Newman

Here\'s my over-engineered, FPS - killing Space Station 1 in a stable 150x130km orbit (I think, I actually did this some time ago):

Happens when you\'re doing 3 things at once Edited for great justice. You can inform the forum post aesthetics police they can relax now.

Yep, once you\'ve already reached orbit, I find slow burning engines are better from that point on.

The OP\'s way will work, yes, but it\'s not fuel efficient. As stated, different rockets have different ascent profiles. Some of the larger, more complex designs will do nasty things if you try to tilt them while still too low/too slow. But in general, I like to give them a 10 degree tilt when I reach 10,000m. I go for 45 degrees at around 25k, and for 90 at above 50. Sometimes, depending on the rocket, I\'ll kill engines once I have enough speed and apoapsis is set above atmo (say, a nice safe figure, at 75 or 80k). When I get close to apo, 90 degree tilt and full burn to establish orbit. Why is tilting more fuel efficient? Because you\'ll have both altitude and horizontal velocity at a given altitude for the same amount of fuel spent. Going straight up you\'ll have almost no horizontal velocity when you exit atmo, meaning you now have to spend a whole lot more fuel to get enough horizontal speed (say, around 2200 m/s usually) in order to reach a stable orbit. A simple analogy - to get from one point of a rectangle to the opposite one, you could either travel first in one direction and then the other, or go diagonally - a shorter route. There\'s a reason why real rockets don\'t just go straight up all the way into space, then turn for 90 and burn. It\'s pretty inefficient. Achieving a stable orbit the proper way will make a huge difference in available fuel left, and can mean the difference between a successful Mun (or beyond) mission and a complete failure. But every rocket will have it\'s own best way to fly it. I just don\'t think that way is ever just going up then turning 90 and just burning in that direction. Experiment and use the orbital map. Also, read Ivan Ivanovich\'s 'How to..' guides, they\'re excellent.

Talk about over-engineering Congrats on a successful mission, and on flying that thing through lower atmo.. I\'ve landed a lot of times but using mod parts, so I decided to try it with stock. Did it yesterday after a few attempts. First landing was successful, but when I disengaged SAS the lander toppled over (was parked on a tilted surface). Second landing came in at just a bit too high a vertical velocity, decoupling the engine from the tank. Funny thing is, I had a full tank of RCS beneath the capsule, then a decoupler, then the tank and engine that got knocked off. So I decoupled the capsule + RCS and actually managed to get back home. It was a close shave - almost didn\'t have enough. Spent almost the last of the RCS fuel setting the periapsis inside Kerbin atmo for some aerobreaking. If I had a few seconds of RCS less the capsule would have never come home. Even managed to hit water on the way back by timing my chute deployment. The landing after that went great. I landed on a flat surface, the lander was secure with SAS off. Had almost a full liquid tank left and full RCS. Therefore more than enough to get home. Then I decided to go for an 'immersive experience' and switched on time warp so they actually spend 2 days on the Mun. It used to only be possible to get 2x time warp when on the Mun surface but now I was able to get it to maximum. Everything was ok, 2 days went by, my craft stood stable. Then I switched back to 1x time warp and my ship immediately exploded. Well, everything beneath the capsule did, anyway. I only used stock parts. So, basically, I only managed to get my astronauts back safely once after landing on the Mun (using just stock parts, and only RCS to return), the other missions went wrong due to silly reasons.. But there was enough fuel to get them back on each occasion. At least I got a lot better at landings, I\'m having much less problems killing horizontal velocity now which results in a much higher number of safe landings. Anyway, I\'ll see what pics I grabbed when I get back home.

Heheh, I think you meant if yes add more struts. That or 'if no add more boosters'

As David Bowman once said.. My god, it\'s full of kids!

RCS count? I once made a lander with which you could cheat. When I tested it on Kerbin, it didn\'t have enough power to lift off on it\'s own using the main engines. However, with engines at full + RCS I could get it up. So you could in theory cheat by occasionally applying RCS to maximize the time it takes to clear the tower. You probably want to forbid the RCS assisted takeoffs. Though it might be ok to use it for stabilization. Also, not being allowed to use low power engines.. clustering can be fun. See N-1 for example

If it\'ll make you feel better, I found your guides excellent, they really helped me figure out how orbital mechanics work. I went from barely being able to achieve orbit to planning my own Hohmann transfers, doing Mun return trips, going to a shorter solar orbit and back, stuff like that. Even the stuff I could do before I can now achieve with less fuel due to having an understanding of how things work, and planning my trajectory so I use gravitational forces exerted on the craft to my advantage, as opposed to fighting them all the time. All thanks to starting out with your guides as a sort of a foundation. True, I wasn\'t able to squiggly-line my orbits - guess your guides aren\'t THAT good (Kidding, for those who didn\'t find it obvious)

