as constant weight

Thanks for the input guys ,got some good science and some amusing imagery from this @ 440-Charzy Pinning a superconductor in a strong enough magnetic field creates the equivalent of a physical link between the super conductor and the magnetic source, where force applied to the superconductor gets transferred to the magnet. so if you ignore the superconductor the idea would just be a closed system flailing around in space. however if the conditions of the magnetic field where correct such a device would still be flailing around however every time the superconductor is pinned and pushed towards the planet ,the planets magnetic field would push back providing an external force and give a small force away from the planet @ 65491-Kermunist Thanks for the explanation,i see now that a superconductor would have to move a very long distance from where it was pinned to create enough difference to provide any noticeable difference in field to create a force,which would be rather impractical to build into a spacecraft.would replicating the magnetic field arraignment of the earths magnetic field hundreds or thousands of kilometres higher with an electromagnet before pinning a superconductor work as a way of generating a sufficient difference to generate a force. Thinking about this again the rate of change of the field is still the same regardless of where the superconductor was pinned so distance wouldn't be a factor in the force generated,just the amount of times such a system should need to be reset to provide a given force,if there where the ability for it to be given. @ 59402-sgt_flyer if the field is too uneven would it not be possible to pin a superconductor and use the rotation of the earth and in essence let the variations provide the difference to propel a craft. Although this whould only provide a acceleration if the craft was orbiting slower than the planet so I doubt the field would be of any real strength and variation at a distance where the orbit was still stable @59422-K^2 105968-Everten P. if your in a stable orbit well away from the upper reaches of the atmosphere,there really isn't too much to slow you down so it would only require very minor forces to accelerate a craft,I wasn't thinking of it as a (in atmosphere) flying pogo stick where it would have to overcome gravity although that would be more amusing

gotan idea for a rather useless propulsion system from what ivesee a superconducting materiel can be 'locked' to a magnetic field bycooling it to very low temperatures where by it will resist beingpushed both towards and away from the magnetic source. couldthis be used to provide fuel-less propulsion to an orbitingspacecraft by: locking a super conductor to the earthsmagnetic field. pushing the space craft up with a liner motor(assuming the magnet is locked vaguely in place) unlocking thesuperconductor. then reversing the motor and pulling thesuperconductor up. am I right in assuming that this wouldprovide a small force to a craft every time this is repeated? anybody have any reasons as to why this is a stupid idea and i should stop daydreaming?

Fastest unicycle up and down the runway (makes a nice short design challenge but there tricky to turn without falling over) or highest altitude in a rover,without jet or rocket engines and limited to the ksc 'light green' area (ie a rover that uses the terrain and launch pad as ramps) f3 will help to judge this

is there a reason that omni directional transmitters cant connect to each other?

nice to see this mod is back does anyone know if there is a a way to split an unmanned probe in half and have the two halfs communicate? i ask because i have tried to send a probe that splits into an orbital and landing section, and to save weight i want to only bring the one long range transmitter and use smaller devices and relay information via the orbital sattalite. i know i can undock and configure dish antenna while in kerbin orbit and i can manage it with a third probe and rcs 'on site'. but that depends on me rembbering or carrying extra mass to the target. anyone got any bright ideas?