I\'d love to help you out there, but I kinda need the same help you do here

I didn\'t omit a return trip because I don\'t know how to do it, I omitted it by design this time. Like I explained in my first post, what you\'re suggesting is exactly what my Munlab-1 did a while ago. Only difference is, you don\'t need a larger engine, really. Mun\'s gravity is pretty low and if you know how to plan your trajectory you don\'t need a lot of power or fuel to get back to Kerbin. See here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4040.msg53158#msg53158 So, I see no point in repeating it I\'ve done a Mun return trip safely a lot of times now and am over the whole 'omg made it there and back' thing. Suffering from the NASA syndrome - been there, now what? So, this time I just wanted a larger 'outpost' that stays there. If and when I decide to do a return trip once again, I see no point in repeating the same old return stage story, but making it fun by upping the stakes - the craft that lands on the Mun also has to land on Kerbin. On hard land, on legs. Chutes allowed to slow down and stabilize, though so far I\'ve had a problem with them. I\'ve tried to put chutes on the Munlab-2 but for some reason they won\'t activate on only the lander during atmo tests on Kerbin. If they\'re stuck on a lifter rocket, then once the lander is detached and I ignite it\'s engines the chutes auto-activate. I don\'t want this because those engines fire for the first time somewhere over the Mun surface. Meh, I think I\'ll just wait for 0.13 before I make a ship that lands on the Mun and then back on Kerbin, on dry land using lander legs or wheels, without detaching stages. Fuel lines ought to give me a lot more freedom with the design. Von Kerbraun\'s MunShip ftw!

I\'ve already done that with Munlab-1. This one\'s design goal was never to go back, it was always intended for it to stay. It did, however, have most of the descent stage fuel intact, thanks to the fact I still had enough in the TMI stage to do most of the descent braking burn and only had to use up a small amount of the lander\'s fuel to actually land. There\'s enough juice in there to get back, only it wasn\'t designed for it so there\'s no chutes. However, I was planning on taking this further, with Munlab-3. The design would be based on this, but with one difference - it has to get back to Kerbin. The entire lander, not just a small stage that detaches on the Mun surface. And, it has to do a hard landing on it\'s legs and survive intact. Sort of a practice for future interplanetary missions, though when they introduce atmo friction and the possibility of burning up during reentry, it\'s not going to be nearly as easy.

Done it again... more here Technically, it doesn\'t qualify because I didn\'t do a return stage this time, but imagined a follow up 'retrieve the crew' mission instead. It did have enough fuel to reach Kerbin orbit again, though. I think. Could probably enter atmo again, but without chutes it would hurt.

Well, after the success of Munlab-1, I always wanted to follow it up by sending a larger outpost up there. Because in rocket science, bigger and heavier always means better, right? So, the new Munlab would have to be bigger and carry more sciency stuff. More importantly, it would have to look cooler. Also, it needs a way more imaginative name than the boring old Munlab-1. After much deliberation, a bold new direction in the naming scheme was adopted, and the mission had a new name: Munlab-2! Ah, the imagination. Let\'s say I intend to send a smaller lander to pick up the crew once the mission is over so I don\'t have to bother with a return stage this time. At least, let\'s say that to the crew. I may actually send a retrieval craft. If I feel like it. But that\'s not important - whatever the outcome, it was all for science! So, I slapped on a lot of sciencey stuff on a lander, thanks to Nova and his pretty cool Probodobdyne Construction Kit. After slapping on as much crap as humanly possible on a rocket the meticulous design phase, the moment of truth came: will it blow up on launch? Munlab-2 on the launchpad. That round gray thing in the background is where we\'re supposed to go. Bill\'s been wondering why didn\'t they tilt the rocket towards it then. But on the bright side, the betting game has totally livened up now! 1:10000 on them making it to orbit alive. Good odds, but you have to get in on the action before launch. Incidentally, the entire engineering department bet against them making it to orbit, saying it\'s a bad idea to have a heavy top and bottom and a thin middle section. Hogwash, I say! Well, looks like the engineering department now owes me 3 bottles of beer, Jebediah\'s stamp collection, a large jar of olives and a pack of toothpicks. I really need to start betting for real money. Amazingly enough, TMI burn complete, everyone is still alive during a fast flyby, and we still got enough fuel in the main stage to do an orbital insertion burn. CAPCOM now owes me a 'Rainbow Friends Pony Photo Album'. Don\'t ask. Time to ditch the stage that got us here. Get away from us, empty stage! We used you up and now we\'re tossing you. Let\'s bring RCS back up and orient ourselves.. wait. RCS just stopped working. Seems my meticulous design phase managed to miss the fact that after decoupling RCS is also cut off from it\'s fuel source. Well, there\'s plenty of fuel left to abort and go home. That would be the sensible thing to do. Thankfully, this is KSP and sensible doesn\'t factor in. On the bright side, the betting scene is literally erupting with activity now. Will they make a new crater on the Mun? Or will they manage to kill all horizontal velocity using only the main engines, with no RCS to assist? A sensible person would know how to bet. Luckily, again, this is KSP. Time to go in and earn my bicycle tire puncture repair kit directly off the president! Seems I work well under pressure. Almost all horizontal velocity is gone! Just a few more meters and I can retire a rich man! Well, a man with a bunch of useless crap anyway. Touchdown! Still can\'t believe this didn\'t result in a big fireball. My first landing totally unassisted with RCS. Who needs it, I can be smug without it! So, let\'s see what we got. A big comm dish, 4 sensor packages, and 4 cameras (so someone doesn\'t steal it and drive off. Someone suggested they might also work to survey the Munar surface by remote, but the cameras are actually fake, just there to scare off burglars). That\'s all on a big strut thing that looks cool and adds to rocket length. That\'s stuck on a small satellite that kinda looks like it also might be a habitable module with a bunch of windows, so I\'ll pretend that\'s what it is. That\'s stuck on a service module that\'s there to.. service.. whatever. Come to think of it, didn\'t the service module contain RCS fuel? RCS should really work, then. Could be a bug, but since this uses almost every mod under the Sun I can\'t exactly go report it. I don\'t think even I could reproduce this if I had to reinstall, would have to remember what it is I had installed first. Also starring, 2 My First Science Kit\'s. Not sure why they packed frog dissecting equipment in there? 2 RTG\'s, 4 solar panels, probe core, 4x parachute adapter with 4 small tanks and 4 lander engines. Below that ASAS stuff, 4 cool looking struts and 4 lander legs. Bob: So, uh, you\'re sending someone to pick us up, right? CAPCOM: You didn\'t go all that way on a mission of certain death to whine about going back, did you? Now shut up and collect rocks and we\'ll consider it.

*shrug* never had a problem with paypal myself. Then again, I use it sparingly and tend to remove my credit card info when not in use. I sleep a tad better that way That being said, having more options at the store, like major credit card brands such as Amex, Visa, and Mastercard would probably bring in more money. I\'m guessing it\'s not all that simple or the devs would have done it already, though.

No, there isn\'t. It\'s estimated you have about 1 molecule of hydrogen per cubic meter of your run of the mill vacuum of space. Of course, this number will vary depending on where you are, but it doesn\'t change the fact that the vast majority of space is pretty devoid of that stuff. Proposed ship design that uses a bussard ramscoop to collect hydrogen and use it as fuel would need to have the ramscoop dish part that collects the hydrogen at an estimated diameter of 100km, if memory serves. It was mentioned in Carl Sagan\'s 'Cosmos' but it\'s been.. way too many years since I last read it, so it\'s quite possible I got some of the numbers wrong. But the main gist of it was, there\'s not a whole lot of hydrogen molecules in your typical cubic meter of space, and you\'d need a giant collector. The point is - as nice a theory as it is, for all intents and purposes it\'s not a practical idea. Scooping something off of Jupiter\'s atmo wouldn\'t have that problem since there actually is hydrogen in large quantities over there. But that would prove to be a huge technical challenge for other reasons. First of all, even reaching Jupiter is a non trivial, and very fuel intensive task. Secondly, the high levels of radiation that close to Jupiter would make the technical challenges of such a mission rather high. A much cheaper and easier way would be a Lunar base built over a subterranean patch of ice that converts it to hydrogen. I seem to recall they did find some ice patches below Lunar surface using an orbital spectrometer last time they 'bombarded' the moon, impacting the surface with a special probe and analyzing the dust/debris cloud that formed. Someone correct me if I\'m wrong, I\'m not entirely sure just how much ice was found and whether or not it would be enough for a sustained fuel manufacturing operation.

That\'s what I meant too. Technically you\'re in solar orbit before you launch so it\'s the only thing that makes sense, really. Problem is, it\'s too easy for most folks, he should probably spice it up. That\'s why I suggested a return trip that deploys a satellite in a circular solar orbit, the closer to Kerbol the better.

This can happen easily on the Mun mission if you either didn\'t design your craft to have enough fuel to do an orbital insertion burn, or just failed to initiate said burn for whatever reason. Depending on your exact trajectory and speed, the Mun can either slingshot you into a wide orbit around Kerbin or send you off into a solar orbit. Most players have probably already completed this.. um.. 'challenge' quite accidentally by now If you want to post a slightly more challenging.. challenge, how about requiring that the player: 1) Reaches separate solar orbit that does not intersect Kerbin\'s (so it\'s permanent), 2) Deploys a satellite / probe / science package of some sort 3) Manages to return the crew safely to Kerbin while leaving the satellite in solar orbit. Bonus points for proximity to Kerbol and a circular orbit. Heat and radiation don\'t seem to affect Bill, Bob and Jeb (at least not yet) so that\'ll help. Would make for a more difficult and rewarding challenge. Apologies if we already had that. Also, just a suggestion, don\'t mean to hijack your challenge.

This is definitely one of the best guides for KSP. I\'ve read all guides you wrote, and all were quite helpful. I find stuff like doing a Mun shot easy now. The thing with pictures is true, though. I\'ve seen one guide where you added pics, but have done so using forum attachments. This is a bad idea for two reasons - one is, the pics are actually small thumbnails that have to be clicked on to expand them, and the other, they\'re all at the bottom of a (very long) post, meaning every now and then in text you have a reference 'like you see in pic #32' (or whatever). When this happens you have to scroll down, find and expand the pic, then scroll back up and find the segment where you left off - interrupting the flow of reading. This will probably put off a lot of people from even viewing the pics. The solution is easy - use one of the image hosting services, like imageshack, tinypic, photobucket, or something that allows you to just hotlink the images using the IMG tags. Pics will be loaded large, precluding you from having to expand them (just make sure they\'re not too large to not wreak havoc on the formatting) and you can place them smack in the middle of the text, allowing you to put a pic right at the segment of the text that\'s relevant in relation to it. This makes for a much smoother reading experience as you don\'t have to have a scroll-click fest every time you want to see a pic for example. Another advantage is, pics will still be there by the time forum attachments will be gone (most forums delete attachments after a while due to limited and costly server space). Just a suggestion for any future guides (hope there\'ll be some, you write excellent guides and when we get planets they\'ll be of much use). I don\'t want to come off as spoiled. I found your guides excellent and useful regardless - just making a suggestion that I think would make them a tad better and easier to read.

Unfortunately, you can\'t make viable suggestions without really understanding how things work. Otherwise, the engineers and scientists who spent years getting educated for that job, and then landing jobs at NASA because they happened to be pretty good at what they do will have you at something of a disadvantage when it comes to critically thinking about how to pull off a space mission. Emergency fuel and supplies - the question becomes, where and when to put them? Do you do it in a separate flight or bring them with you thereby making your 'every gram counts' vehicle heavier? If you launch them separately, where do you put them? Earth orbit? What if the mishap happens in lunar orbit so this can\'t be reached? Lunar orbit? What if the mishap happens in Earth orbit or the surface of the Moon, so they can\'t be reached? Lunar surface? What if the astronauts never get that far? You\'re talking multiple launches for every single mission which raises the cost exponentially without any guarantees it will be worth it whatsoever. Fact of the matter is, they were on a clock - time and money were of the essence. This was always going to be a risky mission and if a serious enough failure happened at any time, the astronaut\'s lives would have been at risk. Risk which wouldn\'t be too diminished by putting emergency supplies at points you\'re hoping they might still reach if something happened. One of the critical moments of the Apollo 11 mission was actually 'will the ascent stage rocket engine fire at all' - they weren\'t really sure if it will fail (apparently they were having problems with this engine, sometimes it wouldn\'t start). If this had happened, the astronauts would have been stuck on the surface of the Moon, and could only wave at your 'unmanned lander with emergency supplies in Lunar orbit'. No amount of emergency supplies could have saved them at this point even if they had managed to reach them. This is basically similar to suggesting that Columbus was careless because he didn\'t send a ship carrying emergency supplies close to the coasts of North America. Space travel is a lot different bag of tricks than putting a barrel of rum around a rescue dog\'s neck, and being an explorer going somewhere where no man has gone before always was and will be a risky business. Using the shuttle\'s boosters for orbital depots in Earth orbit, Lunar orbit, and Mars orbit. Apparently the boosters ought to be able to move around automatically. First of all, the boosters were ejected at about 45-46km altitude, iirc. High, yes, still well below orbital speeds and altitude, yes. The whole reason the boosters are ejected is because the tanks are spent. If the tanks are spent the boosters have no way of reaching orbit. Unless you attach more boosters to lift these empty boosters, thereby still having discarded boosters at a higher price and complexity. Or you leave them attached to the shuttle which then has to lug that extra mass up there, which completely defeats the purpose of staging in the first place and quite probably makes the shuttle unable to reach orbit too. Since this plan of yours doesn\'t even work to reach LEO, I won\'t even comment on the completely non-viable idea of using them in Lunar and Mars orbits, and between. Not to mention they wouldn\'t serve any purpose empty so you\'d actually have to fly up a separate craft to fuel them. Which then begs the question 'why doesn\'t that craft just detach a full tank and go back rather than transfer fuel to that piece of orbital junk?' If something like this was viable, I\'m fairly sure one of those rocket scientist guys, you know the ones with white lab coats and glasses that kinda look smart, would have thought about it? Maybe? As for Mars exploration, well, first you need to overcome the obstacle of actually reaching it with a manned mission. To give this mission a chance to succeed without a catastrophic loss of craft and crew, you need a generous budget. And that\'s one obstacle that doesn\'t seem to be possible to cross at this point in time. Once we can actually reach Mars with a manned mission, I\'m sure those aforementioned smarty-pants guys in white lab coats and glasses will be able to figure out what the good landing spots are. As for colonizing it.. much bigger technical challenges that need to be overcome first. Since we can\'t even put people there temporarily at this moment, maybe we should focus on that first..

One important factor to consider is that NASA (or any other space agency, for that matter) neither sets it\'s own budget, nor is able to choose the political climate that influences certain decisions. Politicians are never going to approve a budget that goes into billions of dollars just for the purely scientific benefit or even just for the symbolism of putting boots on the ground of another planet. You can\'t find a better example of this than the space race. The whole Moon landing was a direct consequence of the cold war and the competition between the US and USSR. The Soviets were first to launch a satellite, put a living being in orbit, and then put a human in space. Leonov was the first astronaut to perform an EVA. The US was determined to be first on the Moon in order to win the space race. Now, when you take these into account, you can see a space agency has relatively little freedom. For big projects you need big budgets, and those are only given if there\'s a political will to make it happen. The US Congress isn\'t really likely to approve funding for anything as big as a Mars mission any time soon, for example. Now if the Chinese announced they\'re planning such a mission within the decade and demonstrated they might actually pull it off, things might change. Otherwise, there\'s little commercial use for space travel outside putting satellites in Earth orbit. It\'s easy to fantasize things like 'if I was in charge I\'d have sent man to Mars by now'. Unfortunately, that\'s not how the real world works. It\'s somewhat trendy to attack NASA these days, especially after the whole 'retired the shuttle without a replacement' thing, but the truth is NASA is doing some good work with the ever diminishing budget it has - it\'s unmanned probe program is second to none, and the decision to concentrate on that with a limited budget was a good one. Missions like Cassini-Huygens, Dawn, New Horizons, and things like the MSL all serve to expand our knowledge of the Solar System and gain more and more experience and technical prowess when it comes to space flight. I just hope the next big 'space age' happens within our life times - been a while since the Apollo program ended.

That is just made of awesome. Be sure to make a vid of it on the Mun!

I guess I\'ll repost these here. My Munlab-1 mini outpost, consisting of a service module, two 'my first science kit' packages, two solar panels, a probe/sat of some kind, all plugged in on the descent stage. Service module is sort of habitable if you cram yourself between the RCS tank and the avionics package. At any rate, I imagine it to be a short term mini science outpost of some kind. It could operate in 3 ways. Simplest and best, the flight crew is also the science crew and just stays on the Mun until the mission is complete. Since I was able to use much of my TMI stage to actually slow my descent when landing, the actual descent stage had almost full tanks when I touched down. Meaning the Munlab-1 could in theory return to Kerbin orbit on it\'s own - the return stage could return the flight crew home, and the science crew could fly the Munlab back to Kerbin orbit for orbital retrieval. Or way 3, the base is deployed separately and unmanned, it\'s crew flown in and out using another smaller lander. If the game allowed for such things, of course. But there was plenty of fuel to return it to Kerbin orbit and there\'s no harm in a bit of fantasy

Re-entry might hurt, but.. for science! Great work

It doesn\'t just work, it works on the orbital map view! Meaning my days of 'burn, toggle map on, watch apo rise, toggle map off, decrease thrust a bit, toggle map back on, check, toggle map off, kill thrust, toggle map on, oh noes I killed thrust 0.6 seconds too late, toggle map off, burn against vector slightly, toggle map on, check, toggle map off, kill engines, toggle map on, verify it\'s ok now' are officially over!